Not on view
Date
2018
Classification
Sculpture
Medium
Stainless steel
Dimensions
Overall: 32 3/4 × 32 1/4 × 7 1/4in. (83.2 × 81.9 × 18.4 cm)
Accession number
2019.324
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee
Rights and reproductions
© Hank Willis Thomas
Audio
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Hank Willis Thomas, Strike, 2018
In Inheritance (Spanish)
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Hank Willis Thomas, Strike, 2018
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Hank Willis Thomas: Me llamo Hank Willis Thomas.
La obra que forma parte de esta exposición se llama Strike. La escultura muestra un brazo sosteniendo un bastón de policía intentando golpear a otro brazo, que está tomando de la muñeca al brazo que ataca. La superficie es de acero inoxidable con un acabado tipo espejo, por lo que el espectador puede verse reflejado en la obra y apreciar distintos aspectos del fondo en un reflejo distorsionado como esos que vemos en los espejos de los parques de diversiones.
Si bien esta obra está inspirada en otra obra de hace casi cien años, también podría estar inspirada en un abanico de fotografías que se tomaron en los últimos setenta u ochenta años en una variedad de contextos, en distintas partes del mundo. Eso es parte de la razón por la que esta obra me parece tan poderosa.
El recorte era algo que había estado trabajando por un tiempo durante el cual me inspiró la noción de “punctum” de Roland Barthes, eso que te atraviesa cuando miras una fotografía, esa sensación que se imprime en ti. Hace más de una década que hago esculturas del punctum de distintas fotografías para que yo, como espectador, pudiera lograr una experiencia casi fenomenológica a partir de una imagen que antes era bidimensional.
Para crear la escultura, hicimos un escaneo 3D de dos modelos a quienes pusimos en posición y luego los escaneamos en un espacio tridimensional, que es básicamente hacer una fotografía tridimensional y luego fundirla y moldearla para crear una escultura. Con ese proceso de casi construir la escultura, ya sentía un fuerte interés por lo que se convertiría en una silueta icónica.
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Hank Willis Thomas, Strike, 2018
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Hank Willis Thomas: My name is Hank Willis Thomas.
The piece that I have in this exhibition is called Strike. It is depicting an arm with a police baton attempting to strike another arm, which is holding that arm by the wrist. It's mirror-polished stainless steel, so the viewer can see themself reflected in the work, and can also see different aspects of the background in almost a fun house mirror way.
While this work is inspired by a work from nearly a century ago, it could also just as easily be inspired by any number of photographs that have been taken over the past seventy or eighty years in various contexts, in various parts of the world. That's part of what I find to be powerful about it.
The cropping had been something I'd been doing for a while where I was inspired by Roland Barthes notion of the punctum, the thing that pierces you when you look at a photograph, the thing that sticks with you. I have been making sculptures for over a decade of the punctum of different photographs so that I as a viewer could get it almost like a phenomenological experience with what was previously a two-dimensional image.
To make the sculpture, we did a 3-D scan of two models and had them hold a position and then scan them in three-dimensional space, which is basically making a three-dimensional photograph and then had that cast and molded into a sculpture. That process of building it almost, I was definitely really interested in what would be the most iconic silhouette.
Exhibitions
Installation photography
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Installation view of Inheritance (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 28, 2023—February, 2024.). From left to right: Hank Willis Thomas, Strike, 2018; Carissa Rodriguez, Not Yet Titled (Red Curve), 2015; Lorraine O’Grady, Rivers, First Draft, 1982, printed 2015. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
From the exhibition Inheritance
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Installation view of Inheritance (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 28, 2023—February, 2024.). From left to right: Carissa Rodriguez, Not Yet Titled (Red Curve), 2015; Wade Guyton, Untitled Action Sculpture (Breuer), 2003; [in back] Lorraine O’Grady, Rivers, First Draft, 1982, printed 2015; Hank Willis Thomas, Strike, 2018; Joan Wallace, Bob’s your Uncle, 1991. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
From the exhibition Inheritance