The Latest News from DPI Alum Hank Willis Thomas

Forbes: Hank Willis Thomas Asks And Answers America’s Toughest Questions About Race At Cincinnati Art Museum

Hank Willis Thomas's retrospective All Things Being Equal received a favorable review from Forbes Magazine's Chad Scott. The exhbition, which is on view at the Cincinnati Art Museum through November 8, 2020

"Every single one of Hank Willis Thomas’ searing artworks on view now at the Cincinnati Art Museum has a “ripped from the headlines” feel. Thomas examines, explores, interrogates and lays bare the Black experience in America with the varying subtlety of a scalpel and a sledgehammer."

Scott notes that although Willis Thomas' artworks are relevant and timely in today's political climate, the retrospective covers the artist's prolific career over the past two decades-- not a single piece in the show was created or inspired by the events of 2020 so far.

Photography & Imaging alum Hank Willis Thomas is the subject of two recent features in major publications.

His work Colonialism and Abstract Art appears as an Artist Project in MoMA Magazine. The piece itself is a diagram intended to critique and update Alfred H. Barr's oft-referenced (but Euro-centric and exclusionary) 1936 infographic "Cubism and Abstract Art".

The accompanying text contextualizes Thomas's diagram in space and time, introducing readers to the difficult questions which surround the construction of the art-historical "canon" and its lack of diversity. 

The Art Newspaper reports that Thomas has also launched an ambitious new project entitled Wide Awakes to spur voter turnout. Alongside a collective of other artists and activists including Kehinde Wiley and organizations like For Freedoms, Wide Awakes is working to mobilize voters and activists for the upcoming election.