SAN FRANCISCO
Borrowing its title from James Baldwin's1985 essay on the Atlanta Child Murders of 1979-81, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, this solo exhibition plays with notions of presence and absence, sound and silence, and visibility and invisibility in the work of Hank Willis Thomas. Through his installations, photography, videos, and media works, Hank Willis Thomas uses images and themes from advertising and pop-culture to expose their reinforcement of generalizations surrounding gender, race and ethnicity. In his legibly present, but audibly absent text-based works, 'voices' are disembodied or silent, but their narratives and images reveal a hauntingly voluble history of resistance. Similarly, where figures are visually present, words are absent, suggesting a tension between when, how, why, and who society enables to speak. Including recent installations that incorporate the literal echo of pioneers of racial equality—like Baldwin and Nelson Mandela—the artworks comprising the 'evidence' foreground the complexities of how visibility and invisibility is inexorably attached to identity.
Film Series curated by Hank Willis Thomas - dates and times TBA
Alongside the exhibition, Hank Willis Thomas has curated a selection of films that have been highly influential to his practice and specifically the works included in the exhibition. In partnership with The Roxie Theater, Kadist presents a selection of these films to be screened throughout the course of the exhibition's run. More details on the films, screening times and locations to come soon. Check our website and The Roxie for the latest info.