Hank Willis Thomas: I Am Many @ Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Hank Willis Thomas

I Am Many

Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

September 5 – November 1, 2025

Jack Shainman Gallery announces I AM MANY, an exhibition featuring new and recent work by Hank Willis Thomas, the artist’s eighth exhibition with the gallery and first in their newly opened Tribeca flagship location. Bringing together large-scale sculptures, retroreflective, lenticular and textile works along with a group of mixed-media assemblages, I AM MANY continues Hank Willis Thomas’ investigation into the myriad of ways that the past and present remain interwoven and interconnected. These works explore the legacies of exploitation and oppression in conjunction with new forms of community and solidarity.

Over the past two decades Hank Willis Thomas’ conceptual practice has employed a wide range of media, from photography and sculpture, to screen printing, installation and video. Drawing from both archival and contemporary imagery that references historical examples of political resistance through iconic photographs or contemporary acts of protest, Thomas regularly recontextualizes popular imagery as source material for his works. What unites Thomas’ work across media is his emphasis on the multivalent nature of historical meaning—as something that can always be reshaped and seen from different perspectives.

The exhibition takes its title from an eponymous work that references photographs from the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike which saw Black men assembled with posters all bearing the same message of ‘I AM A MAN’ and in nearly identical typeface. Hank Willis Thomas has transformed that historic message by creating new iterations that expand out from the original phrase, with retroreflective vinyl that, once activated by direct light, reveals latent, previously hidden images of historic protests. Removed and repositioned from their original context, the crowds underscore the enduring power conveyed by the written word. 

Hank Willis Thomas also uses retroreflective vinyl to staggering effect in Black Survival Guide, or How to Live Through a Police Riot (2018), a work originally commissioned by the Delaware Art Museum to mark 50 years since the occupation by the National Guard following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Thomas combined text from the historic document—originally created as a practical manual to help African Americans survive an occupation—with images taken from News Journal photographs of the time. By encouraging viewers to activate these works via flash, Thomas invites them to resurrect, recover and even save images from being lost to history, ensuring they remain visible and gain prominence in our collective memory.

Sculpture continues to be a vital mode of public engagement for Hank Willis Thomas, providing him with opportunities for building community through shared experience. His punctum sculptures take inspiration from Roland Barthes’ photographic theory which describes a detail or passage within an image—the ‘punctum’—that emotionally resonates, sticks with or ‘pierces’ a viewer. Originally sourced from archival photographs, Hank Willis Thomas has begun to use more universal gestures in his newer compositions, as in Community (2024), where isolated hands linking with arms create a circle of power that conveys love, support and connection. In E Pluribus Unum (2020), an eight-foot stainless steel arm points towards the sky with strength while incorporating viewers into its brilliant reflective surface. The nature and scale of these sculptures mirrors their varying iterations in public spaces nationwide while also speaking to Thomas’ longstanding commitment to reconciling the effects of the past on our present moment in history. 

Jack Shainman stated, "Few artists are able to interpret history in ways that provide new strategies for understanding the present. Hank Willis Thomas has done this consistently throughout his career with successive bodies of work that blend technical sophistication with metaphoric depth. Exhibiting Hank's work in our Tribeca gallery—itself embodying a beautiful but complicated period in American history—promises to be a fitting example of what we envisioned for the space, one where the past can be reanimated by contemporary visions and new material sensibilities.”

JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY

46 Lafayette Street, New York, NY

jackshainman.com

Sport and Spectator @ The McNay, San Antonio

Sport and Spectator

The McNay, San Antonio

March 1 — July 27, 2025

Hank Willis Thomas

Perseverance, 2017 

Fiberglass, chameleon auto, paint finish

Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York 

© Hank Willis Thomas

Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Basketball Bloom (USA Outdoor), 2024 

Basketballs and shoestrings 

Courtesy of the artist and Pentimenti, Philadelphia 

© Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Brian Jungen 

Horse Mask (Cher), 2016 

Nike Air Jordans 

Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York 

© Brian Jungen

Betsy Odom

Softball Glove, 2008

Tooled leather, and shearling

Courtesy of the artist

© Betsy Odom

Basketballs, footballs, tennis rackets, hockey sticks, jerseys, punching bags and other sports gear and paraphernalia become art in “Sport and Spectator,” on view at the McNay Art Museum. The exhibition celebrates American sports culture and confronts its complex intersection with race, gender and class. “Sport and Spectator” includes approximately 40 sculptures, textiles, screenprints and sports-themed installations by contemporary artists Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp, Jeffrey Gibson, Raul Rene Gonzalez, Sophie Inard, Brian Jungen, Justin Korver, Esmaa Mohamoud, Betsy Odom, Hank Willis Thomas, and Tyrrell Winston. Each work offers a recognizable element of sports while inviting viewers to consider athletics’ role in shaping society.

Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Basketball Bloom (Breakaway Outdoor), 2024

Basketballs and shoestrings 

Courtesy of the artist and Pentimenti, Philadelphia. 

© Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Brandon Donahue-Shipp, who aspired to a career in professional basketball, uses his artistic practice to explore social and cultural realities in Black and Brown communities. Deflated basketballs and footballs become sculptural floral arrangements that symbolize the unfulfilled dreams of Black and Brown boys who also dreamed of careers in professional sports. “Coach’s Playbook,” is a screenprint that juxtaposes a basketball diagram with the floorplans of a courtroom. Strategic plays marked in red and blue cover the image and comment on the relationship between Black and Brown communities and the American legal system.

Hank Willis Thomas

Changeup, 2019 

Mirrored stainless steel

Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York 

© Hank Willis Thomas

Multiple works by Hank Willis Thomas highlight the potential for sports to both uplift Black communities and exploit the bodies of Black athletes. Resembling abstract modern sculpture, the metallic shapes in “Perseverance” depict an athlete’s bent limbs in dynamic motion. Presenting an anonymous player in the form of a public monument, Thomas’ sculpture acknowledges the power of sports to both unite and divide. The artist finishes the sculpture with shiny auto paint to comment on the sport’s reliance on international players, many who are of African descent.

Esmaa Mohamoud transforms jerseys to bodices to address gender in sports in her “One of the Boys” series. By pairing each jersey with a floor-length skirt made of silk and velvet, the artist presents a sports-themed ballgown that challenges the propensity for male athletes to be hyper-masculine while women remain underrepresented in sports. Growing up as the only girl with four brothers, she was a self-described tomboy. When her mom insisted that she wear a dress, she once wore a jersey over it.

Sophie Inard 

First base en rose, 2023 

Vintage hockey helmet with cotton yarn

Courtesy of the artist 

© Sophie Inard

Sophie Inard blankets common sports equipment with intricate patterns, bringing together the fast-paced, harsh sports world and the slower, delicate, calculated practice of crochet. She uses the “granny square” pattern reminiscent of a time that preceded modern-day technology to cover golf clubs, baseball bats, motorcycle helmets, rugby balls, boxing gloves, skateboards and other equipment. Wrapping sports equipment in soft yarn communicates the idea that opposites can coexist.

Jeffrey Gibson adorns Everlast punching bags with glass beads to pay homage to traditional Native American craft traditions while offering social and political commentary. His works also include references to artists and musicians through titles and words that appear on the works such as “The Love You Give Is the Love You Get,” inspired by lyrics from The Beatles’ “The End.” “Sharecropper” honors his grandparents, who persevered through poverty. Each work also celebrates boxing’s power to release tension and stress.

“‘Sport and Spectator’ explores the artistic alchemy of manipulating the materiality and meaning of sports paraphernalia,” said exhibition co-curator René Paul Barilleaux. “The contemporary artists featured are committed to incorporating sports equipment into their artistic practice, and this exhibition is unique in that numerous exhibitions have been organized around the theme of sports culture, but seemingly not specific to sports equipment and gear,” added co-curator Lauren Thompson.

“Sport and Spectator” is organized for the McNay Art Museum by René Paul Barilleaux, head of curatorial affairs, and Lauren Thompson, curator of exhibitions. 

McNay Art Museum

Tobin Exhibition Galleries

6000 N New Braunfels Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78209

www.mcnayart.org

Irving Penn @ Pace Gallery, NYC - "Kinship" Exhibition Curated by Hank Willis Thomas

Irving Penn: Kinship

Curated by Hank Willis Thomas

Pace Gallery, New York

November 15 – December 21, 2024

IRVING PENN

Three Dahomey Girls (with Bowls), 1967

Photograph © The Irving Penn Foundation

IRVING PENN

Three Single Oriental Poppies, New York, 1968

Photograph © The Irving Penn Foundation

Pace is pleased to present Irving Penn: Kinship, an exhibition of work by the famed photographer IRVING PENN, curated by artist Hank Willis Thomas, at its 508 West 25th Street gallery in New York. This show spotlights works produced by Irving Penn throughout his 70-year career, including selections from his Worlds in a Small Room series, his iconic portraits of artists, actors, and writers, and other genres of his images. These photographs are exhibited within an installation designed by Hank Willis Thomas to replicate a structure that Irving Penn used to photograph many of his high-profile subjects.

Working for Vogue for nearly 70 years, Irving Penn left an indelible mark on the history of photography. His inventive fashion photographs, which transformed American image-making in the postwar era, continued to appear in the magazine up until his death in 2009. The artist was also highly accomplished and experimental in the darkroom, having engineered, among other innovations, a complex technique for making platinum-palladium prints.

