Negroes To Be Sold, 2009
Relief Print on Handmade Elephant Paper
Edition of 30
24 x 17 in.
Collaborative Printer: Kandice Fields
Hank Willis Thomas is a photo conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to identity, history, and popular culture. Negroes to Be Sold appropriates and riffs on the form and appearance of 18th-century advertisements for the sale of slaves, inserting familiar silhouettes of contemporary sports and entertainment figures and of the now iconic figures used to represent enslaved bodies. Realized as a laser-cut relief print, Thomas has captured the style and tactile quality of 18th-century prints with raised lettering that rendersthe printing surface as a sculptural relief. The original auction advertisement appropriated by the artist was published in Charleston, SC,on April 26, 1760.
