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Kashara Johnson
19 November 2014
Dr. Heather McPherson
ARH 464
Hank Willis Thomas Research Paper
In a world that is oftentimes seemingly obsessed with being politically correct, it is truly
refreshing to be able to step into the contemporary art world which is filled with controversial
and sometimes even painful works of art that compels the audience to self-reflect and even calls
to action a change in societal norms. Artist Han Willis Thomas is a 31 year old New Jersey native
who uses much of his art work in that way. Thomas works which vary in media from film,
photography, sculpture, to even a unique mixture are incredibly emotional, sometimes poignantly
uncomfortable, yet always powerful because of their strong conceptual foundation. It is nearly
impossible to walk away from his work without some piece of its message following along in the
back of ones mind. This consistent occurrence is what makes Thomas works significant and
continuously relevant to the art world and American society.
Hank Willis Thomas strongly and effectively addresses the many struggles of the African
American community such as poverty, identity crises, and societal stereotypes while also
focusing much of his work on the myriad of ways in which corporate culture directly participates
in the commodification of Blackness. Seeing how African American artists make up only a small
portion of the works exhibited in museums around the country (African Americans made up a

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disappointing 8.2% of the artists in the Whitney Museum 2014 Biennial)1, Thomas works and
his fearless tackling of such highly sensitive and controversial topics make him a significant
21st century artists.
Much of Thomas life experiences and relationships played a pivotal part in his works. As the son
of Deborah Willis, well known photographer and current professor at New York University Tisch School of Arts, he was constantly immersed in the arts and grew up around many well
known black artists such as Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weems.2 While his race has
obviously given him first hand experience of life as an African American, his mothers efforts to
educate and expose him to the many different variations of the black experience within the black
community continue to influence him to this day.
The murder of Thomass cousin in February of 2000 over a gold chain quite possibly proved
even more pivotal in the formation of his views about the crises within the black community
which in turn translated into many of his works after 2004 when he began to truly see himself as
an artist. Winter in America3, a four minute stop motion short film, reenacts his cousins murder
with the use of GI Joe-like figurines and toy cars. The childrens toys adds a somewhat innocent,
yet equally cringeworthy touch to the films heavy and violent storyline. The use of the military
style figures lends itself to bridge the comparison of a soldier fighting to survive war and the
1 Frank, Priscilla. "What Does Diversity In The Art World Look Like." Huffington Post. November 16, 2013.
Accessed November 1, 2014.

2 Cuomo, Yolanda. "Hank Willis Thomas." Look3. June 2012. Accessed November 5, 2014.

3 Winter in America can be viewed on Thomas artist website HankWillisThomas.com

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harsh life of the many African Americans who grow up and subsequently become trapped in
violent and poverty stricken communities across the country. While some viewers may use the
video as a means of blaming others for similar events that take place everyday in Black
communities, Thomas is actually challenging African American audiences to consider the root
causes of high crime rates within the community and to also compel them to find a long-term
solution to the problem of Black on Black crime as well. Many of Thomas works are just as
much about holding the African American community responsible for the disparities within its
own society was it is about calling out corporate America for exploiting it.
Priceless, another work by Thomas that is also a part of his 2004 Branded series, is a sort of
continuing social commentary on his cousins murder as well as the poverty stricken conditions
of many black communities that oftentimes leads to high crime rates. The photo was one of 5
taken at his cousins funeral and used for Thomas graduate piece. It depicts a large group of
presumably friends and family gathered together mourning and consoling one another.
Overplayed on the photo is a play on the well known Priceless Mastercard ads, but the captions
are a variety of materialistic possessions such as a gun, chain, and a three-piece suit, all
referencing the elements need for his cousins murder and subsequent murder. Priceless is a
successful commentary piece partially because of its play on Mastercards already popular ad,
but also because it offers just enough of a cynicism and poignant sarcasm. In an interview with
Shane Aslan Selzer for the YouTube web series FAILUREtalks, Thomas discusses how this work
emerged four or five years later out of a sense of failure back while taking those photos at his
cousins funeral that when he realized that photography in that moment were never going to be

