Hank WillisThomas

Hank Willis Thomas describes himself as “a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture.” He works in photography, bronze and steel, textiles, video installations, and more media than I know how to describe.

He looks at racial profiling, gun violence, internalized racism, materialism, and the ways white capitalism destroys Black lives. His show at the Portland Art Museum opened October 12, and it is profound, furious, tender, wise. It includes a five-screen video featuring James Baldwin and Angela Davis, and I spent the afternoon taking in the massive exhibit that covers two floors and the atrium of the museum. The photograph used in the takeoff on a Mastercard ad was made at his cousin’s funeral in 2000. His cousin was his roommate and closest friend, and he was killed by someone who wanted a gold chain. He writes, “My cousin’s life was taken over a petty commodity that he wasn’t even wearing—he just happened to be next to the guy with the chain.”

The name of the installation in the Extra is 14,719 (2018). A card near the entry reads as follows:

“Suspended in a double circle rising thirty feet above the floor, sixteen banners contain 14,719 stars. Each star represents a person shot and killed by someone else in the United States in 2018.

“Thomas explains, ‘While this installation is a memorial to the thousands of people who were killed by guns in 2018, it also pays homage to the countless loved ones who carry perpetual grief and trauma as unacknowledged victims of gun violence in America.’”