NEW YORK: Hank Willis Thomas

Hank Willis Thomas artwork image via jackshainman.com.

Unbranded: A Century of White Women, 1915 – 2015

April 10 – May 23, 2015

JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY

513 West 20th Street

New York, NY

JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY

524 West 24th Street

New York, NY

From jackshainman.com:

Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to announce Hank Willis Thomas’ fifth solo exhibition at the gallery, Unbranded: A Century of White Women, 1915 – 2015. Building on ideas explored in his celebrated Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008, here Thomas’ unbranding technique tracks notions of virtue, power, beauty, privilege, and desire in mainstream America. Spanning the rise and decline of print advertising, the work provides a spectrum for the ideal feminine type that has been marketed to individuals across gender, racial, and socio-economic lines throughout the past hundred years.

In Rhetoric of the Image, Roland Barthes called the advertising image the most intentional sort of image. The advertising message is direct and emphatic, stating the product’s attributes succinctly yet enticingly. In Unbranded, Thomas unmoors advertisements from their commercial context, leaving the viewer to grapple with what remains. An image from 1963 depicts a young woman smiling sweetly, a cigarette in her hand tucked satisfactorily beneath her chin. Although a black eye blights her otherwise unblemished face, she looks completely unaffected—proud even. Only the title, Aggressive loyalty hints at the original pronouncement of brand allegiance.

An image from several years earlier, She’s somewhat of a drag, 1959/2015, is similarly unnerving. Two men in alpine climbing gear stand exultant atop a rocky cliff. One man mindlessly holds a rope that a woman at the bottom edge of the photograph is using to pull herself up to the summit. The men engage in casual conversation, indifferent to the struggle beneath them.

Fast-forward to the present and Just as our Forefathers intended, 2015/2015 shows a bevy of scantily-clad women piled into a boat being pulled by a large American-made flatbed truck. The composition is reminiscent of the iconic history painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, but the visual lexicon is anything but triumphant. The women stand in the place of the conquerors, but their objectification suggests they are the ones being manipulated. The images of Thomas’ repertoire may be scrubbed of intention, but they haven’t lost their punch. The cavalcade of signs in Unbranded: A Century of White Women, 1915 – 2015 continues to haunt, long after they’ve receded from view.

Hank Willis Thomas has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally. Notable solo and group exhibitions include Repetition and Difference at the Jewish Museum, New York, 2015; Hank Willis Thomas at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 2013-2014; Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet and Contemporary Art,  Studio Museum Harlem, New York, 2014-2015; Hank Willis Thomas, The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, Kentucky, 2013; Hank Willis Thomas: Believe It, SCAD, Atlanta, Georgia; Strange Fruit, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut, 2012; Hank Willis Thomas: Strange Fruit, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2011-2012; 30 Americans, Rubell Family Collection, Florida, 2008–2013 which is still traveling widely; and Greater New York, MoMA PS1, New York, 2010.

Thomas’ work is in numerous public collections including The Museum of Modern Art New York, The Solomon R.  Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. His collaborative projects have been featured at the Sundance Film Festival and installed permanently at the Oakland International Airport, The Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, The Oakland Museum of California, and the University of California, San Francisco. He is also a recipient of the New Media grant from Tribeca Film Institute and New Media Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for his transmedia project, Question Bridge: Black Males. Thomas was recently appointed to the Public Design Commission for the City of New York.

Exhibit Link

‘Advertising Is Fueled By Prejudice’: An Hour with Hank Willis Thomas

Without Their Words, These Vintage Ads Starring Women Speak Even More Loudly

CHICAGO: Hank Willis Thomas

BENCH MARKS

September 1 – November 30, 2014

Presented by Monique Meloche Gallery at various public locations in Chicago.

From moniquemeloche.com:

Monique Meloche Gallery is pleased to present Hank Willis Thomas: Bench Marks as our debut “off the wall” project. During the fall of 2014, Bench Marks will be installed onto various public bus benches throughout Chicago’s Wicker Park Bucktown neighborhood. This project is concerned with the language of advertising and the visual methods it uses to construct the idea of “Blackness” as a marketing strategy. The installation includes a selection of images from three different bodies of the artist’s work, namely: Branded, Fair Warning and Strange Fruit. Within each of the aforementioned projects, Thomas explores how Black identity functions as commerce, and the similarities between the exploit of the Black male body through the practice of sharecropping during the Jim Crow era and that of the Black male athlete in sports today.

