Hank Willis Thomas, who describes himself as a “visual culture archaeologist,” was in town last week for the opening of his one-man show, Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded, at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art.
Thomas told an audience at an opening-day lecture Saturday that the construct of race “is a divide-and-conquer strategy,” and “advertising is the most powerful and ubiquitous language in the world.” He also answered a few questions about the show during an interview in the gallery last week. Here’s an edited version of the interview:
Both series show that advertising is never really about the product. It’s about what myths or generalizations you can get people to buy into.
A lot of the inspiration for modern advertising came from Sigmund Freud. His nephew, [public relations guru] Edward Bernays, in a sense founded modern-day advertising.
And the mummy in the swimsuit ad?
