Hank Willis Thomas’s (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ) practice as a conceptual artist and activist focuses on themes relating to commodity, identity, media, and popular culture. Experimenting with mixed media and mass-produced imagery, Thomas’s practice includes photography, sculpture, installation, and more. He was trained in photography and employs both archival and contemporary imagery from popular culture to take on urgent questions: What is the role of art in civic life? How do advertising and visual culture create narratives that shape our notion of value in society?

This exhibition of 90 works covers 20 years (2002-22) of Thomas’s work and is drawn from the collection of the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation. The exhibition features some of the artist’s most iconic and well-known artworks across a range of media, investigating diverse themes. LOVERULES also highlights several important series, including Branded and Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America. In Branded, Thomas explores and re-contextualizes the history of brand advertising and sponsorship through the iconography of sport. In Unbranded, Thomas digitally removes advertising punchlines and logos, with both series thereby highlighting the consistently dehumanizing strategies of corporate media, the commodification of African-American identity, and how dominant cultural tropes shape notions of race and race relations.

Critical awareness, civic engagement, collaboration, and empathy are among the core invitations of Thomas’ work. Through the mining and reframing of iconic imagery and texts, Thomas connects historical moments of resistance to our lives today. With incisive clarity, he asks us to see and challenge systems of inequality while affirming our shared humanity to shape a better future.