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976 lives and works in New York) is a photo conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. He received a BFA in Photography and Africana studies from New York University and his MFA/MA in Photography and Visual Criticism from the California College of Arts. Thomas’ monograph, Pitch Blackness, was published by Aperture in 2008. He has exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad including, Galerie Anne De Villepoix in Paris, Annarumma 404 in Milan, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Galerie Henrik Springmann in Berlin, among others. Thomas’ work is in numerous public collections including The Museum of Modern Art New York, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The High Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. His collaborative projects have been featured at the Sundance Film Festival and installed publicly at the Oakland International Airport, The Birmingham International Airport, The Oakland Museum of California and the University of California, San Francisco. Recent notable exhibitions include Hank Willis Thomas at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Strange Fruit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Picture Windows: Hank Willis Thomas in collaboration with Sanford Biggers at the International Center for Photography, and the Istanbul Biennial. Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City and Goodman Gallery in South Africa.

Off the wall is a public art initiative that invites artists to produce site specific installations throughout the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood. The impetus for this project is to provide a more open platform for contemporary art that engages with the public at large on a daily basis. The series reaches a demographic much larger than the standard gallery-goers and provides an open-armed invitation to discover the arts and the potential they have to influence everyday life. The project is inspired by the success of the gallery’s “on the wall” project, which has been produced in the storefront windows of moniquemeloche since 2010. Both projects are generously supported by a grant from the Wicker Park/Bucktown SSA #33.

Click here to download the Bench Marks location map.

NEW YORK: Social in Practice - The Art of Collaboration

Alexandra Diracles,"Be The Witness" installation view, Houston Street, NYC. Image via nathancummings.org.

Curated by Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas

March 27 – October 2, 2014

This exhibition is on view Monday – Friday by appointment only.  Please email exhibits@nathancummings.org to schedule a visit.

THE NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION

475 10^th Avenue, 14^th Floor

New York, NY

From NYU Tisch Photography & Imaging web site:

Hosted by the Department of Photography & Imaging at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Social in Practice: The Art of Collaboration is an innovative exhibition curated by Deborah Willis, University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging, and Hank Willis Thomas, Photography & Imaging alumnus, class of 1998.

Focused on the use of community collaboration and activism in art making, the multimedia exhibition features artists, collectives and organizations based in New York and around the world. All projects presented in the exhibition share themes of community building and social activism and depend on collaboration to achieve their impact. Through portraiture, documentary photography, audio-visual installations, personal narratives and community initiatives, Social in Practice: The Art of Collaboration reflects a wide span of individuals' pursuits to use art as a platform for greater conversation. 

Sonia Louise Davis facilitates sidewalk family portraits to document life along a Harlem street. Russell Frederick mentors inner-city teenage boys in an attempt to guide them away from violence and provide them support and leadership. Wyatt Gallery collects and organizes iPhone photos from photographers who captured the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Lonnie Graham's garden project addresses the issues of nourishment, subsistence and prejudice in African American communities. Eric Gottesman works alongside young people in Ethiopia whose lives had been affected by HIV/AIDS, producing photographs and videos to raise awareness about the epidemic. Ayasha Guerin records the triumphs of Bushwick's Afro-Caribbean community in beautifying their neighborhood. Jamila Mohamad Hooker exchanges postcards to help eliminate the xenophobia associated with Muslims and the Arabic language. Kristina Knipe tells a photographic narrative of the personal struggles of people who have engaged in self-harm. Lorie Novak's photographs explore how art can be used to pursue activism and intervention, particularly in regard to social issues in Mexico. Paul Owen's photographs bring attention to the violence against women in Mexico. Lara Stein Pardo's Mobile Public Studio encourages people to have their portrait taken spontaneously in a public space. Richard Renaldi builds unexpected relationships between strangers by asking them to pose together intimately for a portrait. Noelle Theard's audio and photographic collaboration aims to improve the harsh living conditions of three Brooklyn residences. Hong-An Truong's video and audio installations record experimental educational and artistic exercises. Christine Wong Yap's make things (happen) distributes free activity kits to encourage the public to participate in artistic endeavor. Be The Witness is a campaign organized by graduate students at New York University that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals. The Laundromat Project brings art into everyday public spaces, reinforcing the use of creativity in maintaining community networks. Question Bridge Interactive's trans-media initiative seeks to promote dialogue between black males of all backgrounds in order to redefine black male identity in America.

