Venue: University of Arizona Museum of Art
Start Time: 10:00am
Non Event Dates: Closed every Monday and Sunday

Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist and activist focused on themes relating to commodity, identity, media and popular culture. Experimenting with mixed media and mass-produced imagery, Thomas’ practice includes photography, sculpture, installation and more.

Thomas was trained in photography and employs both archival and contemporary imagery from popular culture to take on urgent questions: What is the role of art in civic life? How do advertising and visual culture create narratives that shape our notion of value in society? This exhibition covers 20 years (2002-22) of Thomas’s work and is drawn from the collection of the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation. The exhibition features some of the artist’s most iconic and well-known artworks across a range of media, investigating diverse themes.

Hank Willis Thomas, Justice (red), 2021Mixed media, including U.S. flags, Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer, Photo by Aaron Wessling Photography, Courtesy of Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.

LOVERULES also highlights several important series, including Branded and Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America. In Branded, Thomas explores and re-contextualizes the history of brand advertising and sponsorship through the iconography of sport. In Unbranded, Thomas digitally removes advertising punchlines and logos, with both series thereby highlighting the consistently dehumanizing strategies of corporate media, the commodification of African-American identity, and how dominant cultural tropes shape notions of race and race relations.

Critical awareness, civic engagement, collaboration and empathy are among the core invitations of Thomas’ work. Through the mining and reframing of iconic imagery and texts, Thomas connects historical moments of resistance to our lives today. With incisive clarity, he asks us to see and challenge systems of inequality while affirming our shared humanity to shape a better future.

Hank Willis Thomas, An All Colored Cast, 2019, UV print on retroreflective vinyl, mounted on Dibond, Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer, Image courtesy of Kayne Griffin, now Pace Los Angeles

About the Artist

Born in 1976 in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in New York, Hank Willis Thomas earned a BFA from New York University (1998) and an MA/MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco (2004). Additionally, he has received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in Portland, Maine, in 2017.

Thomas’ work has been exhibited internationally and is collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., among others. Thomas is a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), The Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), Aperture West Book Prize (2008), Renew Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (2007), and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2006). He is a former member of the Public Design Commission for the City of New York.

MoMA: Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded | ARTIST STORIES
Hank Willis Thomas in “Bodies of Knowledge” – Season 11 | Art21
More Information

This exhibition is organized by Shamim M. Momin, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle. The presentation of this exhibition at UAMA is curated by Violet Rose Arma, Curatorial Assistant, and Olivia Miller, Director. Lead sponsorship is provided by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation with generous support from Dr. Peggy Jones and Alan Willenbrock.

Plan your Arizona Experience with the Planning Tool

Launch
wave

You might also like

July 25

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

Arizona Arts Live
Get ready for an
Get ready for an
Learn More
Venue: The Rialto Theatre
Start Time: 8:00pm
Info:

Doors: 7:00 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
All ages event

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

Christone "Kingfish" IngramLEARN MORE Christone
May 11

Son Rompe Pera

Arizona Arts Live
Straight from the
Straight from the
Learn More
Venue: Hotel Congress Plaza
Start Time: 7:00pm

Son Rompe Pera

Son Rompe PeraLEARN MORE Son Rompe Pera
May 9

Redacted

School of Art
Join undergraduates and
Join undergraduates and
Learn More
Venue: Lionel Rombach Gallery
Start Time: 10:00am

Redacted

RedactedLEARN MORE Redacted
April 25

Undergraduate Research Symposium

School of Theatre, Film & Television
The School of Theatre,
The School of Theatre,
Learn More
Venue: Silver & Sage Room, Old Main
Start Time: 10:30am

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Undergraduate Research SymposiumLEARN MORE Undergraduate Research Symposium