Aperture is pleased to release this limited-edition box set by Hank Willis Thomas in celebration of the publication All Things Being Equal. The set features a special limited-edition book with a retro-reflective cover distinct from the trade edition, and limited-edition photograph It's More You, 2012 from the Fair Warning series. Here, the artist focuses on cigarette advertisements of the 1960s through the 1980s, removing only the cigarettes from each image to draw attention to the use of glamour, pleasure, and sex appeal as the primary visual signifiers deployed to sell the product. Both book and print are presented in a beautifully designed and titled black cloth slip-case.

All Things Being Equal was the subject of a major exhibition at The Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, in October 2019.

Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal presents a survey of the artist’s prolific and extraordinary interdisciplinary career, with a particular focus on the work’s relationship to the photographic image and to issues of representation and perception. At the core of Hank Willis Thomas’s practice is his ability to parse and critically dissect the flow of images that comprise American culture, with particular attention to race, gender, and cultural identity. Other powerful themes include the commodification of identity through popular media, sports, and advertising. Since his first publication, Pitch Blackness (2008), Thomas has established himself as a significant voice in contemporary art, equally at home with collaborative, trans-media projects such as Question Bridge, Philly Block, and For Freedoms, as he is with high-profile, international solo exhibitions. This extensive presentation of his work contextualizes the material with incisive essays from Portland Art Museum curators Julia Dolan and Sara Krajewski and art historian Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, and an in-depth interview between art historian Kellie Jones and the artist that elaborates on Thomas’s influences and inspirations.

Courtesy of Aperture