The Nathan Cummings Foundation is rooted in the Jewish tradition and committed to democratic values and social justice, including fairness, diversity, and community. We seek to build a socially and economically just society that values nature and protects the ecological balance for future generations; promotes humane health care; and fosters arts and culture that enriches communities.

ExhibitLink

NEW YORK: Hank Willis Thomas

Selected Works
A collaboration with Hank Willis Thomas, Chris Johnson, Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair

July 11 – August 17, 2013

JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY

513 West 20^th Street

New York, NY

Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to announce the collaborative project Question Bridge: Black Males and a selection of works by Hank Willis Thomas that will include Zero Hour from the Wayfarer series and new sculptural pieces that employ photographs, clothing, wood and plexiglass to explore complex narratives about race, history and visual culture.

Question Bridge: Black Males is a project that explores critical and challenging issues within the African American male community by instigating a transmedia conversation among black men from a range of geographic,  economic,  generational, educational and social strata. The innovative video installation begins a dialogue that is continued through special community events across the country, a curriculum offered to high schools, a website and social media engagement. Question Bridge aims to provide a forum for necessary, honest expression and healing dialogue on themes that divide, unite and puzzle Black males today in the United States. Questions and separately filmed answers are then interwoven to create a stream-of-consciousness “megalogue” around issues such as family, love, interracial relationships, community, education, violence and the past and future of Black men in American society. From these exchanges emerge surprising insights and new possibilities for witnessing our common humanity.

Question Bridge: Black Males is a portal to an inner realm of Black male consciousness. This five-channel video installation presents an intimate exchange between over 150 Black men from 12 different cities in America. These diverse, everyday individuals ask and answer questions that are political, humorous, painful and poignant. The installation is designed to invite visitors into a space where they can experience an intimate exchange between the subjects of the project. Question Bridge creates a platform for participants to represent and redefine black male identity in America.

Question Bridge: Black Males was created by Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas, Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair. The Executive Producers are Delroy Lindo, Deborah Willis and Jesse Williams. It is a fiscally sponsored project of the Bay Area Video Coalition (a 501c3 not-for-profit organization) and supported in part by a grant from the Open Society Institute: Campaign for Black Male Achievement, The California Endowment, The Tribeca Film Institute, The LEF Foundation, The Center for Cultural Innovation and the California College of the Arts. The project was supported by the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Story Lab.

Hank Willis Thomas lives and works in New York City. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally. The Cleveland Museum of Art will open a solo show on the 20th of October, 2013 which will run through the 9th of March, 2014. The exhibition will be on view simultaneously in the museum’s photography gallery as well as in its new auxiliary space, the Transformer Station, from December 14th, 2013 to March 8th, 2014.

Recent solo and group exhibitions include Hank Willis Thomas, The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, Kentucky, 2013; Hank Willis Thomas: Believe It, SCAD Galleries, La Galerie Pfriem, Lacoste, 2012 which traveled to Pinnacle Gallery, Georgia and Trois Gallery, SCAD Atlanta, Georgia; Strange Fruit, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut, 2012; Hank Willis Thomas: Strange Fruit, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2011-2012; 30 Americans, Rubell Family Collection, Florida, 2008–2013, currently traveled to the Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; More American Photographs, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, California, 2011 -2013, traveling next to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio; Making History, MK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Germany, 2012; 12th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey, 2011; and Greater New York, MoMA PS1, New York, 2010.

Thomas is included in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; The Birmingham Museum, Alabama; Museum of Fine Art Houston, Texas; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland.

COVER: Hank Willis Thomas / ARTnews / November 2012

Hank Willis Thomas in collaboration with Sanford Biggers, Untitled (detail), 2012, digital C-print, dimensions variable, edition of 6. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Hank Willis Thomas Stages a Photo Shoot
Text by Rachel Wolff

How Sanford Biggers came to strike a pose as a two-faced dandy

Excerpt:

“It’s a little bit about blackface and minstrel-sy,” Thomas says. “I couldn’t figure out what the context was, except for Mary Poppins, which was out around the same time. But still, there’s this thing about white men with black covering them. It’s tens of years away from the minstrel era, and it’s only slightly different. Race has always been somewhat about class.”

Thomas wants to build his own take on the subject by combining the two images, riffing on this idea of racial, cultural, and socioeconomic hybridity, and fleshing out the deceptively complex characters embedded in each. He has enlisted fellow artist Sanford Biggers to collaborate and pose.

