This fall, the Portland Art Museum presents the first major retrospective of alum of the Department of Photography & Imaging Hank Willis Thomas' work. Organized by the Portland Art Museum and co-curated by Julia Dolan, Ph.D., The Minor White Curator of Photography, and Sara Krajewski, The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal… features more than 90 works including early photographic series, recent sculptures based on archival photographs taken during historic 20th-century events, quilts constructed from commercial sports jerseys and prison uniforms, video installations, interactive two-dimensional and time-based works, and public art projects. In addition, the Museum has supported the creation of a new and monumental flag-based work addressing lives lost to gun violence in the United States in 2018 that will serve as the entry point to the exhibition.
Following its presentation in Portland, the exhibition will travel to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas (February 8 – April 20, 2020), and to the Cincinnati Art Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio (July 10 – October 11, 2020).
In the news:
Live Stream:
Hank Willis Thomas in Critical Conversation
Thursday, October 10, 2019 | 6:00 p.m.
Dr. Derrais Carter, Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona
Danielle McCoy, Wieden + Kennedy
Ragen Fykes, Wieden + Kennedy
Hank Willis Thomas (BFA '98), Artist
This FREE live stream of the sold-out Critical Conversation kicks off the opening of All Things Being Equal…. Moderated by Dr. Derrais Carter, this discussion dives into the complexities among visual culture, racial icons, branding, and language. Using Thomas’s art practice as a foundation, this conversation unfolds into the expansive terrains of advertising, media, history, and their shifting relationships to Blackness.
Hank Willis Thomas (American, born 1976), Branded Head, 2003, from the series Branded, Chromogenic print, Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York © Hank Willis Thomas.
