Hank Willis Thomas

Negroes to be Sold

Maker

Hank Willis Thomas (American, b. 1976)
Kandace Fields, printer

Title

Negroes to be Sold

Year

2009

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Dimensions

Sheet: 76.6 x 57.8 cm (30 3/16 x 22 3/4 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Inscribed in graphite, recto LL: A/P 3/3; LR: H 09

Identification

State

AP 3/3

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of the Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Object Number

2014.66.41

Type

Exhibition History

The Phantom of Liberty
Contemporary Works in the RISD Museum Collection
May 04, 2018 – Dec 30, 2018

Label copy

Black bodies were spectacles in slave markets and on lynching trees and whipping posts. They are spectacles in the NCAA, NBA, NFL drafts, and combines. Their ancestors may have worked the cotton and tobacco fields that later became football fields. Their ancestors may have been lynched.

I am really trying to draw people out to talk about these very likely possibilities, so that we can think more critically about the present moment. Exploitation is what our country was founded on. It’s the American way. We should be more upfront about it. The NCAA is a multi-billion-dollar business built primarily off of the free labor of descendents of slaves. What a bargain! -Hank Willis Thomas

Image use

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In copyright This object is in copyright

Tombstone

Hank Willis Thomas (American, b. 1976)
Kandace Fields, printer
Negroes to be Sold, 2009
Laser-cut relief print on paper
Sheet: 76.6 x 57.8 cm (30 3/16 x 22 3/4 inches)
Gift of the Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2014.66.41

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