Black wall art does one simple job: it gives a wall an anchor without asking the rest of the room to change color. A dark frame or a dark print reads as a shape before it reads as a picture, which is exactly why it works in rooms where everything else is already busy.
If you have nothing on the walls yet, start with one black and white photograph or a simple line drawing in a plain black frame, something with a decent amount of white space around the image rather than edge to edge black. That gives you contrast without the piece turning into a dark hole on the wall, which is a real risk with black, especially in a room that doesn't get much natural light. When you're looking at it in a shop, or unwrapping it the day it arrives, run your hand along the frame edge and check it's actually finished black all the way around, not just on the front face, because plenty of budget frames are painted on one side and left raw or silver on the back edge, and you'll see that sliver the second the light hits it at an angle. Check the glass or acrylic for a matte or anti glare coating too, standard glass over a black frame turns into a mirror in any room with a window opposite, and you'll spend more time looking at your own reflection than the art.
Black wall art sits well against almost anything that isn't already competing for attention, which is most of an ordinary living room or hallway. It looks right over a console table, above a sofa with a plain or muted cushion arrangement, or grouped in a small cluster going up a staircase wall, and it pairs easily with wood tones, whether that's a warm oak console or a darker walnut shelf, because the black just reads as a neutral next to either. Where it struggles is next to a lot of other black in the same sightline, a black frame above a black media unit under a black light fixture starts to look less like a room and more like a stage set, so give it something lighter nearby, a pale rug, a cream lamp, bare wall space, so the black has somewhere to land.
For finishes, a true matte black frame is the easiest one to live with long term, it doesn't pick up fingerprints or dust the way a gloss black does, and it doesn't date the way a very trendy frame shape can. Glossy black has its place for something graphic and modern, but it shows every smudge and needs more upkeep than most people want to give a picture frame.
If you're starting with one piece, go matte black, plain frame, and let the room do the rest.
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