Spotlight: Hank Willis Thomas

The FLAG Art Foundation's Spotlight exhibition series includes new or never-before-exhibited artworks accompanied by commissioned pieces of writing. It is the hope of this series to create focused and thoughtful dialogues between the visual arts and critics, scholars, poets, etc. In its fifth iteration, the Spotlight features Hank Willis Thomas and a text by Ashley James, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. **Hank Willis 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 globally, including The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR (2019), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2020); and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (2024), and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Thomas's public art practice spans permanent artworks, including _The Embrace_ (2023) in Boston, MA; _REACH_, (2023) in collaboration with Coby Kennedy, at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, IL; and _Duality_ (2023) at The Underline in Miami, FL. Select collaborative projects include _Question Bridge: Black Males_ and _For Freedoms_. Thomas was the 2022 U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts honoree from the Office of Art in Embassies, Washington DC. 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 received an honorary doctorate from the CCA in 2024 as well as honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME in 2017.