Hank Willis Thomas

Pitch Blackness / Off Whiteness

Hank Willis Thomas states, “Where you stand affects what you see." Interested in photography and advertising, Thomas considers the ways in which vision and language inform our society. He continues: "Your notion of reality is completely shaped by your perspective and what you bring to what you’re looking at.”

This malleability is explored in the artist's work entitled Pitch Blackness / Off Whiteness. