Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool

with Artist Barkley L. Hendricks, Art Historian Richard J. Powell, Curator Trevor Schoonmaker.

Lunch and Lecture: African American Art in the NC Museum of Art Collection

Lunch and Lecture: African American Art in the NCMA Collection

Friday, April 1 | 11 am
East Building, Museum Auditorium
$20 Members
$25 Nonmembers

Richard J. Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University, draws on his curatorial experience and extensive research to chat about African American art and culture in the NCMA collection. Powell has written on topics ranging from primitivism to postmodernism, and his insights offer opportunities to reflect on work by African American artists and to place their work within the context of the broader Museum collection.

Discussion continues over a lunch catered by Iris, the Museum Restaurant. To register, for more information, or for special dietary requests, call (919) 664-6785. Registration and payment required by 4 pm on Wednesday, March 30.

Hank Willis Thomas: HOPE & QUESTIONS BRIDGE Exhibit Opens at Duke

January 21 – March 4, 2011
Hank Willis Thomas: Hope and Question Bridge

John Hope Franklin Center and Franklin Humanities Institute
Curated by Diego Cortez

--

Hope Exhibition Opening Reception
Thursday, January 20, 7-9 pm, John Hope Franklin Center Gallery (2204 Erwin Rd.)

Left of Black: Mark Anthony Neal Interviews Hank Willis Thomas
Friday, January 21, 12:00 PM, John Hope Franklin Center (2204 Erwin Rd.)

Question Bridge Opening Reception
& Artist's Talk with Introduction by Richard J. Powell
Friday, January 21, 5:30 PM, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (Smith Warehouse, 114 S. Buchanan Blvd.)

--

The John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies and FHI will present a collaborative, multi-site exhibition of new and recent works by contemporary visual artist and photographer Hank Willis Thomas.

On view at the Franklin Center Gallery will be the exhibition Hope, a survey show of seven major large-scale photographic works by the artist. On view at the FHI will be Thomas’ collaborative video project which is a work-in-progress Question Bridge: Black Male, which features a question-and-answer dialogue between the diverse members of the U.S. Black Male population, including those from New Orleans, using video as the medium to bridge the various economic, political, social, geographic, and generational divides between Black Males. A second work on view tethered above the FHI will be a large, specially fabricated helium balloon that will be flown above Smith Warehouse for the duration of the exhibition.

Hank Willis Thomas is a contemporary African American visual artist and photographer whose primary interests are race, advertising and popular culture. He is the winner of the first ever Aperture West Book Prize for his monograph Pitch Blackness (November, 2008). His work was featured in the 30 Americans exhibition at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami as well as in the exhibition and accompanying catalog, 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming Photographers. He has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the Studio Museum in Harlem; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Jamaica, New York; Artists Space, New York; Leica Gallery, New York; Texas Woman’s University; Oakland Museum of California; Smithsonian; Anacostia Museum, Washington, DC; Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at NYU; National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, High Museum, Atlanta, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.

Hank Willis Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. Extensive information on his work can be found at http://hankwillisthomas.com. Diego Cortez is an independent curator based in New York. More information can be found at http://www.lostobject.org.