Hank Willis Thomas
We The People
Van Every / Smith Galleries
On View: October 10, 2025— February 02, 2026
Related Programs & Events
Artist Lecture: Hank Willis Thomas
October 23, 2025, 7:30 pm—8:30 pm
Dedication for "With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited"
October 23, 2025, 4:00 pm—5:00 pm
Located near Elm and Oak Row Musical Prelude begins at 3:30 p.m.
This exhibition presents a selection of diverse works in various media by Hank Willis Thomas, offering a deeper look into the artist’s explorations of identity, history, and collective memory. Presented in conjunction with the dedication of With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited, the exhibition invites reflection on the ways Thomas’s broader practice connects to the themes embodied in the memorial.
Thomas (b. 1976 Plainfield, NJ) is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including the International Center of Photography, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Musée du quai Branly, Hong Kong Arts Centre, and the 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 & 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), The 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 the 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 around 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 has received honorary doctorates from MassArt, MA (2025), CCA (2024), the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD (2017), and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME (2017).
Take a virtual exhibition tour here
