Future generations learn a lot about the past through the art that survives, conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas said at a virtual event on Thursday. Yet, Thomas said, the rest of society sees artwork as trivial.
“There are not enough creative people involved in the designing of our society,” Thomas said. “It’s no wonder that we’re stuck with the same old problems when we don’t actually think that there is a place for creativity in civic life.”
At the virtual event, “Alison Saar and Hank Willis Thomas in Conversation with Hamza Walker,” the three artists discussed a whole range of topics — from their latest TV show binges to the themes in Saar and Thomas’ art. The conversation flowed casually, aided by the informal setting that Zoom provides. Walker led the conversation, a messy bookshelf in his background.
For the first half-hour or so of the conversation, Walker, director of the Los Angeles nonprofit art space LAXART, asked questions such as “What’s on you guys’ minds?” to informally check in with the artists. Saar, a sculpture and print artist, expressed concern over the new voting laws in Georgia. Walker talked about the confederate monuments coming down, and Thomas mentioned the land acknowledgments universities and museums are making to show respect for Indigenous people as the original occupants of the American land.
“I’m curious how long that goes on until we go to the next step,” Thomas said. “And none of us really knows what the next step is. But it definitely starts with an R and ends with an S.”
“Reparations,” Saar whispered, followed by laughter from the three artists.
After Walker’s series of check-in questions, he shared a brief presentation which opened with a screenshot of a Warner Bros. disclaimer.
“The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time,” the screenshot read. “They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society.”
The disclaimer goes on to state that those depictions were, and still are, wrong. They are being shown because “to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”
Walker then showed a series of cartoon images of characters in Black face. He followed these images with pictures of some of Saar’s work. One piece shows a tall, carved figure with strings attached to each of their appendages, leading to the four corners of the gallery. The figure’s face and body are painted in black tar. As Walker noted, it represents a larger version of the dancing minstrel toys made in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. These toys were examples of racist caricatures. Saar’s work engages with and subverts that racist imagery, Walker said.
“When I created that puppet, it was the idea that the viewer was stepping into those shoes and manipulating them,” Saar said. “To realize how complicit we all are in all of these things, unless we are actively trying to dismantle them.”
This piece, in particular, insists that the viewer consider their responsibility in society and the legacy of institutional racism, Saar said.
Walker mentioned that both Saar and Thomas grew up with no distinction between art and politics because of the legacies of their mothers, who were both artists. Yet neither Saar nor Thomas originally saw themselves as artists.
The conversation ended with a question from a viewer, asking for advice for young Black artists. The three speakers agreed that the most important thing is to work as a community. Saar talked about the power in coming together and supporting each other.
This event was put on in connection with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art gallery show, “LOOK. Listen. Learn. Act.” The gallery expands on themes from the UO’s 2020-21 Common Reading, “This is My America,” a novel by UO Assistant Vice Provost for Advising, Kimberly Johnson.The virtual tour of the exhibit is available until June.
