Hank Willis Thomas

‘There are more images taken in a single second than we can make sense of in our entire lives. I think it’s important that not just art historians but also artists themselves start to make sense of the images that we are making. I see myself, and certain artists of my generation, as the DJs of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. We are remixing and looking, and making new imagery of existing imagery. It’s beyond collage—a whole new image is created.’

– Hank Willis Thomas

Decagon was shown at Pier 24 Photography in Secondhand, an exhibition that paired vernacular photographs from the Pilara Foundation collection with contemporary works by artists who explore found imagery in their practice. In Hank Willis Thomas’s series Frameworks, he appropriates culturally charged historical images and memorializes them as framed objects that ‘trigger ideas about collective commemoration and cultural remembrance’ (Secondhand, p. 5). For Decagon, he uses a photograph of child laborers by Lewis Hine, whose work at the turn of the last century for the National Child Labor Committee is largely responsible for the passage of national child labor laws.