“Black Power is 100 Years Old” by Hank Willis Thomas

`69 was a hot year. Race riots, Vietnam looming, Woodstock. All kinds of energy bounced around and people voiced their prejudices almost as openly as their higher convictions. In the Moma show now open at PS1, curator Neville Wakefield brings together noted artists from the Sixties — big names like sculptor Richard Serra and painter Robert Rauschenberg — with younger artists, like Hank Willis Thomas, whose work is pictured here. Willis Thomas lifted images from popular black magazines like Ebony and Jet and superimposed them with vinyl on windows. Take for example, the headline above “Scandalously Good,” with Jackie O, former first lady and a socialite with a smiling James Earl Jones. It may seem pedestrian now, but so do a lot of other things in this telling expo, an open refrigerator with a television set and a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda inside. A lady cleaning her drapes to pull back an image of Vietnam fighters. The weekend opening party drew art loving fans like R.E.M’s Michael Stipe and actor James Franco. The exhibit is all incredibly eerie. We’ve come a long way baby! On view through April, 2010 CLICK: 302

Hank Willis Thomas