A trained photographer, Hank Willis Thomas, widely known for his galvanizing public works around the US, is deeply interested in both the making and consumption of images. His investigations into subjectivity and perception inform his work in photography and other mediums, including sculpture, screenprinting, video, and installation. Penn’s Worlds in a Small Room works—for which he journeyed to Cuzco, Crete, Extremadura, Dahomey, Cameroon, San Francisco, Nepal, New Guinea, and Morocco to capture people’s portraits within a tent he used as a portable studio—have been particularly influential for Hank Willis Thomas, who was part of the artistic team behind the traveling, participatory installation In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth), which debuted in 2011 and has since been presented around the world.

Often investigating the ways that framing and perspective can shape our experiences of the world around us, Hank Willis Thomas situates Irving Penn’s photographs within a bespoke, star-shaped structure with intersecting corners, created using a material similar to the plywood flats of the photographer’s original studio for his portraits in a corner. Displayed on the structure’s exterior walls and within its central interior space, Irving Penn’s images will invite viewers to inhabit a similarly intimate, enclosed space as the subjects of his portraits captured across the globe—through Thomas’s vision, this room becomes a new world of its own.

Showcasing the varied but interconnected motifs and ideas that Irving Penn returned to time and again over the course of his life, the images selected and paired by Hank Willis Thomas speak to a transcendent, universal quality that can be traced across the photographer’s vast oeuvre. His arrangement of Penn’s works is guided by a kind of “visual muscle memory,” which he describes as “the notion that an artist’s eye and hand retain the imprints of past works, unconsciously shaping new creations.” The diverse photographs on view, for Thomas, are marked by their stillness and dignity, their shared interest in capturing and communicating the human experience in a single frame.

“In Penn’s work, I see a profound reverence for the overlooked and the mundane,” Hank Willis Thomas writes in a curatorial statement for the show. “His fashion photography, often celebrated for its clean lines and sculptural compositions, shares a surprising kinship with his still lifes of discarded objects. By juxtaposing these images, I want to highlight how Penn’s meticulous attention to detail elevates the ordinary to the extraordinary. It’s as if each image, regardless of subject, carries an echo of his broader artistic ethos: the belief that beauty and meaning can be found in even the most unlikely places.”

Concurrent with this curated presentation in New York, Hank Willis Thomas’s solo exhibition of his work at Pace’s London gallery, Kinship of the Soul, is on view through December 21. A retrospective of Penn’s work, organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation, is on view through May 1, 2025 at The Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) Foundation in A Coruña, Spain.

Hank Willis Thomas’s work is currently featured in the group exhibitions Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through February 18, 2025 and Grow It, Show It: A Look at Hair from Diane Arbus to TikTok at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany, through January 12, 2025. At the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, The Gun Violence Memorial Project—a collaboration between Boston-based MASS Design Group and Songha & Company, where Thomas is Creative Director, in partnership with the gun violence prevention organization Purpose Over Pain—is on view through January 20, 2025.

PACE GALLERY NEW YORK

508 West 25th Street, New York City

pacegallery.com

Hank Willis Thomas @ Pace Gallery, Los Angeles — I've Known Rivers

Hank Willis Thomas

I've Known Rivers

Pace Gallery, Los Angeles

July 15 – August 26, 2023

Hank Willis Thomas 

“I’ve known rivers” (variation without flash), 2023 

© Hank Willis Thomas, courtesy Pace Gallery 

Photography by Kyle Knodell 

Hank Willis Thomas 

“I’ve known rivers” (variation with flash), 2023 

© Hank Willis Thomas, courtesy Pace Gallery 

Photography by Kyle Knodell 

Pace presents an exhibition of new works by Hank Willis Thomas at its Los Angeles gallery. The show, titled I’ve Known Rivers, marks the artist’s first-ever presentation with Pace. This debut exhibition showcases a selection of new retroreflective artworks—which reveal latent images depending on lighting and the perspective of the viewer—created by Thomas this year.

Over the last ten years, Hank Willis Thomas has mastered the retroreflective medium, creating mixed media works that reveal two distinct scenes transfigured by both ambient and flash lighting. Seen from one perspective, these artworks present bold figurations, abstractions, and landscapes in saturated colors; seen from another, fragmented archival scraps from Thomas’s production of other retroreflective works over the last decade are revealed. As these elements converge and transform, they shed light on new layers of images, ideas, and meanings that are hidden in plain sight. Thomas’s retroreflective works can also be understood as personal records of his artistic process and the historical references that recur throughout his practice.

The vibrant compositions on view in Thomas’s upcoming presentation with Pace in LA are steeped in art history, and they speak to the artist’s continued explorations of abstraction through the lenses of colonization, globalization, and appropriation. Alluding to the work of Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, Roy Lichtenstein, Henri Matisse, and Malick Sidibé, the artist’s newest retroreflective works mine the complex origins and histories of modern art across Africa, the United States, and Europe.

