Hank Willis Thomas: A person is more important than anything else…

June 7 – September 14, 2025

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 7 from 7-10PM

A person is more important than anything else…, a five-channel video installation, is a profound social commentary created by artist Hank Willis Thomas. This compelling work, lasting 28.5 minutes, is driven by the powerful cadence and intonation of James Baldwin’s voice, weaving together audio, images, and video in a fluid-moving digital stream of consciousness. The installation connects Baldwin’s 20th-century discourse with the 21st-century issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality, inspiring viewers to re-imagine their relationship to the contemporary moment.

Thomas, known for his conceptual photography and social engagement, utilizes historical artifacts and appropriates American advertising and media strategies to challenge constructions of race and gender. His work extends beyond photography, incorporating elements from past social struggles, such as the Civil Rights Movement, police violence, and apartheid, transforming these records into primary sources that speak to today’s cultural conflicts. In this installation, Thomas offers compelling moments of agency and resistance, encouraging a deeper understanding of contemporary acts of protest and resistance mediated through the events of history.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and is a conceptual artist focusing primarily on themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including at the International Center of Photography, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Musée du quai Branly, Hong Kong Arts Centre, and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art.

His collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), The Writing on the Wall, The Gun Violence Memorial Project, and For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. Thomas was the 2022 U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts honoree from the Office of Art in Embassies, Washington, DC. Additionally, he is the recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), Aperture West Book Prize (2008), Renew Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (2007), and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2006). He is a former member of the Public Design Commission for the City of New York.

Thomas’s public art practice includes permanent artworks across the country, including The Embrace (2023) on the Boston Common in Boston, MA; REACH (2023), made in collaboration with Coby Kennedy, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, IL; Duality (2023) at The Underline in Miami, FL; and The Truth is I Love You at The Austin Public Library, Austin, TX. Additional permanent public artworks include Unity in Downtown Brooklyn, NY; Love Over Rules in San Francisco, CA; and All Power to All People in Opa Locka, FL.

Thomas holds a B.F.A. from New York University, New York, NY (1998), and an M.A./M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004). He received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME, in 2017.

The work in the exhibition is courtesy of the artist and PACE Gallery, New York and Los Angeles.