Hank Willis Thomas

Founded in 2016 along with artist Eric Gottesman, For Freedoms is an anti-partisan platform for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. The name was inspired by American artist Norman Rockwell's paintings of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms (1941)— freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Through exhibitions, installations, and public programs, the organization is established to deepen public discussions on civic issues and core values, and to advocate for equality, dialogue, and civic participation.

In 2018, For Freedoms launched the 50 State Initiative, the largest creative collaboration in U.S. history. In the fall of 2018, For Freedoms launched a major billboard campaign in every state, including Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. The campaign included over 150 contemporary artists, including Marilyn Minter, Rashid Johnson, Guerrilla Girls, and Theaster Gates, among others.

In October 2018, For Freedoms also launched a photo campaign entitled Four Freedoms. In collaboration with photographers Emily Shur and Wyatt Gallery, Thomas and For Freedoms transformed Norman Rockwell's depictions of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1941 address to Congress, which articulated FDR’s vision of the four basic human freedoms.[10] Thomas wrote that "The image haunted me because of the world we live in. I wanted to imagine what it would look like today."[10] Through dozens of iterations of Rockwell’s original four paintings, the 82 images in the campaign attempted to reflect the immeasurable diversity of American identities today. Celebrities such as Rosario Dawson, Dolores Huerta, Gina Belafonte, Van Jones, Jesse Williams, Robert A. Nakamura and Karen L. Ishizuka, Kiran Gandhi, Michael Ealy, Saul Williams, Rodney Barnette, and others were included in the reinterpretations. The new version of the images were widely shared on social media and Instagram, including by celebrities such as Alicia Keys and Jada Pinkett-Smith.[11]

The Cause Collective is a team of artists, designers and ethnographers creating innovative art in the public realm. Their projects explore and enliven public spaces by creating a dynamic conversation between issues, sites and the public audience. By exploring ideas that affect and shape society, the collective seeks to add the "public" back into public space and art.

The Long March is a 27 monitor installation commissioned by the recently renovated Birmingham Shuttlesworth International Airport. The installation incorporates depictions of movement, migration and marching from different eras in Alabama history, for instance, the Civil War, the Children’s March, the Selma Marches, football marching bands, the railroad, and migrations to the “Magic City.” The long row of monitors (the long march) track to the center of the wall and meld into a kaleidoscope. The kaleidoscope is tiled in the shape of a Camellia – the Alabama state flower. The Camellia, in this instance, is a repository of past and present motion that represents the flowering that grows out of movement. The kaleidoscopic mixes and melds the long march footage creating new emergent patterns, forms and colors. The travelers who will encounter the piece will be able to envision themselves as part of this mosaic that is symbolized through Alabama’s relationship to ‘the march’ as a form of historical progression.

Thomas is working on the long-term and global public art project In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth). Also known as "The Truth Booth" it is in collaboration with Ryan Alexiev, Jim Ricks, and Will Sylvester, all members of Cause Collective, a team of artists, designers, and ethnographers creating innovative art in the public realm.[12][13] The New York Times writes: "The “Truth Booth,” [is] a roving, inflatable creation by a group of artists calling itself the Cause Collective. The booth, in the shape of a cartoon word bubble with “TRUTH” in bold letters on its side, serves as a video confessional. Visitors are asked to sit inside and finish the politically and metaphysically loaded sentence that begins, “The truth is …”".[14] To date, the project has travelled Ireland, Afghanistan, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Mexico. It embarked on a world tour at the Galway Arts Festival, Ireland in 2011. It debuted in the US during the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA in June 2012.

Throughout this long-term project the video footage is compiled and edited into a video artwork. To expand and engage with audiences, the movements of "The Truth Booth" and sample responses are tracked, edited, and categorized on a website. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to try to capture as many definitions, confessions and thoughts on The Truth as possible, creating a diverse ‘portrait’ of people across the globe. It was first supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, and the San Francisco Foundation.

