About the work
Hank Willis Thomas’s All Power to All People (bronze) is a provocative artwork combining the Afro pick and the Black Power salute, both icons of Black identity and empowerment. When Thomas conceived of a monumental Afro pick with a raised fist, he wanted to make an object that spoke specifically to African Americans, illustrative of the artist’s long-standing investigation into public art’s role in shaping collective discourse and societal values.
During the 20th century, Afro combs started to take on a definite cultural and political meaning. The ‘black fist’ was added to the bottom of many Afro combs in reference to the Black Power salute that emerged during the 1960s civil rights movement. In addition to using them as a styling tool, many Black men and women wore the picks in their Afros to express their cultural pride.
The Afro pick exists today as many things to different people: it is representative not only of an era but a sound and a counterculture. It is a uniting motif worn as adornment, an apolitical emblem and a signature of collective identity. Willis Thomas recalls the scale of pop artist Claes Oldenburg’s monumental everyday objects, such as Clothespin (1976) and Paint Torch (2011), while marking the lack of commemorative statues that address equal justice and belonging.
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About the artist
Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, New Jersey, USA) is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media and popular culture. Collective projects such as ‘For Freedoms’ extend his thematic interrogations and emphasis on social justice. Founded in 2016 by Thomas and other artists, academics and organisations, this artist-led initiative centres art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation.
Thomas has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including at the International Center of Photography, New York; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; Musée du quai Branly, Paris; Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Netherlands.
Thomas’s work is included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Biennial, 2000; the Venice Biennales of 1999, 2005 and 2007 and DesertX, 2021. In 2022/3 Amer had her retrospective ‘A Woman’s Voice Is Revolution’ at MUCEM in Marseille
For more information, please visit the gallery website: Goodman Gallery and Pace Gallery
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