The Jack Shainman Gallery
in Chelsea is currently presenting a collection of work by Hank Willis Thomas
for the exhibition Unbranded: A Century
of White Women, 1915—2015. For his fifth solo show at the gallery, Thomas
unveils 101 photographs relating to different generations of white women and
how they’ve portrayed in popular culture over the past century. Thomas chooses
images that represent each individual year between 1915 and 2015 where explores
notions of virtue, power, beauty, privilege, and desire that many of these
women possess.
One of the earliest images
in this show No Anxious Moments
(1918) perfectly captures the charm of mother and child bonding as it
illustrates a woman in her kitchen kneeling down in front of her oven to take
out a tray of muffins as her young daughter stands next to her beaming with her
rosy cheeks and wearing a long apron. The girl very much resembles the iconic
Little Debbie, the namesake of brand of desserts whose products include
cupcakes and brownies.
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| "No Anxious Moments" (1918) |
Similarly, Give Your Daughter a Daughter (1971)
also highlights notions family bonding as it depicts three generations of
women. A woman sits in a large wicker chair as her young daughter with pigtail
braids sits on her lap as a baby doll with curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and
wearing a light pink dress sits on the child’s lap.
Another theme that’s
examined in the show is that of women being allowed to embrace their sexuality.
The Taming of the Shrewd (1966)
symbolizes the suppression of desires features a beautiful blonde woman wearing
a leopard skin swimsuit trapped inside a cage in a jungle as though she were an
actual live animal being locked up as her male companion leans his back against
the cage and looking over his shoulder in amusement. On the other hand, The Natives Will Get Restless (1976)
depicts a woman swinging on a rope in the jungle, wearing a bikini, as though
she’s finally breaking free from societal constraints.
The
most recent image in the show Just As Our
Forefathers Intended, (2015) pays homage to Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s
iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware painting
with two groups of women standing on a wooden board in the place of George
Washington’s army as they make their journey across the Delaware River. The
first group of women are standing in front of a red flatbed truck pulling
another group of women piled onto a boat.
At the Jack Shainman Gallery, 524
W. 24th St., and 513 W. 20th St., through May 23. The gallery is open Tuesdays
through Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
