Hank Willis Thomas: Visionary
Delusions excavates the theme of Still
Revolution, bringing into focus the
way photography has distorted Black
American culture and fuelled the corporate
propagation of a false utopia.
The exhibition showcases, for the first
time in Canada, Thomas’ most signifi-
cant bodies of recent work B®ANDED
and Unbranded: Reflections in Black by
Corporate America.

Sourced from an evolving mass of
iconic images of corporate American
advertising, Thomas’ work explores the
genesis of the still image in the creation
of cultural identity. Advertising
and branding has disconnected the
public from cultural reality and has
produced a new visual vocabulary that
defines our relationship to objects.
Perhaps the concept that “the medium
is the message” has never been better
exemplified than in how advertising
and branding have shaped issues of
race, class and culture. These issues
are vividly brought to light in Thomas’
re-appropriation of the past 50 years of
corporate advertising depicting Black
Americans.

Thomas recently won the Aperture
West Book Prize, resulting in the
publication of his first monograph,
Pitch Blackness (2008), which will be
available during CONTACT.

Curated by Olivier Fuller