The exhibition’s title, I’ve Known Rivers, references Langston Hughes’s poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” first published in The Crisis magazine in July 1921. Then a little-known writer, Hughes would later become an icon of the Harlem Renaissance. Water is a central subject in both this poem and Thomas’s show in LA—it is positioned as a visual anchor, a point of entry, a mover of people, a container of ancient knowledge. The journey described in Hughes’s poem, like Hank Willis Thomas’s work, is not linear or easily traced. Instead, readers of the poem and viewers of Thomas’s art are invited to investigate details and travel to unexpected places.

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” By Langston Hughes

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers: 

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Hank Willis Thomas works across sculpture, screen-printing, photography, mixed media, video, and installation. Through his practice, he examines subjects related to mass media, popular culture, consumerism, and identity, often making use of perspectival nuance as part of these explorations. A trained photographer, Hank Willis Thomas is deeply interested in both the making and consumption of images, with his investigations into subjectivity and perception informing his work in photography and other mediums. The artist is also known for his galvanizing public works, which showcase his personal commitment to social activism and encourage participation and contribution from the viewer. His permanent public installations can be found in Downtown Brooklyn, New York; the Boston Common; Chicago O'Hare International Airport; and on the grounds of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, among other locations around the US.

Among Hank Willis Thomas’s recent projects is the large-scale bronze sculpture The Embrace (2023), which was unveiled on the Boston Common in January 2023. This permanent memorial is inspired by an archival photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, embracing after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. As such, The Embrace can be understood as an ode to collaboration, love, and equality, reflecting Thomas’s ongoing inquiries into economic and racial justice. Thomas’s reconfiguration of a two-dimensional photograph into a large- scale, three-dimensional monument crystallizes a single moment in time, speaking to the importance of gesture, conviviality, and community.

Next year, two new installations by Hank Willis Thomas will be permanently unveiled on the East and West entrances of the new Judkins Park Station in Seattle. These public works center on the life and legacy of musical icon Jimi Hendrix, whose hometown was Seattle. His forthcoming public art projects also include With These Hands: A Memorial to Honor the Enslaved and Exploited, set to open at Davidson College in North Carolina in 2025.

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, New Jersey) is a conceptual artist widely known for his investigations of themes relating to mass media, identity, popular culture, and perspective. A trained photographer, the artist works across many disciplines and media, including sculpture, film, screen-printing, and installation. In his practice, Hank Willis Thomas often seeks out and utilizes recognizable icons from popular branding and marketing campaigns, encouraging viewers to question commercial consumer representation and the racial stereotypes it perpetuates.

He is also renowned for his public artworks, which always invite a form of viewer participation and contribution. Among his recent public projects is the large-scale bronze sculpture The Embrace (2023), unveiled on the Boston Common in January 2023.

Hank Willis Thomas is the co-founder of For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement. In 2022, For Freedoms received the National Art Award from Americans for the Arts, and it was awarded the ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform in 2017. In addition to For Freedoms, Thomas’s collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth) and The Writing on the Wall.

The artist’s work has been exhibited at institutions throughout the United States and abroad, including the International Center of Photography in New York; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris; the Hong Kong Arts Centre; and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship; The Guggenheim Fellowship; the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize; and the Soros Equality Fellowship, among other awards and honors.

Hank Willis Thomas earned a BFA from New York University in 1998 and an MA/MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2004. He has received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore; the San Francisco Art Institute; and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in Portland, Maine. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

PACE LOS ANGELES

1201 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA

www.pacegallery.com

Hank Willis Thomas: Another Justice: Divided We Stand @ Kayne Griffin Gallery, Los Angeles

Hank Willis Thomas

Another Justice: Divided We Stand

Kayne Griffin, Los Angeles

November 12, 2021 - January 8, 2022

Kayne Griffin presents Hank Willis Thomas’ second solo exhibition at the gallery, Another Justice: Divided We Stand. Comprising large-scale sculptures and mixed media quilted works, the exhibition of new work continues Thomas’ exploration of American iconography, color theory, and language.

Hank Willis Thomas’ recent works investigate the fabric of our nation—literally and figuratively—through the deconstruction and reconstruction of U.S. flags and striped prison uniforms. In drawing attention to the similarities of these materials, the artist navigates the complexity of distinguishing patriotism from nationalism. The work is part of Thomas’ negotiation of an enduring conundrum of the United States of America: Can “the land of the free” also be home to the largest prison population in the world?

The artist uses textiles from flags and prison uniforms to form abstract patterns and labyrinths of text that make reference to the founding ideals and complicated realities, past and present, of the American experiment. Though the 13th Amendment is popularly believed to have abolished slavery, in fact it intentionally created a loophole wherein the practice was allowed to continue as “punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Through this loophole, the prison system has continued to exploit and trade human beings and profit from their free labor. In her groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander writes “Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.” Inspired by his desire to imagine the U.S. living up to its ideals of perpetually becoming “a more perfect nation,” Thomas embeds his own language into these charged materials, highlighting the significance across time and space of ideas such as “liberty,” “justice,” and “capital.” 

