Biographies
Hank Willis Thomas
Born in Plainfield, NJ, 1976
Hank Willis Thomas is a New York based photo conceptual artist working with themes related to identity, history and popular culture.
Thomas received his BFA in photography from New York University’s Tisch School of Arts and both an MFA in photography and MA in visual criticism from the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. His work has been featured in solo or two person exhibitions including those at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA; and the African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA. His work has also been featured in select group exhibitions at Wattis Institute, San Francisco, CA; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt ,Germany; 12th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; PS1, Queens, NY; Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY; The Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; ICP, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Art, Houston, TX; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Smithsonian National Museum, Washington, DC; Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland; and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, among others.
He has had residencies and fellowships including those at the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago, IL; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France; W. E. B. DuBois Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; Renew Media (Rockefeller Foundation), New York, NY; Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY; and Light Work, Syracuse, NY. Thomas’s work has been featured in many publications including ARTnews, Artforum, Art in America, Aperture, Ebony Magazine, LA Times, and New York Times. His work can be found in public and private collections across the country including the collections of Haverford College, Haverford, PA; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; International Center of Photography, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. He is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY.
Kalia Brooks
Born in Philadelphia, PA 1979
Kalia Brooks is a New York based writer, curator, and educator who teaches in the Photography and Imaging Department at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Brooks is presently a PhD candidate in Aesthetics and Art Theory at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME. Previously she received an MA in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco and a BA in Sociology and Geography from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad including exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), Brooklyn, NY; Building 110: Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Art Center on Governor’s Island, NY; The Barbara Walters Gallery, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY; Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY; Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY; California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA; and SuperDeluxe and Arts Initiative Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
She has lectured extensively in public talks and symposia at the College Arts Association national conference; Society of Photographic Education national conference; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD; New York University, New York, NY; La Sorbonne, Paris, France; La Bellevilloise Culture Center, Paris, France; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Brooks has written and served as photo editor for publications including Art South Africa Magazine; Exposure, The Journal for the Society of Photographic Education; Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, W.W. Norton; Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs, Harper Collins; The Light Work Annual, Light Work; and Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present, W.W. Norton. She is currently the Curatorial Fellow with A Blade of Grass in New York, NY.
Acknowledgements
Kalia Brooks
Sincere thanks go to the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City and the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York for their help in making this exhibition possible. The curator extends her gratitude to the staff of the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities particularly Exhibitions Coordinator Matthew Seamus Callinan, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery Managers Aubree Penney and Michael Rushmore, and Postdoctoral Fellow in Visual Studies John Muse. Additional thanks to the staff of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Jeremiah Misfeldt and the Equivocal crew, and to Haverford College’s Business, Central Receiving, Communications, Dining Services, Facilities, Housekeeping, Library and Purchasing Departments.
Hank Willis Thomas
Sincere thanks go to Kalia Brooks for curating the exhibition, Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City and the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York for their assistance. The artist extends his gratitude to Professors John Muse and William Earle Williams, Exhibitions Coordinator Matthew Seamus Callinan, and the staff of both the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities and the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College for their support of his work. Finally, special thanks to Natasha Logan for her continued support.
OPP: Other People’s Property is made possible with the support of the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities and the Mellon Tri-College Creative Residencies Program. haverford.edu/hcah
Portraits of Hank Willis Thomas and Kalia Brooks: Hank Willis Thomas.