“I think Sanford’s work has been very much about cultural hybridity,” Thomas says. “He has done stuff with B-boys and hip-hop and Buddhism. He’s frequently engaged with that, and I thought he could be a kind of lens to talk about these issues.”

Biggers quickly got on board. “I think it’s an American knee-jerk response to equate black and white with literally blacks and whites. I want to find a way for it to be more nuanced,” he says. “And, in fact, I think it did that because this photograph and the character in it become more about duality and a more multifaceted being. It’s about the yin and yang, and pathology and moralism, and life and death. And superego. Those types of things. Which are things I’ve really been exploring in my recent work as well.”

Pick up a copy of the November 2012 issue of ARTnews on newsstands now or  read complete story and see more photos here.

Hank Willis Thomas

Sanford Biggers

NEW YORK: Hank Willis Thomas

Viewing for this exhibit has been extended through Saturday December 8, 2012. 

Exhibit Link 

HOT LINKS: June 28, 2012

Installation view of Wangechi Mutu's blackthrones on view until July 7, 2012 at Gladstone Gallery, Brussels.
Image via Gladstone Gallery. 

Over the past few days, the following news items caught the attention of BlackArtistNews:

Alfred Turner, graphic artist and missionary dead at 59

Art & Soul: Hank Willis Thomas explores the influence of advertising

Blk to the Future Series: Avery R. Young talks Afro Faux.Realism

Extreme Eccentries: Modern Art and its Collectors

FAN-ticizing: Top 5 Directores for Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther Film

Fred Wilson: ‘Museum therapist’ challenges idea of art

Impressive ‘Caribbean: Crossroads of the World’ Spans New York

Ohr-O’Keefe exhibits artwork by Eugene Martin

Review: ‘The Tipping Point of Me and We’ curated by Tempestt Hazel at Little Black Pearl (Chicago)

Wangechi Mutu blackthrones exhibit at Gladstone Gallery, Brussels

You Like It, You Like It Not

GENESIS: Hank Willis Thomas / March 17, 1976

Photo posted by Hank Willis Thomas via Instagram.

"As a contemporary photographer protesting the existing order, Hank Willis Thomas, with one fell swoop, has emerged as the voice of his generation. Using razor sharp insight and complex considerations, his work reinscribes the deep structure and the continued importance of identity politics."

-- Carrie Mae Weems

Hank Willis Thomas

Question Bridge: Black Males

MULTIPLE CITIES: Question Bridge: Black Males - Join the Conversation

BROOKLYN: Question Bridge - Black Males

Stills from Question Bridge: Black Males (2012), multichannel video installation via twitter.com/questionbridge.

January 13–June 3, 2012

BROOKLYN MUSEUM
Mezzanine Gallery, 2nd Floor

200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY

Question Bridge: Black Males is an innovative video installation created by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Chris Johnson in collaboration with Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair. The four collaborators spent several years traveling throughout the United States, speaking with 150 Black men living in 12 American cities and towns, including New York, Chicago, Oakland, Birmingham, and New Orleans. From these interviews they created 1,500 video exchanges in which the subjects, representing a range of geographic, generational, economic, and educational strata, serve as both interviewers and interviewees. Their words were woven together to simulate a stream-of-consciousness dialogue, through which important themes and issues emerge, including family, love, interracial relationships, community, education, violence, and the past, present, and future of Black men in American society.

The exhibition includes multiple screens playing videos of the interviews, edited so that it appears as if the men are having a conversation. The artists hope that the Question Bridgeproject will be a catalyst for constructive dialogue that will help deconstruct stereotypes about Black male identity in our collective consciousness. Museum visitors are also invited to visit the user-generated Question Bridge website, accessible on iPads throughout the gallery, which offers a platform to represent and redefine Black male identity in America.

The Brooklyn Museum presentation of Question Bridge: Black Males is co-organized by Patrick Amsellem, former Associate Curator of Photography, and Tricia Laughlin Bloom, Project Curator, Brooklyn Museum.

Question Bridge: Black Males is a fiscally sponsored project of the Bay Area Video Coalition, supported in part by a grant from the Open Society Foundations Campaign for Black Male Achievement, the Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Film Institute’s New Frontier Story Lab, the LEF Foundation, the Center for Cultural Innovation, and the California College of the Arts. Additional support was provided by the Jack Shainman Gallery.

Question Bridge: Black Males - Project Trailer from Question Bridge on Vimeo.