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enough that photography was never going to be able to sum up that moment and what I was
feeling - what everyone else was feeling.4
Hank Willis Thomas art really opens up a much needed dialogue between African Americans
and other communities that can help others gain a better understanding of the Black experience
and identity which until the Civil Rights Movement was either widely overlooked or narrowly
defined and commodified by Western society. While the Black community is still oftentimes
marginalized and stereotyped today, societal views have shifted far enough in the 21st century to
the point where an effective round table discussion can be held as a means of even greater
change, further advancement, and hopefully a more sub-sequential easing of racial tensions.
The African American identity (or sometimes the seemingly lack of it) has been a leading
topic within the community since the Transatlantic Slave trade when slaves were considered
mere property that could be bought and sold. The question of identity was also a major topic in
1901 when Booker T. Washington published his autobiography Up From Slavery which talked
in-depth about the way in which African Americans can advance in society as independent
members of society by learning marketable skills.5 In The Souls of Black Folks, W.E.B. DuBois
writes about his theory of the double-consciousness which he believes consists of the identity the
world assigns and the one that an African American assigns oneself that unfortunately results in
he or she feeling a sense of twoness within. An excerpt from his passage says,
the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in
this American world,a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets
4 FAILUREtalks: Hank Willis Thomas: Performed by Hank Willis Thomas. United States, 2011. Film.

5 Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.

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him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this
double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of
others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt
and pity. One ever feels his twoness,an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts,
two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength
alone keeps it from being torn asunder. 6
Hank Willis Thomas works such as Zero Hour and Crossroads in many ways directly address
Du Bois theory of double consciousness primarily within the Black male, but the strong
conceptual meaning can be collectively blanketed across the entire black community. Both
images depict a black man dressed in a tuxedo with half of his body and tux painted black while
the other half of his body is painted white. In Crossroads, the two figures, one white and one
black, are turned toward one another, while in Zero Hour a series of six black and white figures
transform into one another through stop motion photography. There are many different
interpretations and subjective explanations as for the meanings behind the works. From a
personal standpoint, Thomas is more or less tapping into the double-consciousness of the African
American male. The male is expected to conform to the ideals of White America while also
trying to create and maintain an identity that encompasses all of his life experiences. He is also in
a way attempting to revive and incorporate the part of him that still embodies the traditions that
had been involuntarily lost during the slave trade. These pieces hold so much significance
because they beautifully yet poignantly communicate the very struggle that most African
Americans continuously deal with throughout their lifetime.
I Am A Man, also effectively encompasses all of the self-doubt and personal affirmations that
many African American men (and women) regularly work through internally. The complete piece
consists of twenty typographically driven blocks of text that emit a powerful message when

6 Bois, W. E. B. "Of Our Spiritual Strivings." In The Souls of Black Folk, 3-4. New York: Dover, 1994.

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viewed in completed form, but could also stand strongly as individuals. Each block contains a
short sentence some questioning such as Am I a man, others are calls to action or concise
statements like Be a man. The work provides a form of typographical timeline when reading
them from left to right. The phrase I am 3/5 man directly refers to the Three-Fifths
Compromise of 1787 which counted all slaves as three-fifths a vote in order to increase the
population of the Southern states therefore increasing the number of seats that they would
receive in the United States House of Representatives. This three-fifths human idea, though
now rejected in modern society still leads the viewer, especially if he or she is African American,
to deal with many of residual feelings about the state of humanity such as discomfort, sadness,
even anger. The rest of the phrases reference an extensive 200 years worth of United States
history of events, speeches, and travesties resulting from a once heavily corrupt and prejudice
societal as well as governmental system. Some of these moments in history include Sojourner
Truths Aint I a Woman speech, the widespread disappearance of the black father which in turn
has led to the disintegration of the black family, violation of human rights as with the Tuskegee
syphilis experiments, along with the forming of the Civil Rights movement protests, and so on.
In the series Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008, Hank
Willis Thomas leads the audience through a forty year investigation of the often stereotypical
portrayals of African Americans in advertisement that is obscured by the product being sold. In
an interview with Sarah Lookofsky of DisMagazine stated that his goal with the series was to
track blackness in the mind of corporate America over these years and thought that by digitally