Furthering the artist’s investigation into archival imagery and objects, Strike, a monumental sculpture, is also included in Another Justice: Divided We Stand. It is a continuation of Hank Willis Thomas’ Punctum series. The series is based on Roland Barthes’ photographic theory of the punctum, which refers to the detail in an image that pierces or wounds the viewer, creating a direct relationship between them and the pictured object or person. Hank Willis Thomas uses this concept to select or reframe areas of images, which he then transforms into large-scale sculptures. Rendered in stainless steel and painted aluminum, these works challenge the viewer’s positionality within scenes of oppression and resistance, encouraging reflection upon one’s own relation to systems of power. 

By magnifying select frames in three-dimensional objects, Hank Willis Thomas choreographs a spatial confrontation between his audience and the fraught subject matter of the original image. Depicting one hand stopping another’s swing of a police baton, Thomas’ Strike is based on the 1934 lithograph Strike Scene by Russian-American painter and printmaker Louis Lozowick. In isolating these disembodied gestures, the work prompts questioning of the enactment of justice: is justice the arm swinging the baton, or is it the force stopping it? Reflecting the viewer back in its polished finish, the work asks its audience, “What is your role in justice?”

This exhibition comprises one part of the greater Another Justice: By Any Medium Necessary, produced in collaboration with For Freedoms, the arts collective co-founded by Hank Willis Thomas. Taking place over the course of a year, the larger Another Justice invitation is a series of interdisciplinary projects and programs that contemplate what justice looks like internally and externally as we attempt to define our own needs and responsibilities, and connect that back to systems of power. This includes a series of billboards commissioned by the LANDBACK.Art campaign, a partnership between the organizations NDN Collective, For Freedoms, and INDÍGENA, centering upon the theme of “Land Back” in reference to the campaign led by Indigenous activists regarding decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty. Visible above Kayne Griffin is the billboard designed together by The Gabrielino-Shoshone Tribal Council of Southern California, artist Tekpatl Kuauhtzin, and photographer Josué Rivas. Across the country, For Freedoms and LANDBACK.Art have invited 20 Indigenous artists, community members, and their allies to illustrate their answer to “What does land back mean to you?”

With Another Justice: Divided We Stand., Hank Willis Thomas’ masterful manipulation of American iconography serves as a poignant reminder of the work that still needs to be done, initiating a call to action for new ways of relating to this country’s promise.

HANK WILLIS THOMAS is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad including the International Center of Photography, New York; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; Musée du quai Branly, Paris; Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Netherlands. Thomas’ work is included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. His collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth) and For Freedoms, which was awarded the 2017 ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform. In 2012, Question Bridge: Black Males debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and was selected for the New Media Grant from the Tribeca Film Institute. Thomas is also the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), Soros Equality Fellowship (2017) and is a former member of the New York City Public Design Commission. Thomas holds a B.F.A. from New York University (1998) and an M.A./M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts (2004). He received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in 2017. Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Ben Brown Fine Arts, London; Goodman Gallery, South Africa; and Marauni Mercier, Belgium.

KAYNE GRIFFIN

1201 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90019

www.kaynegriffin.com

Hank Willis Thomas: An All Colored Cast @ Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles

Hank Willis Thomas

An All Colored Cast

Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles

January 18 - March 7, 2020

Kayne Griffin Corcoran presents HANK WILLIS THOMAS’ first solo exhibition at the gallery. An All Colored Cast is an exploration of color theory, popular culture, the development of Pop Art, Color Field painting, Minimalism, and the Hollywood film industry. In this new body of work, Thomas examines the portrayals of gender, race, and identity through the lens of film, performance, and color motion pictures.

Using color theory and screen color calibration charts as an aesthetic starting point, Hank Willis Thomas re-examines the language surrounding “color correction” and “white balance” in order to demonstrate the charged language of color, particularly around the time of desegregation and the proliferation of Technicolor in America.

Hank Willis Thomas is interested in the notions of perspective and perception, specifically how framing and context influence what and how a viewer sees. The retroreflective prints and sculptural works on view in the exhibition are largely inspired by the work of Ellsworth Kelly, Joseph Albers, and Andy Warhol; 20th century performers such as Bert Williams, Hattie McDaniel, and Fredi Washington; and the pioneering work of major motion-picture directors such as Gordon Parks.

Hank Willis Thomas draws directly from film and television stills, depicting snapshots throughout American cinema in the 20th century, including Lime Kiln Field Day (1913), Sundown (1941), Anna Lucasta (1958), Easy Rider (1969), Mandingo (1975), and Dukes of Hazzard (1979).

With an ongoing fascination in the framing of history, Hank Willis Thomas draws upon appropriated, and in this case, archival film images, Hollywood stills, and mid-century black-cast posters. His sculptures create both a pause for reflection and an opportunity for the viewer to step into the frame, while his retroreflective works—which are activated by flash photography—encourage a viewer to look closely. Much of Thomas’ work demands that viewers shift their position and engage directly in order to see a moment in its entirety, as a reminder of the multiple ways of looking at a given moment or subject. Through this invitation to participate, the viewer plays an active role as an agent and image-maker.