Source

Question Bridge

Question Bridge on Twitter


New video exhibit 'Question Bridge: Black Males' at Brooklyn Museum explores black identity

AUCTION: Art, photo collection going up for bids after being seized from Birmingham attorney

It's the real thing by Hank Willis Thomas is being auctioned November 16th by the IRS in Birmingham, AL.

IRS to auction off art, photo collection seized from Birmingham attorney

Text: Stan Diel | Birmingham News

Published: November 1, 2011

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A large collection of photographs and paintings, including many by emerging African-American artists, will be sold at an IRS auction later this month after being seized from a prominent Birmingham attorney to settle a tax debt.

The collection of about 250 paintings and photographs by artists including William Eggleston and Mickalene Thomas has been appraised at more than $500,000 and was seized by the IRS from Russell J. Drake, of the Birmingham firm Whatley Drake & Kallas.

Drake, in an interview Monday, said art is his passion, particularly the work of emerging young African-American artists, and he's saddened to see the collection go.

"I regret that I'm in this position," he said. "The recession had a devastating effect on me. It was sort of a perfect storm for a lot of lawyers."

According to documents on file in Jefferson County Probate Court, the IRS filed two liens against Drake totaling about $497,000. He said that's "an old number," and is no longer representative of what he owes the IRS.

Regardless, the collection could raise a substantial amount, said Roberta Colee, the IRS liquidation specialist handling the sale. About 50 different artists and photographers are represented, including Kerry James Marshall, Raymond Pettibon and Mark Flood.

Marshall, a Birmingham native who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, was featured on the PBS program "Art 21" and is known for paintings and sculpture that pay tribute to the civil rights struggle. New York artist Mickalene Thomas is famous for her enamel and sequined paintings of women, which the New York Times called "as impenetrable as they are spectacular."

One of her works, a painting of a topless prostitute titled "She works hard for the money," was pulled from the sale after it was judged too provocative by the IRS. At least two other of her works remain in the auction.

To casual observers, though, the photographer Hank Willis Thomas may be the most recognizable. The collection includes at least two photos by Thomas, who is perhaps best known for his "Priceless #1," a satirical take on the "priceless" Mastercard commercials that makes a powerful statement about inner-city violence.

The piece includes text placed over a photo of a grieving African-American family. It says "3-piece suit: $250; new socks: $2; 9mm pistol: $79; gold chain: $400; bullet: 60 cents ... Picking the perfect casket for your son: Priceless."

Thomas, a graduate of California College of Fine Arts' masters program and artist in residence at Johns Hopkins University, once lectured at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

The art may be sold individually or in the aggregate, with a minimum bid of $20,000, the IRS said in a prepared statement.

DETAILS 
What: IRS auction of about 250 paintings and photographs 
When: 9 a.m. Nov. 16. Registration and viewing begins at 8 a.m. The art also can be viewed Nov. 15 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. 
Where: Embassy Suites Hotel, 2300 Woodcrest Place, Birmingham, AL

© 2011 al.com. All rights reserved.

Source

WASHINGTON DC: Hank Willis Thomas: Strange Fruit / Corcoran Gallery of Art / October 1, 2011 - January 12, 2012

Hank Willis Thomas: Strange Fruit

October 1, 2011 - January 12, 2012

CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART 
500 Seventeenth Street NW
Washington, DC

In this exhibition, artist Hank Willis Thomas investigates the disturbing history of lynching photography from the turn of the 20th century. With images of lynched men and women shown together with contemporary representations of athletes, Thomas invites viewers to consider, remember, and question the transformation of black bodies into souvenirs and commercial objects. Through new photographs, videos, and multimedia work, he examines two forms of spectacle – the historic culture of lynchings and the commodification that surrounds professional sports “I am fascinated with how history and culture are framed,” Thomas has said of his work. “Who is doing the framing, and how these factors affect our interpretation of reality.”

Hank Willis Thomas: Strange Fruit is made possible by a grant from Lodestar Fund.

Exhibit Link

POSE: Black Americans (Pictorial) / CODE Magazine BV / Spring-Summer 2011

André Singleton, Artist

Hank Willis Thomas, Artist

Mickalene Thomas, Artist

Amani Olu, Curator

Ouigi Theodore, Fashion Designer

F. Stokes, Rapper

Latoya Ruby Frazier, Photographer/Filmmaker

Sean Qualls, Artist

Naomi Beckwith, Curator

CODE Magazine

Tribble & Mancenido