"Pitch Blackness"Last Friday I attended Hank Willis Thomas talk in the city. I had only heard of his work from being in this class and was lost for words after his presentation. (I immediately googled him as much as possible)
What struck me most about Willis's work was his tactics on responding to commercial and capitalist marketing on the African American community. From being branded by logos like nike and rebok to images from jim crow era being reenacted in modern magazines as methods to sell a product to those communities. How these advertisements and images that we attach with products continues to perpetuate a social phenomenon of existing racism and dehumanization of people of color, especially the African American community.
I also appreciated his role as a photographer and his position of privilege (college educated, grad student etc.) to create dialogue with in those same privilege communities (galleries, other art schools) and stir up conversation so we can take an interdisciplinary framework of race, class, and gender, and look at art as a tool to create social change. As a visual artist, sculptor, and thought provoker, Willis has noted that racism is a central subject to examine, he also highlights and interrogates the social, political, and economic conditions, which shaped and created race in the first place. For example, he has used a personal tragedy and try to educate through his art of the existing parallels between marketing and violence (gang, police, etc.). How corporations target young black youth through sensationalizing gang life, hip-hop, and violence by constructing blackness through stereotypes. He connects this with how Africans were viewed during slavery.
Kudos and Thumbs up, I think i found a possible topic for a research paper through this lil-blog. hmmm, this shit is helpful
peace
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