HANK WILLIS THOMAS (lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. Solo exhibitions of his work have been featured at the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY among others. Hank Willis Thomas’ work is included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum and Brooklyn Museum (all New York, NY.)

KAYNE GRIFFIN CORCORAN

1201 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90019

www.kaynegriffincorcoran.com

Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection @ Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA

Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection 
Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA
March 3 - September 2, 2018

Hank Willis Thomas 

Branded Head, 2003 

Ed. 1 of 3 lambda photograph, digital c-print , 99 x 52 inches 

© Hank Willis Thomas. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

The Taubman Museum of Art presents Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, featuring more than 100 works from various media highlighting the global migration of peoples across the world.

Drawn from DeWoody’s significant contemporary African diaspora collection, it features world renowned artists such as Willie Cole, Hank Thomas Willis, Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, Romare Bearden, Kehinde Wiley, Sandford Biggers, and Yinka Shonibare MBE (RA) among others working in a broad reach of media and conceptual approaches.

"I am delighted to share this important selection of Pan-African artwork with the Taubman Museum of Art and Roanoke community,” said DeWoody. “Reclamation! introduces themes of globalization and diaspora that I feel are especially timely and important within art history. It is truly special to me that this exhibition will include my very first acquisition, by Benny Andrews in 1969, alongside major works in my collection spanning the 1940’s to present. It has been a pleasure working with the Taubman Museum of Art to develop this wonderful exhibition, and I look forward to the opening in March 2018."

The exhibiting artists create work that investigates the universal conversation of migration, history, race and representation in art being made today. The exhibition captures the personal stories and collective histories of artists reflected through installations, videos, paintings and sculptures. The exhibition aims to represent artists whose work references ownership of their own home countries while developing narratives that embrace global histories.

About the Collector: Beth Rudin DeWoody, art collector and curator, resides between Los Angeles, New York City, and West Palm Beach, Fla. She is president of The Rudin Family Foundations and executive vice president of Rudin Management. Her Board affiliations include the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hammer Museum, The New School, The Glass House, Empowers Africa, New Yorkers for Children, and The New York City Police Foundation. She is an honorary trustee at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and on the photography steering committee at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.

Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection is co-curated by the Taubman Museum of Art with Laura Dvorkin of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection.

TAUBMAN ART MUSEUM
110 Salem Avenue SE, Roanoke, VA 24011
www.taubmanmuseum.org

Art Basel Miami Beach: Public sector 2015

Art Basel Miami Beach: Public sector
December 3 - 6, 2015

Public: 26 international artists will transform Collins Park with 27 site-specific installations and performances.

Tony Cragg

Mixed Feelings, 2012

Marian Goodman Gallery

Courtesy the artist and the gallery

For the 2015 edition of Art Basel's show in Miami Beach, Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator of Public Art Fund, returns for his third year curating the show’s Public sector. Under the theme ‘Metaforms’, 27 large-scale and site-specific installations and performances by leading and emerging artists from over 11 countries will turn Miami Beach’s Collins Park into an outdoor exhibition space. Produced in collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art for the fifth consecutive year, the sector will include significant works by Olaf Breuning, James Capper, Tony Cragg, Melvin Edwards, Sam Falls, Sylvie Fleury, Katharina Grosse, Matt Johnson, Jacob Kassay, Kris Martin, Rubén Ortiz Torres, Athena Papadopoulos, Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Sterling Ruby, Michael Sailstorfer, Tomás Saraceno, Tony Tasset, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Francisco Ugarte, Timm Ulrichs, Marianne Vitale, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Hank Willis Thomas, Robert Wilson, Yan Xing and Xiao Yu.

The Public sector of Art Basel will open on Wednesday, December 2, with a special evening performance program featuring Xavier Cha (b.1980, United States), Ryan Gander (b. 1975, United Kingdom), Pope.L (b. 1955, United States) and Yan Xing (b. 1986, China).

Ursula von Rydingsvard

Bent Lace, 2014

Galerie Lelong

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Kris Martin

Altar, 2014

Sies + Höke

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Nicholas Baume’s curatorial premise, ‘Metaforms’, will consider how art making is, at its core, a process of transformation. The manners in which artists conceptually and physically reimagine objects or symbols will be explored, and in doing so add new layers of significance to what was once familiar in order to reveal unexpected truths.

