Despite the deluge of online memes, reactions on the ground were mostly positive, but some think the work lacks context.
Hank Willis Thomas
Posted inNews
A New MLK Sculpture Draws Mixed Reactions
Some are praising Hank Willis Thomas’s artwork depicting MLK and Coretta Scott King’s embrace, but others question the design.
Posted inArt
Hank Willis Thomas Memorializes MLK and Coretta Scott King’s Love
The sculptural tribute was installed in a Boston park, the city where the couple first met.
Posted inArt
Hank Willis Thomas Gives an Infamous Modern Art Diagram a Postcolonial Update
The conceptual artist provides a much needed update to Alfred J. Barr, Jr’s well-known chart.
Posted inArt
Hank Willis Thomas on Black Survival Guide and Creative Civic Action
Thomas and fellow artist Ebony Brown talk about interdependence and How to Live Through a Police Riot, an archival handbook that inspired his 2018 series.
Posted inArt
Hank Willis Thomas Opens Up Space for Interpretation, Which Is Sometimes Risky
When we have more opportunity to interact with art on our own terms, there are more places to hide from its difficult truths, particularly viewers who have the privilege to do so.
Posted inArt
When the Arts Resist Imperialism
The exhibition Clapping with Stones is a chilling reminder that the history of art is also the history of power.
Posted inIn Brief
Studio Museum in Harlem and DC Arts High School Receive Historic Gift of Over 650 Contemporary Works
The late civil rights activist and Black arts patron Peggy Cooper Cafritz has bestowed the “largest gift ever made of contemporary art by artists of African descent” to the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
Posted inIn Brief
Hank Willis Thomas and Yinka Shonibare Among Artists Proposing Major MLK Jr. Monument on Boston Common
Barbara Chase-Riboud, David Adjaye, Hank Willis Thomas, Yinka Shonibare, and Wodiczko are among the finalists of the monumental project.
Posted inArt
The Guggenheim Calls for Greater Civility in Public Discourse While Avoiding Its Own Problems
The Guggenheim Museum’s two days of talks for its “Culture and Its Discontents” event resembled, at its best points, a mediocre rendition of Kum ba yah.
Posted inSponsored
Pratt Presents a Conversation on Creativity and Identity with Questlove and Hank Willis Thomas
Moderated by Ben Greenman, this free event will be hosted at Pratt Institute on Tuesday, May 1, at 7:30pm.
Posted inNews
Barbara Kruger, Yoko Ono, and Other Artists Create Covers for New York Magazine
As the magazine enters its 50th year, it is commissioning 50 New York artists to create cover designs, including Marilyn Minter, Mel Bochner, and more.