Hank
Willis Thomas: Signifying Blackness
Oct. 2 – Nov. 18, 2006
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Artist Hank Willis
Thomas has gained wide recognition with his series B®ANDED, a
group of images in which he digitally adds a scarred Nike logo on
the head and chest of a black model. Willis Thomas works’, using
the branding metaphor with its uneasy historic associations with African-American
history, speaks about the extent to which commercial branding is geared
to racial groups. His work raises questions about identity and commodification,
acknowledging the violence within the African-American community,
through a visual language of the physical body, advertising logos
and marketing. The Sesnon Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Hank
Willis Thomas running October 2 through November 18 which will include
pieces from his “Branded” and “Un-Branded Series”
as well as from his recent body of work “Winter in America.”
New York critic Isolde Brielmaier writes, “By changing something
such as a product logo—something that we immediately recognize—Hank’s
art is cause for pause. It provokes us to think and re-consider what
we see and what many of us so readily consume. Above all, Hank’s
work elicits questions and conversations about visual culture, the
significance of commodities and the power of logos—or what Hank
himself calls a “curious international language” that
is loaded with complex ideas and meanings that catch our attention,
secure social value, rouse our desires and motivate us to pay cash.”
Willis Thomas has shown nationally at venues such as The African American
Museum in Philadelphia, the Smithsonian Institution, the Studio Museum
in Harlem, the Oakland Museum and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
He was awarded a 2006 NYFA Fellowship from the New York Foundation
for the Arts and his work will be featured in the 2006 California
Biennial at The Orange County Museum of Art. His photographs have
been published in numerous books and publications including: Reflections
in Black: A History of African American Photographers (W.W. Norton
2000), 25 under 25: American Photographers (Power House Books 2003)
and Black: A celebration of a Culture (Hylas Publishing 2004). He
lives and works between New York and San Francisco.
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