In collaboration with artists Chris Johnson, Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair, Question Bridge: Black Males is a platform for black men of all ages and backgrounds to ask and candidly respond to questions that are rarely discussed in public. Through video mediated question and answer exchange, diverse members of this “demographic” bridge economic, political, geographic, and generational divisions. The Question Bridge campaign seeks to represent and redefine Black male identity in America. Additional collaborators include Jesse Williams, Delroy Lindo, and Dr. Deborah Willis.

In 2018, Thomas was accused of plagiarism by South African photographer Graeme Williams.[15] A photograph that Williams took in 1990 of black children in the foreground and white policemen in the background was modified by Thomas, removing colour from the background. The photograph was exhibited at the Johannesburg Art Fair, with an asking price of USD36000, without attribution or mention of Williams. Thomas defended himself saying that what he had done was "akin to sampling, remixing".

In a separate case, South African photographer, Peter Magubane, who has photo-documented life in South Africa for six decades, discovered that Thomas had also altered one of his photos, similarly putting "a white fade over the background", without seeking permission from Magubane. Thomas defended his actions, saying that asking permission to use the photograph was a form of censorship. Magubane responded that Thomas' actions was arrogant, shameful and disrespectful.[16][17]

2019

• Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal…, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR[22]

2018

• Black Survival Guide, or How to Live Through a Police Riot, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
• Black Righteous Space, University at Albany University Art Museum, Albany, NY
• Branded/Unbranded, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL
• What We Ask Is Simple, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY
• Unbranded, The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL

2017

• Ads Imitate Life, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town
• Flying Geese, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS
• The Beautiful Game, Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, UK
• Freedom Isn't Always Beautiful and Blind Memory, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia
• Unbranded: A Century of White Women, 1915 - 2015, York College Galleries, York, Pennsylvania
• Hank Willis Thomas: Black Righteous Space, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA

2016

• To Whom It May Concern, Jablonka Maruani Mercier Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
• Evidence of Things Not Seen, Kadist, San Francisco, California
• Hank Willis Thomas: I Am A Man, New City Arts Initiative, Charlottesville, VA
• Unbranded: A Century of White Women, 1915 - 2015, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina

2015

• Primary Sources, David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
• The Truth is I See You, PublicArtFund, Metrotech, Brooklyn, New York
• In The Box: Hank Willis Thomas, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia
• Unbranded: A Century of White Women 1915-2015', Jack Shainmain Gallery, New York NY

2014

• ...and only the people, Galerie Henrik Springmann, Berlin, Germany
• History Doesn't Laugh, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
• Question Bridge: Black Males, DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, Illinois

2013

• Hank Willis Thomas, The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Transformer Station, Cleveland, Ohio
• Wayfarer, Picture Windows Series, International Center of Photography, New York, New York

2012

• What Goes Without Saying, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York
• Hank Willis Thomas: Believe It, SCAD Galleries, La Galerie Pfriem, Lacoste

2011

• Strange Fruit, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Scouring the Earth for My Affinity, Samson Projects, Boston, Massachusetts

2010

• Hank Willis Thomas, Galerie Anne De Villepoix, Paris, France
• All Things Being Equal..., Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2009

• Hank Willis Thomas, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
• Light Text, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, KS
• Hank Willis Thomas, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
• Digging Deeper, in collaboration with Willie Cole, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut
• About Time, Galway – 126, Galway, Ireland [23]
• Black is Beautiful, Roberts and Tilton Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
• Visionary Delusions, Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto, Canada
• Pitch Blackness, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY

2008

• Hank Willis Thomas, The Fabric Workshop and Museum Storefront, Philadelphia, PA
• Winter In America, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, CA

2006

• B®ANDED, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY
• Unbranded, Lisa Dent Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2005

• Bearing Witness, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

2004

• The Trade Dress: Value Judgments, Diaspora Vibe Gallery, Miami, FL