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:



Mushroom Cloud
© » KADIST

Raymond Pettibon

2000

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

Suspension
© » KADIST

Sebastián Díaz Morales

2014

In Suspension a young man is hanging in the air, falling, or perhaps drifting through time and space...

Condition Report
© » KADIST

Glenn Ligon

2000

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

I used to eat lemon meringue pie till I overloaded on my pancreas with sugar and passed out; It seemed to be a natural response to a society of abundance
© » KADIST

Daniel Joseph Martinez

1978

For I use to eat lemon meringue pie till I overloaded on my pancreas with sugar and passed out; It seemed to be a natural response to a society of abundance (1978), also known as the Bodybuilder series, Martinez asked male bodybuilding competitors to pose in whatever position felt “most natural.” They are obviously trained in presenting their ambitiously carved physiques, but their facial expressions seem comparatively unstudied...

TWO MILLION (Hong Kong Dollar)
© » KADIST

Kwan Sheung Chi

2013

One Million is a video work depicting the counting of bills...

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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...

Useless Wonder
© » KADIST

Carlos Amorales

2006

This work, a large oil painting on canvas, shows a moment from Amorales’s eight-minute two-channel video projection Useless Wonder (2006)...

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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...

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...

What’s With Those Hilarious Medieval Portrayals of Animals?
© » HYPERALLERGIC

What’s With Those Hilarious Medieval Portrayals of Animals? Skip to content Unknown artist, “Snail” (c...

The Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland
© » KADIST

Karrabing Film Collective

2018

The Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland by Karrabing Film Collective is a surreal exploration of Western toxic contamination, capitalism, and human and non-human life...

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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...

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...

20
© » KADIST

Chris Wiley

2012

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

Other works by: » Hank Willis Thomas  
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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...

American Flag (Scratch)
© » KADIST

Collier Schorr

1999

Collier Schorr’s prints upend conventions of portrait photography by challenging what it means to “document” a subject...

Mike and Sky
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1993

Like many of Opie’s works, Mike and Sky presents female masculinity to defy a binary understanding of gender...

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Danish Collector Jens Faurschou Inaugurates New Outpost in Brooklyn - via The Art Newspaper
© » LARRY'S LIST

The sprawling gallery follows Faurschou’s spaces in Beijing and Copenhagen...

The actors playing The Crown's teen prince heartthrobs
© » I-D VICE CULTURE

Luther Ford and Ed McVey interview on playing Prince Harry and William in The Crown advertisement...

Observador Pasivo
© » KADIST

Humberto Diaz

2009

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...

Singapore aims to be the No 1 art market in Southeast Asia, and the recent growth in private art spaces and exhibitions could help it realise that ambition
© » SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Singapore aims to be the No 1 art market in Southeast Asia, and the recent growth in private art spaces and exhibitions could help it realise that ambition...