NYAB Event - Hank Willis Thomas "Pitch Blackness"

Hank Willis Thomas "Pitch Blackness"

Jack Shainman Gallery

This event has ended.

Hank Willis Thomas's Pitch Blackness is the artist's second solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition follows the publication of his first monograph of the same title by The Aperture Foundation last fall and his inclusion in the "30 Americans" exhibition that opened at the Rubell Family Collection in December. Employing visual language and materials commonly used in mass-media Thomas presents works ranging from large-scale sculpture comprised of polished and painted aluminum, neon, Plexiglass, and granite to hand painted, stenciled works on canvas, wood carvings, and manipulated photo-based works. Together they trace black history through visual culture in an attempt to dissect, reinterpret, and re-imagine iconic moments from the "black past" and to investigate the complexity of race in America in the 21st century.

Thomas appropriates imagery and language from a variety of sources including posters announcing slaves for sale, as well as books, magazines, and advertisements. Harriet Tubman, the Hottentot Venus, Michael Jackson, Air Jordan and Johnny Walker are points of reference that appear in the work. A suite of twenty works on canvas, inspired by a photograph of the Memphis sanitation workers' strike taken by the late Ernest C. Withers, features riffs on the famous I AM A MAN placards carried by the men on strike. Large-scale reproductions of contemporary ads juxtaposed with strikingly similar examples from the past explore expressions of cultural exploitation by media.

Media

• Painting
• Prints
• Sculpture

ADVERTISE ON NYAB