On view through Sun 3/9
By Hollie Gibbs
Sports teams trading African Americans like commodities, moved from the cotton field to the football field.
Advertisers putting the black body on display, dehumanized like a lynching.
Young boys raised in a culture of violence.
Media shaping our perceptions and racial views.
Slavery and turbulent racial issues woven into the fabric of American history and left undeciphered like a slave quilt code.
Hank Willis Thomas examines these concepts in the current show on display simultaneously at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Transformer Station through Sun 3/9.
The thought provoking 37-year-old artist uses photography, video, installation and other mediums to delve into these intricate social issues and forces viewers to examine themselves. It is Thomas’s largest museum show to date and his first in Northeast Ohio. It features both individually authored works and collaborations produced between 2003 and 2013.
“His works encourage us to look at our nation’s history from a new vantage point and to question the definitions and usefulness of the racial boundaries between black and white America,” Dr. Barbara Tannenbaum, curator of photography at CMA, explained. “Leavened with humor, wit, and visual inventiveness, these serious societal issues become accessible and engaging in his work.”
While CMA’s photography gallery hosts all 82 works in Thomas’s first major series, Unbranded: Reflections in Black Corporate America, 1968–2008, the Transformer Station has displayed a five-screen video installation dialogue, Question Bridge: Black Males; Winter in America, a stop-action animation video with G.I. Joe figures involved in a robbery/murder; and selections from Thomas’s various series including a number of works that require visitor participation.
“Hank Willis Thomas is the perfect show to have at both the museum and the Transformer Station because some of the art in it asks whether boundaries are meaningful or meaningless or something in between,” Tannenbaum said. “Cleveland has an historic division between the East Side, where the museum is located, and the West Side, where the Transformer Station is, that has very little meaning anymore and is finally beginning to break down. Also, the experiences at the two spaces are very different.”
She said the show has been extremely well received so far.
“There has been extraordinary enthusiasm from the community ranging from fabulous comments and visitors spending a long time in the shows’ two parts to financial support from a wide number of sponsors,” she said. She added that there has been “avid interest in participating in the related events, especially the Truth Booth and the Blueprint Roundtables, both of which occur out in the community.”
More than a stagnant exhibit, the show aims to open dialogue throughout the community. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask the artist questions when he appears at CMA in person Sat 2/1. Question Bridge: Blueprint Roundtables will be held Sun 2/2 at Cleveland Museum of Art; Wed 2/26, at Cleveland Clinic; and Thu 3/6 at Friendly Inn Settlement House. Three community members will share their 10 minute impressions of the work at the Transformer Station Fri 2/7.
An interactive video recording booth in the shape of a cartoon speech bubble is traveling through the city in connection with the show. Viewers can record their opinion of what truth is, with selections appearing at the-truth-booth.blogspot.com. It has appeared at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Transformer Station, and is scheduled to visit Facing History New Tech High School Thu 2/6, The World Church Sat 2/22 – Sun 2/23, University Circle United Methodist Church Sun 3/2, and Sisters of Charity Central Promise Neighborhood Thu 3/6.
“Wherever the Truth Booth pops up, it draws a lot of attention,” Tannenbaum said. “It is huge, funny, serious and interactive, all at the same time.”
Identify identity and discover your own truth at Hank Willis Thomas at CMA photography gallery and the Transformer Station through Sun 3/9.
• Artist in Person Sat 2/1 at 2pm. CMA Recital Hall, $15. Admission is free to CMA members and students, but reservations are highly recommended.
• Question Bridge: Blueprint Roundtables Sun 2/2 at 2pm at Cleveland Museum of Art; Wed 2/26, 11:30 a.m. at Cleveland Clinic; and Thu 3/6, 6 p.m. at Friendly Inn Settlement House.
• Flash Perspectives: Hank Willis Thomas. Thu 2/6, 7 p.m. at the Transformer Station
For more information, visit: clevelandart.org or transformerstation.org
[Pictured, top: Absolut Power, 2003. Hank Willis Thomas (American, b. 1976). Inkjet print on canvas; Paper : 101.6 x 76.2 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2012.58 ©Hank Willis Thomas]
[Pictured, below: Strange Fruit, 2011. Hank Willis Thomas (American, b. 1976). Digital chromogenic print, Lambda; Paper: 152.4 x 72.4 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2012.61 ©Hank Willis Thomas]
Hollie Gibbs has a BS in journalism from Kent State University and studied photography at School of the Visual Arts in Manhattan. Her articles and photographs have appeared in numerous local and national publications. She can also be found playing guitar with various bands and building life-size monster props.
Cleveland, OH 44106
Cleveland, OH 44113
2 Responses to “Beyond Black and White: The Works of Hank Willis Thomas @ClevelandArt @TransformerStat”
Jayson Jordan
This looks like nothing more than black grievance porn in a variety of mediums, which is of course all the rage, hence ‘Twelve Years a Slave’ and ‘The Butler’. For someone to somehow compare slavery and professional sports is at the height of absurdity. It is those afflicted with white liberal guilt that will welcome this with open arms.
Sarah
Wait are the flash talks on Fri or Thurs – you have two different dates up there. 2/6 or 2/7?