Ben Brown Fine Arts is proud to present Hank Willis Thomas¡¯s first solo exhibition in Asia,
My Life is Ours, at the Hong Kong gallery. This is Thomas¡¯s second solo exhibition with Ben Brown Fine Arts, following his critically acclaimed show,
The Beautiful Game, held at the London gallery in 2017. This exhibition will present a new series of Thomas¡¯s innovative retroreflective works, based on poignant photographic documentation of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the Hong Kong protests, also known as the Umbrella Revolution, of 2014. Whether working in photography, sculpture, installation, video or mixed media, this conceptual artist continually strives to examine issues of identity, race, intolerance and protest throughout history, asking his viewers to reflect upon the perpetuality and universality of these themes.
For this exhibition Thomas delved through myriad archival photographs of the Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong protests, ultimately selecting images that illuminate parallels between the two historic events that occurred 25 years apart and reveal personal narratives and moments of oppression and bravery that should not be forgotten. Also included in the exhibition is an image from the 1967 riots in Hong Kong and from a mass protest in New York City¡¯s Chinatown in 1975. These images were screen-printed onto retroreflective sheeting, the industrial material used to make road signs visible in the dark, and then layered with painterly brushstrokes. While slight elements of the imagery are visible to the naked eye, it is only when the works are illuminated by a beam of light that the full details and crushing impact of these historical photographs are revealed. The works must be activated by the viewer, whether using the torch on an iphone or taking a photograph with a flash, encouraging an engagement and personalized experience with each work of art. The works are constantly transforming depending on the variation of the light source and the angles and distance at which the works are viewed.
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