HANK WILLIS THOMAS

Thomas often seeks out and utilises recognisable icons from popular branding and marketing campaigns. In using icons and other nods to popular culture, he encourages the viewer to question commercial consumer representation and the racial stereotypes it perpetuates. A common practice in his artistic process, Thomas looks to the ways popular imagery informs how people perceive themselves and others around the world, comparing this practice to the one of a 'visual cultural archaeologist.' A trained photographer, his work spans across many disciplines and media, and his public works always encourage a form of viewer participation and contribution.

Throughout his career, Thomas has examined the structures, myths, and images that reinforce economic and racial prejudice, as exemplified by mass media, advertising, and popular culture. Thomas' seminal series, Unbranded (2005–08), which grew out of his B®anded series, builds upon these themes, focusing on the intersection of race, class, media, and popular culture. Mining historical advertisements from the 1960s, he digitally removes all text and logos from the image, revealing the underlying structures of prejudice that inform advertising and highlighting what is really for sale in these images.

Begun in 2019, Thomas' most recent project, The Embrace (2022), is a memorial 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. In collaboration with Mass Design Group, Embrace Boston, and The Boston Foundation, the 20-foot tall, 32-foot-wide bronze sculpture is a continuation of the artist's inquiry into economic and racial justice and an ode to collaboration, love, and equality. It will be unveiled in January 2023 at its permanent home in Boston Common, where, in 1965, Dr. King led a march from the Roxbury neighbourhood to the downtown public park.

Thomas' 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' work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Pennsylvania (2008); Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland (2009); International Center of Photography, New York (2013); California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2016); and SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia (2017). His work has been included in important group exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York (2013); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain (2015); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2016); and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town (2016), among others. His work is held in numerous public collections worldwide, including the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Thomas earned a BFA from New York University, New York, in 1998 and an MA/MFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, in 2004. He received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, Maine, in 2017. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Courtesy Pace Gallery