South Africa Righteous Space

2014 - Installation (Installation)

Dimensions variable

Hank Willis Thomas

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.

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:

• history.n.02
• identity.n.01
• race.n.03
• colonialism.n.01
• slavery.n.02
• ad.n.01
• advertising and brands
• cultural commentary
• contemporary conceptualism
• cultural identity
• mass media
• appropriation art
• racial identity
• collective history
• color photography
• american
• born 1976
• california college of the arts alumni
• contemporary artist
• conceptual artist
• african-american photographers