Artist Statement

My work is about framing and context. More specifically, I am fascinated with how history and culture are framed, who is doing the framing, and how these factors affect our interpretation of reality.

from “Triumph and Image” by Deborah Willis, Aperture 209 (2012)

As an artist who has been doing a lot of work about African American males, I always struggled with what it meant to be a black male in America. One of the things I always like to point out is that one of the craziest things about blackness is that black people didn’t create it. Europeans with a commercial interest in dehumanizing us created black people, and we’ve been enlisted to make it our own and make it beautiful. In a way, that is always going to be problematic. So we traveled the country and asked self-identified African American men to ask and answer each other’s questions. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover but even still I would see people come in the room and I would be like, OK, I know what kind of question they are going to ask or what kind of answer they are going to give. And literally, 99% of the time I was totally thrown off and embarrassed, you know, because here I was trying to do a project that is trying to fight prejudice and then having my own prejudice come up so blatantly.

from “Hank Willis Thomas talks about Question Bridge” by Mary Louise Schumacher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (June 14, 2013)

I was born in 1976, and I was amazed that just eight years before I was born it was necessary for people to hold up signs affirming their humanity. The phrase that I grew up with was “I am the man,” which is also influenced by African-American culture but takes a very different starting point. What I was interested in was, how many other ways could I read that phrase? from “Untitled (Blackness): Q+A With Hank Willis Thomas” by Brian Boucher originally published in http://www.artinamericamagazine.com, September 2011. Courtesy BMP Media Holdings, LLC.

In undergrad I did conceptual photography where I took photographs, but I was really trying to make a comment on the lie that is photography. We look at the photograph as a document, but it’s really a split-second in time and a two-dimensional space where basically only one of the senses is triggered. Even that is distorted because it’s a thirtieth of a second and it’s in a narrow frame.

from “Hank Willis Thomas: Exclusively photographed iPhone images for Musée No. 3” by Andrea Blanche, Musée Magazine 3 (2012)

I’ve started thinking of myself less as a photographer and more of a photoconceptual artist or new media artist. I want to make work that speaks about popular culture but isn’t limited to just being about one medium, although I have the most fun with photography. I can retouch or remove text or objects or images as a way of retelling history.

from “The New Black: An Artist Explores Racial Identity and Standards in America,” Watch! (October 2011)

Hank Willis Thomas, Crossroads (2012) Digital c-print and plexi with Lumisty film (49 ¾” x 61 ¾” x 4”, framed)

Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Hank Willis Thomas, Die Dompas Moet Brand! (The Passbook Must Burn!) (2014) Bronze and copper shim

Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Hank Willis Thomas, Raise Up (2014) Bronze (112.2” x 9.84”)

Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Hank Willis Thomas, Messenger (2013) Mixed media (hologram) (61” x 17 ½” x 4 5/8”)

Image courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York