Viewpoints @ 29th Street

Beyond Truth | Hank Willis Thomas
Moderated by Andria Hickey, curator of Hank Willis Thomas: The Truth Is I See You

In partnership with The Armory Show VIP program, The Watermill Center invites the public to join us for Beyond Truth | Hank Willis Thomas. This presentation and conversation will celebrate the creative catalogue of Hank Willis Thomas, one of America’s most dynamic and evocative contemporary conceptual artists. Focusing on his work in South Africa, Thomas will discuss his connection to history, identity, commercial iconography, and more.

*Housed in the 29th Street New York City loft of Robert Wilson, Viewpoints @ 29th Street is a conversation series aimed to create intimate opportunities for artists and art enthusiasts to gather and discuss creative themes vital to the historical record of the contemporary moment. Advanced reservations are encouraged due to limited seating capacity.

Hank Willis Thomas is a photo conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. He received a BFA in Photography and Africana studies from New York University and his MFA/MA in Photography and Visual Criticism from the California College of Arts. Thomas’ monograph, Pitch Blackness, was published by Aperture. He has exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad including, the International Center of Photography, the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, and Galerie Michel Rein in Paris, among others. Thomas’ work is in numerous public collections including The Museum of Modern Art New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The High Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. His collaborative projects have been featured at the Sundance Film Festival and installed permanently at the Oakland International Airport, The Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, The Oakland Museum of California, and the University of California, San Francisco. He is also and a recipient of the New Media grant from Tribeca Film Institute and New Media Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for his transmedia project, Question Bridge: Black Males. Recent notable exhibitions include Hank Willis Thomas at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Repetition and Difference at the Jewish Museum in New York, Public Art Fund’s Image-Objects in City Hall Park in New York, and Primary Sources at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University. He was recently appointed to the Public Design Commission for the city of New York. Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City and Goodman Gallery in South Africa.

Andria Hickey is curator of the Public Art Fund’s exhibition Hank Willis Thomas: The Truth is I See You at MetroTech Commons in Downtown Brooklyn, on view until June 3, 2016. Since 2011, Hickey has curated projects with the Public Art Fund throughout New York City with artists such as Fischli Weiss, Danh Vo, Katharina Grosse, Olaf Breuning, Oscar Tuazon, and Sam Falls as well as group exhibitions Image Objects; Configurations: Valerie Blass, Katinka Bock, Esther Klas and Allyson Vieira; Lightness of Being; and A Promise Is a Cloud. Previously, Hickey was the Curator at Art in General and Curatorial Fellow in Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. While at the Walker, she collaborated on exhibitions including The Quick and the Dead (2008), Haegue Yang: Integrity of the Insider (2009), and Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers (2010), among others. Her written work has been published in a wide variety of journals and exhibition catalogues.

Click here to make a reservation (required).