October 9, 2019
Page 7
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
All Things Being Equal
Artist explores discrimination in popular culture
Hank Willis Thomas
b everly C orbell
t he p ortland o bserver
A thought-provoking look at
how art can give a window into
how modern culture perpetuates
discrimination, titled “All Things
Being Equal” by African Amer-
ican artist Hank Willis Thomas,
will open Saturday, Oct. 12 at the
Portland Art Museum.
This is the first major retrospec-
tive of Thomas’ work, said Port-
land Art Museum spokesman Ian
Gillingham, and reflects the mu-
seum’s efforts to build equity with
its patrons, artists and exhibits.
“He looks at the language of
advertising and marketing and
branding in a way that decon-
structs American commercialism
to show how that language reflects
and perpetuates historical systems
of oppression,” Gillingham said.
Utilizing photographs, sculp-
tures, videos and other public art,
the exhibit is formulated to draw
out the role popular culture has in
instituting discrimination and how
art can raise awareness to the on-
by
“The Cotton Bowl” by multimedia artist Hank Willis Thomas from
his “All Things Being Equal” exhibit that opens Saturday, Oct. 12 at
the Portland Art Museum.
it that was inspired by the gunshot
murder of Thomas’ cousin, an
innocent bystander in a robbery
where another man was targeted
for his gold chain, Gillingham
said.
He described the new piece
as monumental, inspired by the
American flag but composed of
strips of textiles that go from floor
to ceiling in the museum’s en-
trance hall.
“On those strips are 14,719
stars, representing lives lost to gun
violence in 2018,” he said.
“Branded Head” one of the
Another work, a photo collage
thought-provoking artworks by
titled “The Cotton Bowl” inspires
African American multimedia
amusement as well as consterna-
artist Hank Willis Thomas. The
tion by displaying a football play-
Portland Art Museum presents
er at the line of scrimmage across
his “All Things Being Equal”
from a man in a straw hat picking
exhibit, opening at the Portland
cotton. More disturbing, and even
Art Museum on Oct. 12 and
more thought-provoking, is a pho-
running through Jan. 12.
to showing half of a black man’s
going struggles for social justice bald head with the Nike symbol
that looks like it’s formed of scar
and civil rights.
The human toll of gun violence, tissue.
for example, is reflected in a new
C ontinued on p age 12
piece commissioned for the exhib-
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