I Am A Man

2013 - Painting (Painting)

Hank Willis Thomas

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

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. Historically, in countries such as the US and South Africa, the term “boy” was used as a pejorative and racist insult towards men of color, slaves in particular, signifying their alleged subservient status as being less than men. In response, Am I Not A Man And A Brother? became a catchphrase used by British and American abolitionists. The question “Am I Not A Man?” was brought up again during the Dred Scott decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in 1857. More recently, “I Am a Man” and also “I Am Not a Man” has been used as a title for books, plays and in film to assert the rights of all people to be treated with dignity, from African Americans to Feminists. Signs were even used in Arabic language translated to Ana Rajul during the Arab Spring. For this painting, the artist was specifically inspired by a particular photograph from the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike, where a large group of black men assembled with protest posters bearing the same message and nearly identical typeface. The artist has also created many other version of this painting that play with the orientation and wording of the text (ie: A Man I Am, I Be a Man, I Am Many, I Am The Man, etc.), reflecting historically on the variations that have been used before, and speculating on how they may continue in the future. Of this series the artist recalls:“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?… In the U. S. Constitution, blacks were considered three-fifths of a man. Then there was the slogan adopted by the Quakers, “Am I not a man and a brother?” There are a lot of other references, like “Ain’t I a Woman?” is a reference to Sojourner Truth’s famous speech, but also the Women’s Liberation movement. The final painting in the group says “I am. Amen.” The greatest revelation should be that we are.”


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:



Baobab
© » KADIST

Tacita Dean

2001

The photographic quality of the film Baobab is not only the result of a highly sophisticated use of black and white and light, but also of the way in which each tree is characterized as an individual, creating in the end a series of portraits...

One Must
© » KADIST

John Baldessari

1997

In One Must , an image of a pair of scissors, accompanied by the words of work’s title, poses an ominous question about the relationship between the image and the text...

Captain X
© » KADIST

Luke Butler

2008

In Captain X , Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, is limply draped over a large boulder in what looks like a hostile alien environment...

Mother Pig, Shushi Gallery, San Diego Performance
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

1983

McCarthy’s Mother Pig performance at Shushi Gallery in 1983 was the first time he used a set, a practice which came to characterize his later works...

Stong Sory Vegetables
© » KADIST

Laure Prouvost

2010

In Stong Sory Vegetables , Laure Prouvost explains that she woke up one morning and that some vegetables had fallen from the sky on her bed, making a hole in her ceiling...

Ghost games
© » KADIST

Anri Sala

2002

Ghost Games , follows the enigmatic dance of crabs “steered” by a flashlight in the night of darkness of a South American beach...

7″ Single 'Pop In'
© » KADIST

Martin Kippenberger

1989

7″ Single ‘Pop In’ by Martin Kippenbergher consisting of a vinyl record and a unique artwork drawn by the artist on the record’s sleeve...

8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America
© » KADIST

Kara Walker

2005

In her masterpiece 8 Possible Beginnings or The Creation of African-America , Walker unravels just that, the story of struggle, oppression, escape and the complexities of power dynamics in the history following slave trade in America...

Monteverdi Ici – Deeply, Feeling Filling the World
© » KADIST

Laure Prouvost

2018

Monteverdi Ici – Deeply, Feeling Filling the World by Laure Prouvost is a tapestry that references a video by the artist entitled Monteverdi Ici (2018)...

The Parle Ment Metal Woman Welcoming You
© » KADIST

Laure Prouvost

2017

The Parle Ment Metal Woman Welcoming You is a character originated from a series of works combining sculpture and video with a specific role— lying on the floor playing a romantic elevator tune, this Metal Woman welcomes and flirts with viewers in the space where she is posed...

Untitled (Blue Chapel)
© » KADIST

Robert Therrien

1985

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

Perro en Tlalpan (Dog in Tlalpan)
© » KADIST

Gabriel Orozco

1992

Gabriel Orozco often documents found situations in the natural or urban landscape...

Untitled 3737 and Untitled 5157
© » KADIST

Todd Hido

2005

The two pieces in the Kadist Collection depict foggy landscapes, one at dawn, the other at nighttime...

Memory Mistake of the Eldridge Cleaver Pants
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

2008

Memory Mistake of the Eldridge Cleaver Pants was created for the show Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life Part 1 , held at California College of the Arts’s Wattis Institute in 2008 and curated by McCarthy himself...

Sal Sem Carne
© » KADIST

Cildo Meireles

1975

Meireles, whose work often involves sound, refers to Sal Sem Carne (Salt Without Meat) as a “sound sculpture.” The printed images and sounds recorded on this vinyl record and it’s lithographed sleeve describe the massacre of the Krahó people of Brazil...

The Nightwatch
© » KADIST

Francis Alÿs

2004

The Nightwatch , which is an ironic reference to the celebrated painting by Rembrandt, follows the course of a fox wandering among the celebrated collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London...

Untitled (Superman)
© » KADIST

Raymond Pettibon

2005

The five works included in the Kadist Collection are representative of Pettibon’s complex drawings which are much more narrative than comics or cartoon...