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removing all the text, we could simply look at them as images.7
Thomas decides to choose highly symbolic start and end dates that each hold great significance
in American history - 1968 marking the end of the Civil rights movement with the assassinations
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy along with 2008 which marked the election
of the first African American president in United States history. By removing all text from the
ads, viewers were forced to read the meaning of the ad solely based on the photos which in turn
exposed the many stereotypical and racist undertones that would more than like have gone
somewhat unnoticed otherwise. How to Market Kittle Litter to Black People is definitely one of
the more racially insensitive ads that surprising appeared in Essence magazine. Lacking any text,
the image alone is of a slice of watermelon along with an ice-cream scooper placed on a plate
that is resting on a wooden table. When presented with the image along, the viewer is able to
almost immediately read into the stereotype that corporate advertising agencies use in an attempt
to persuade African Americans to purchase their products. In Thomas Unbranded series, he also
features many photos of athletic black men as in Gotten and Strange Fruits which act as another
powerful form of social commentary about the commodification of the black athlete. In the
interview with Lookofsky, he also says,
Black bodies were spectacles in slave markets and on lynching trees and whipping
posts. They are spectacles in the NCAA, NBA, NFL drafts and combines. Their ancestors
may have worked the cotton and tobacco fields that later became football fields.
The connection between the black man as a spectacle during the slave trade and during modernday sports is one that is much more subtle in its delivery to the general public. Thomas believe

7 Lookofsky, Sarah. "Hank Willis Thomas | BRANDING USA." DIS Magazine. February 1, 2013.

Accessed November 5, 2014. http://dismagazine.com/disillusioned/46123/hank-willis-thomas-brandingusa/.

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that athletic corporations (sports associations, athletic products, and sports marketing agencies)
are exploiting the African American athlete by building a multi-billion dollar industry off of the
backs of the free labor of descendent of slaves. While opinions of those statements may vary in
approval, the Unbranded series is still incredibly significant in that it offers the opportunity for
the audience to create an open and more than likely uncomfortable dialogue about the points and
criticisms that the Thomas raises that could very well be a benefit for society.
Hank Willis Thomas conceptual works offer a unique and well-balanced amount of
relevant contemporary African American issues that vary on the spectrum of tongue-in-cheek to
in-your-face. By directly addressing long-standing black issues such as poverty, identity, and
societal stereotypes, along with the growing issue of the communization of African Americans,
Thomas is able to catapult himself into the forefront of 21st century African American art. His
works offer a wonderful jumping off point for round table discussions on a variety of levels
which in turn has the power to invoke change that could further our society and quite possibly
ease racial tensions. Thomas variation in media not only aids in gaining a larger, more diverse
audience, it also helps to open the door for other up and coming black artists in a time where
there is a great scarcity of them being featured in large scale exhibitions therefore carrying the
legacy of earlier black artists of our past.

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Works Cited

Bois, W. E. B. "Of Our Spiritual Strivings." In The Souls of Black Folk, 3-4. New York: Dover,
1994.
Cuomo, Yolanda. "Hank Willis Thomas." Look3. June 2012. Accessed November 5, 2014.
FAILUREtalks: Hank Willis Thomas: Performed by Hank Willis Thomas. United States, 2011.
Film.
Frank, Priscilla. "What Does Diversity In The Art World Look Like." Huffington Post. November
16, 2013. Accessed November 1, 2014.
Lookofsky, Sarah. "Hank Willis Thomas | BRANDING USA." DIS Magazine. February 1, 2013.
Accessed November 5, 2014. .
Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.

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Priceless, 2004

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Zero Hour, 2012

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Crossroads, 2012

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I Am a Man, 2009

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How To Market Kitty Litter to Black People, 2011

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Gotten, 2011

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Strange Fruit, 2011

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