'Everything We See Hides Another Thing' by Hank Willis Thomas at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

"Everything we see conceals something else, and we are constantly curious about what is concealed. There is curiosity in what is concealed and which the visible cannot reveal. This fascination might take the shape of an intense fight, one would say, between the visible that is there and the visible that is concealed. ― René Magritte

Jack Shainman Gallery is proud to offer Everything We See Hides Another Thing by Hank Willis Thomas in both Chelsea venues. Comprised of large-scale sculptures, mixed-media textile pieces, and retroreflective prints, this show of new work by Thomas continues his investigation of colour theory, gestures of unity and power, and the many perspectives we might take on a certain historical period or topic.

Hank Willis ThomasEverything We See Hides Another Thing513 West 20th Street & 524 West 24th StreetSeptember 8 – October 29, 2022

Opening reception Thursday, September 8, 6–8pm

Hank Willis Thomas's Large-Scale Sculptures, Mixed-Media Textile Works, and Retroreflective Prints at Jack Shainman Gallery

Thomas' retroreflective works demonstrate an interest in the repetition of mass-produced iconography and a focus on the artist's hand, alluding to the work of Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Thomas, a trained photographer, has always emphasised composition and context, and he often combines archive pictures with new or uncommon technological procedures. To observe a moment in its entirety, viewers are urged to change their posture or use a tool. By activating his retroreflective work with a flash shot, for instance, the spectator exposes the latent image and assumes the role of image creator. Formally and thematically, the pieces reflect many perspectives on a particular historical event or topic.

Thomas derives aesthetic inspiration for his most recent retroreflective works from the works of painters Ellsworth Kelly and Roy Lichtenstein, who explored colour, shadow, perception, and popular culture, as well as television test patterns and colour bar combinations. Thomas, interested in a conceptual investigation of colour theory, overlays each composition with historical times of demonstrations and protesters to remark on what is left in and out of the frame, as well as the aesthetic information that can be gleaned from isolating elements of a picture. Thomas makes Magritte's idea of "a kind of tension [...] between the visible that is concealed and the visible that is there" experiential by hiding portions of the picture and forcing the spectator to uncover them.

As Thomas continues to investigate what it means to be "American," he has started to consider nation states as creative partnerships and artists as the best problem-solvers. The exhibition's sculptures with a concentration on gestures allude to short, tense moments in which we remain together despite external forces' attempts to drive us apart. In the artist's punctum series, which was inspired by Roland Barthes' photographic theory of punctum, which refers to an image detail that pierces or lingers on the viewer's mind, Thomas uses sculpture to memorialise significant moments by isolating gestures and examining their capacity to communicate ideas about individual and collective identity, ambition, perseverance, unity, and community.

When conceiving about a monumental memorial to honour Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, Thomas focused on the King legacy and one image—one concept—emerged as the most prominent: embrace. On several times, the country saw the Kings embrace in the head of a march. A monument that depicts this action proclaims that love is the most powerful weapon against injustice. In invoking the love shared by the Kings, their devotion to each other, their community, and their nation, The Embrace focuses on what we have in common rather than what makes us unique. This monument flips the focus from solitary hero worship to community action by emphasising the act of embracing. In this exhibition, visitors will be able to see a miniature replica of the monumental public sculpture that will be presented in January 2023 in Boston Commons.

In keeping with the notion of remembrance, Thomas has continued his Falling Stars series of embroidered star flags. Each star symbolises a life lost to gun violence in the United States in 2018, 2019, and 2021: 14,916, 15,433, and 20,021 respectively. Gun violence is an ongoing problem in the United States, and a personal one for many citizens. Thomas was affected by the 2000 murder of his closest friend and cousin, Songha Willis, in Philadelphia. The grimmest reality after Songha's murder was that it was not an isolated incident in this nation. Thomas said in 2018: "Since my family lost Songha, there have been over 500,000 persons [shot to death] in the United States. The scale and effect of this social loss are incalculable. While this artwork is a tribute to the tens of thousands of victims of gun violence in the United States, it also honours the innumerable loved ones who continue to bear loss and pain in silence."

Through March 2023, The Gun Violence Memorial Project is on display at The National Building Museum in Washington, DC, as an homage to the thousands of lives lost to gun violence in the United States. Thomas and MASS Design Group, in collaboration with gun violence prevention groups Purpose Over Pain and Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, conceived the idea.

In addition, Another Justice: US is Them, a group show including and co-curated by Thomas, is on display at the Parrish Museum in Water Mill, New York, until November 6, 2022. This exhibition is produced by the artist and For Freedoms, the collective he co-founded in 2016. This exhibition has been influenced by their current programme, A Citizens' Guide to Healing.

On the historic Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York, Hank Willis Thomas and his mother and scholar, Dr. Deborah Willis, will unveil a large-scale collaborative artwork this autumn. The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship (Remember me) features found text from an 1866 postcard discovered by Thomas at the Amistad Center for Art and Culture at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Connecticut, along with images from Willis' research and book of the same name. The Church of Heavenly Rest, created in 1865 by American Civil War veterans, was intended as a monument to troops who had fallen in the American Civil War, and the artwork celebrates them as well as the many others who actively contribute to society but are never honoured.

Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist who focuses mostly on perspectives, identities, commodities, the media, and popular culture. The International Center of Photography in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Hong Kong, and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in the Netherlands have all shown his work. The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., all have works by Thomas. Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), and For Freedoms, which won the 2017 ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform, are among his joint works. In 2012, Question Bridge: Black Males premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Tribeca Film Institute's New Media Grant. Thomas has also received the Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), and the Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), and he has served on the New York City Public Design Commission. Thomas earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University and a Master of Arts/Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts. In 2017, he was awarded honorary degrees from the Maryland Institute of Art and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.

Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm. For press inquiries please contact Carolina Adams, Sutton, carolina@suttoncomms.com, +1 212 202 3402. For other inquiries please contact the gallery at info@jackshainman.com.