Several of the works will be participatory. Jacob Kassay's (b. 1984, United States) ‘Untitled’ (2012-2015) is designed to provide a place for individuals to gather together in conversation. ‘Healing Pavilion’, a gemstone-encrusted sculpture by Sam Falls (b. 1984, United States), will similarly provide communal seating, in this case enhanced with metaphysical properties through minerals such as amethyst, orange calcite, jasper, lapis lazuli and rose quartz. Other work will convert inanimate objects into 'moving beings', as with ‘Mountaineer Prototype’ (2015) by James Capper (b. 1987, United Kingdom). Widely known for his large-scale, man-operated machines, Capper’s brightly-colored kinetic sculpture will walk around on four telescopic legs, remotely operated via a control panel.

Timm Ulrichs

Von null bis unendlich (from here to eternity), 1986

Wentrup

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Michael Sailstorfer

Voilà (Dubai) 1, 2011, and Voilà (Dubai) 3, 2011

Galerie König

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Power, manipulation and structures of oppression will be implied themes in several works. 'Ukpo.Edo' (1993/1996) is a stainless steel installation by Melvin Edwards (b. 1937, United States) comprised of large metal links, a poignant symbol of both the history of slavery and oppression, as well as the interrelation between people and cultures. Matt Johnson’s (b. 1978, United States) ‘Twisted Jersey Barrier’ (2015), evocative of a warped concrete highway divider, and Sterling Ruby’s (b. 1972, Germany) ‘Big Yellow Mama’ (2013), based on the notorious Alabama electric chair, both reference objects designed to exercise control. Robert Wilson’s (b. 1941, United States) tall, slender chairs from the original 1976 production of ‘Einstein on the Beach’ will evoke a trio of elevated figures standing in judgment.

Hank Willis Thomas

Ernest and Ruth, 2015

Jack Shainman Gallery

Courtesy the artist and the gallery

Reflections on identity and subjectivity are also embedded in Olaf Breuning’s (b. 1970, Switzerland) polished steel series of oversized heads, Athena Papadopoulos’ (b. 1988, Canada) ‘Two Serious(ly) (Young) Women’ (2015) and Hank Willis Thomas’ (b. 1976, United States) single bench ‘Ernest and Ruth’ (2015), from his ongoing series ‘The Truth is I See You’ (2011). In Yan Xing’s (b. 1986, China) playful performance, ‘L’amour l’après midi’ (2015), young men clad in Chinese silks and embroidery designed by the artist will flirt with passersby, projecting emotions like love, anxiety and lust through their eyes, body language and sparse dialogue.

Tomás Saraceno

One Module Cloud with Interior Net, 2015

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

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Tony Tasset

Deer, 2015

Kavi Gupta

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Marianne Vitale’s (b. 1973, United States) nine meter long sculpture ‘Ace of Spades’ (2015) is comprised of relics of the industrial age, created from 60 tons of steel scrap material sourced from a Pennsylvania track yard facility. As Vitale brings the past into dialogue with the present, so too does Ishmael Randall-Weeks’ (b. 1976, Peru) simulated archaeology and Kris Martin’s (b. 1972, Belgium) bare bones interpretation of the 15th-century Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Objects and images from popular culture and daily life animate works by Sylvie Fleury (b. 1961, Switzerland), who will broadcast the name of a supposed new fragrance in neon, Sterling Ruby (b. 1972, Germany), with a giant tubular set of red lips, and Michael Sailstorfer (b. 1979, Germany), in the form of potted beer garden lights. Additionally, Rubén Ortiz Torres’ (b. 1964, Mexico) ‘Collector’s Backyard Boogie’ (2015), will set customized shopping carts into motion with a hydraulic lift. Tony Tasset (b. 1960, United States) will play with our sense of perception through a monumental deer lawn ornament, while Rirkrit Tiravanija (b. 1961, Argentina) will bend the meaning of language through a solar powered LED-lit sign, similar to directional signs found on highways.

Xiao Yu

Elevation No.2, 2013

Beijing Art Now Gallery

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For many artists, the forms, processes and systems of nature are evoked in more or less explicit ways and with varying degrees of abstraction. Francisco Ugarte’s (b. 1973, Mexico) site-specific sculpture, ‘Sunlight I’ (2015), responds to the sun’s trajectory and position during the days of the exhibition. The installation’s eleven wooden pyramids will each correspond with a specific time from sunrise to sunset, tracking the sun’s movement, elevation and azimuth, through the shifting projective geometry of the work. 

Additional examples include Tony Cragg’s (b. 1949, Britain) twinned, spiraling bronze sculpture ‘Mixed Feelings’ (2012), Katharina Grosse’s (b. 1961, Germany) colossal, painterly abstract forms, Tomás Saraceno’s (b. 1973, Argentina) delicate ‘One Module Cloud with Interior Net’ (2015), Timm Ulrichs’ (b. 1940, Germany) kinetic sculpture ‘Von null bis unendlich (from here to eternity)’ (1986) and Ursula Von Rydingsvard’s (b. 1942, Germany) large-scale bronze sculpture, ‘Bent Lace’ (2014). Inside the Rotunda, Xiao Yu’s (b. 1980, China) ‘Elevation No. 2’ (2013), a series of double-sided abstract canvases, invites viewers to look differently at both the traditional display and subject matter of painting.

