The Black List Project, a collaboration between photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and cultural critic, Elvis Mitchell, opened yesterday on the first floor of the Brooklyn Museum.

Striking.

Housed in an intimate exhibition space within the voluminous first floor space, 25 large-scale color portraits of a wide-range of subjects from the world of politics, arts, sports, religion and business makes quite an impression. In addition, flat screen monitors play selections from the HBO documentary that was made as part of this project.

The Black List includes dancer Bill T Jones (left), actor Chris Rock, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, sports legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, actor Keenen Ivory Wayans, artist Lorna Simpson, Reverend Al Sharpton, playwright Suzan Lori-Parks, author Toni Morrison, author Zane and others.

I asked Mitchell, a former film critic at the New York Times and the host of the public radio show "The Treatment," who was at the press preview, "Why Brooklyn?"

"What better place," was his quick reply. "This museum has a commitment to the community of color that it is in."

Later he explained his motivation for doing this project.

"We created this for people like me, people who are curious about culture. I wanted to present a different take on African-American culture. Most images of African-Americans are reductive and archetypal. They are portrayed as victims. For this we wanted to show people who are not cowed by oppression, those who put destiny in their own hands. Those who have a sense of history and their place in it."

Making a list of this kind is always a challenge, especially when limited to only 25 names. Mitchell agreed but said that it actually wasn’t that hard to choose the people they wanted to put in this first iteration of the project (a second volume is already in the works).

"We want the The Black List Project to be a catalyst; we want people to say why didn’t you choose this person or that person," Mitchell told me.

In this way, The Black List Project opens the conversation and raises the question: Who’s missing and who else should be on it?

Indeed, there is one very conspicuous absence in the show. No Barack Obama. Mitchell and Sanders tried to get him but that was more than a year ago "at a time when he needed to raise $80,000 every hour that he was awake," Mitchell says.

Asked what he would say by way of an introduction to one of the many Brooklyn school groups that will attend the exhibition

"Anything is possible with drive, determination, and perseverance. Despite obstacles, you can’t be stopped because of the amount of your own energy."