Bread and Roses

2012 - Painting (Painting)

Hank Willis Thomas

location: New York, New York
year born: 1976
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: Plainfield, New Jersey

Bread and Roses takes its name from a phrase famously used on picket signs and immortalized by the poet James Oppenheim in 1911. “Bread for all, and Roses, too’—a slogan of the women in the West,” is Oppenheim’s opening line, alluding to the workers’ goal for wages and conditions that would allow them to do more than simply survive. Thomas’ painting includes several black, white, brown, yellow, and red raised fists—clenched and high in the air in the internationally recognized symbol of solidarity, resistance, and unity.


Employing the visual language and terminology of mass media, and appropriating symbols and images from popular culture, Hank Willis Thomas’ work seeks to question and subvert established definitions and positions with regards to personal identity and the narrative of race. Working across installation, photography, video, and media work, Thomas maintains his photo conceptualist roots, primarily taking source material from found photographs and archives. These images form the basis from which the artist seeks to uncover the fallacies that history claims as truth. His work illustrates how the way history is represented and consumed reinforces generalizations surrounding identity, gender, race and ethnicity, and that as an artist he has an opportunity to expose or to revise those histories from the points of view of the oppressed.


Colors:



Untitled
© » KADIST

Toyin Ojih Odutola

2015

As she traces the same shape again and again, Ojih Odutola’s lines become darker and deeper, sometimes pushed to the point where their blackness becomes luminous...

Untitled (Blue Chapel)
© » KADIST

Robert Therrien

1985

In No Title (Blue Chapel) Therrien has reduced the image of a chapel to a polygon...

Condition Report
© » KADIST

Glenn Ligon

2000

Glenn Ligon’s diptych, Condition Repor t is comprised of two side-by-side prints...

Oakland Girls
© » KADIST

Pascal Shirley

2006

Like many of Pascal Shirley’s photographs, Oakland Girls aestheticizes a dingy rooftop and a cloudy sky...

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South Africa Righteous Space
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2014

South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race....

Condition Report
© » KADIST

Glenn Ligon

2000

Glenn Ligon’s diptych, Condition Repor t is comprised of two side-by-side prints...

Canton Novelty
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2016

Canton Novelty by Fang Lu captures the adventure of a group of three girls, Ruohan, Lily and Zoe on a summer vacation in Guangzhou, China...

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Phenomena
© » KADIST

Yang Xinguang

2009

Although seemingly unadorned at first glance, Yang Xinguang’s sculptural work Phenomena (2009) employs minimalist aesthetics as a means of gesturing towards the various commonalities and conflicts between civilization and the natural world...

Collecting with Purpose – How Nish McCree Is Advancing the Cause of African Art - via APOLLO
© » LARRY'S LIST

The Ghana-based collector is known for discovering talented artists – but there is a more important mission behind her collecting instincts...

A few walks-with: Vel Vel: A Sonic Walk and more
© » ARTS EQUATOR

A few walks-with: Vel Vel: A Sonic Walk and more | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles CK Eng March 22, 2021 By Vithya Subramaniam (1,961 words, 8-minute read) We’ve taken more walks these days, haven’t we? Walking isn’t new to us...

Glorie #7
© » KADIST

Caspar Heinemann

2022

Glorie #7 by Caspar Heinemann is made from cardboard boxes in which the artist received deliveries at home during lockdown, as well as other materials that he uses in an improvisatory way...

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20
© » KADIST

Chris Wiley

2012

Architectural details become abstracted renderings in Chris Wiley’s inkjet prints 11 and 20 (both 2012)...

Nothing New
© » KADIST

Oded Hirsch

2012

Oded Hirsch’s video work Nothing New (2012) utilizes seemingly absurdist tropes to raise more trenchant questions about communal action and collective identity in modern day Israel...

Herculine's Profecy
© » KADIST

Juliana Huxtable

2017

Herculine’s Prophecy by Juliana Huxtable features a kneeling demon-figure on what appears to be a screen-print, placed on a wooden table, which has then been photographed and digitally altered to appear like a book cover, with a title and subtitle across the top, and a poem written across the bottom...

La Ligne du Temps
© » KADIST

Valeska Soares

2012

Relying on repetition and repurposed materials, Soares works to interrogate time—its measurement, its passing, and its meaning...

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South Africa Righteous Space
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2014

South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race....

I Am A Man
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2013

The image is borrowed from protests during Civil Rights where African Americans in the south would carry signs with the same message to assert their rights against segregation and racism...

Black Hands, White Cotton
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2014

Shot in black and white and printed on a glittery carborundum surface, Black Hands, White Cotton both confronts and abstracts the subject of its title...

Related artist(s) to: Hank Willis Thomas » Abraham Cruzvillegas, » Claire Fontaine, » William E Jones, » Catherine Opie, » Collier Schorr, » Glenn Ligon, » Harun Farocki, » Jens Hoffmann, » Kirsten Pieroth  
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Foreigners Everywhere (Italian)
© » KADIST

Claire Fontaine

2006

Foreigners Everywhere is a series of neon signs in several different languages...

Condition Report
© » KADIST

Glenn Ligon

2000

Glenn Ligon’s diptych, Condition Repor t is comprised of two side-by-side prints...

In the Collage II (Marie)
© » KADIST

Collier Schorr

2013

In the Collage II (Marie) (2013), Shorr seems to have an ostensibly clear subject, a female subject identified in the work’s title as “Marie,” a slim but athletic woman with brown hair pictured reclining atop a brilliantly white sheet draped against a marbled tan-and-white backdrop...

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Danish Collector Jens Faurschou Inaugurates New Outpost in Brooklyn - via The Art Newspaper
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The actors playing The Crown's teen prince heartthrobs
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Luther Ford and Ed McVey interview on playing Prince Harry and William in The Crown advertisement...

Billionaire François Pinault’s $170 M. Paris Museum to Open in June 2020 - via ARTNEWS
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3600 besos por hora
© » KADIST

Humberto Diaz

2002

The two works in the Kadist collection, Observador Pasivo and 3600 besos por hora by Diaz are culled from a vast compilation of videos and performances for the camera...