As in the past three years, a selection of artworks will remain installed in Collins Park until February 1, 2016 as part of 'tc: temporary contemporary', a city-wide temporary public art program which is present by the Bass Museum of Art in partnership with the City of Miami Beach.

A series of live performances will be presented on Public’s Opening Night on Wednesday, December 2. Xavier Cha’s ‘supreme ultimate exercise’ (2015) will be comprised of parallel performances contrasting manipulations of the athletic form, including both the slow, controlled and fluid movements of a female tai chi master adjacent to a choreographed tractor tire routine enacted by male bodybuilders. Controlled physical exertion also marks Pope.L’s elaborate and sorrowful production; four large men speed through the park on skateboards, while lying prone, before crawling laboriously onto a small wooden stage to sing 'America The Beautiful'. 

Channeling the Wildean pun of 'the earnest Ernest', Ryan Gander’s work features a dandy hobo who will engage the audiences in scripted conversations that reveal iterations of the artist’s fancied and conflicted selves. The work, ‘Ernest Hawker’ (2015), was a Performa Commission curated by Mark Beasley for Performa 15. Public’s opening night will also feature a special evening rendition of Yan Xing’s flirtatious performance.

Public Opening Night, which is free and open to the public, will take place in Collins Park on Wednesday, December 2, from 7pm to 9pm. The Public sector is free of charge and will be open to the public from Wednesday, December 2 to Sunday, December 6, 2015.

Tours will be offered daily at 2pm starting from the On-site Info Point (no reservation required). Private, group and school-group tours will be offered by reservation.

Collins Park is located between 21st and 22nd Street, in close proximity to the exhibition halls within the Miami Beach Convention Center and adjacent to The Bass Museum of Art.

As part of Art Basel’s Salon series, on Friday, December 4 from 4pm to 5pm, Nicholas Baume will join in conversation with the artists Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Hank Willis Thomas, and Xavier Cha. Art Basel entry tickets include admission to Salon.

Art Basel Miami Beach 2015 Public artworks:

Olaf Breuning, I Can Not Take It Anymore, 2015, Metro Pictures
James Capper, Mountaineer Prototype, 2015, Paul Kasmin Gallery
Tony Cragg, Mixed Feelings, 2012, Marian Goodman Gallery
Melvin Edwards, Ukpo.Edo, 1993/1996, Alexander Gray Associates,
Stephen Friedman Gallery
Sam Falls, Untitled (Healing pavilion…), 2015, Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Sylvie Fleury, Eternity Now, 2015, Bass Museum of Art
Katharina Grosse, Untitled, 2012, Galerie König, Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder
Matt Johnson, Twisted Jersey Barrier, 2015, 303 Gallery, Blum & Poe
Jacob Kassay, Untitled, 2012-2015, 303 Gallery
Kris Martin, Altar, 2014, Sies + Höke
Rubén Ortiz Torres, Collector’s Backyard Boogie, 2015, OMR
Athena Papadopoulos, Two Serious(ly) (young) Women, (Hubba Hubba Trouba and Ouchy Waa Waa Mama’), 2015, Supportico Lopez
Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Paraíso, 2015, Revolver Galería
Sterling Ruby, Big Yellow Mama, 2013, and Lips, 2014, Gagosian Gallery
Michael Sailstorfer, Voilà (Dubai) 1, 2011, and Voilà (Dubai) 3, 2011, Galerie König
Tomás Saraceno, One Module Cloud with Interior Net, 2015, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Tony Tasset, Deer, 2015, Kavi Gupta
Rirkrit Tiravanija, untitled 2015 (don’t shoot the messenger), 2015, Gavin Brown’s enterprise
Francisco Ugarte, Sunlight I, 2015, Arredondo \ Arozarena
Timm Ulrichs, Von null bis unendlich (from here to eternity), 1986, Wentrup
Marianne Vitale, Ace of Spades, 2015, Contemporary Fine Arts
Ursula von Rydingsvard, Bent Lace, 2014, Galerie Lelong
Hank Willis Thomas, Ernest and Ruth, 2015, Jack Shainman Gallery
Robert Wilson, Einstein Chair, from Einstein on the Beach, 1976 (produced 2002), Paula Cooper Gallery
Yan Xing, L’amour l’après-midi, 2015, Galerie Urs Meile
Xiao Yu, Elevation No.2, 2013, Beijing Art Now Gallery

Public opening night performances:

Xavier Cha, supreme ultimate exercise, 2015, 47 Canal
Ryan Gander, Ernest Hawker, 2015, Lisson Gallery (A Performa Commission curated by Mark Beasley for Performa 15)
Pope.L, The Beautiful, 2015, Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Yan Xing, L'amour l'après-midi, 2015, Galerie Urs Meile

Art Basel Miami Beach
www.artbasel.com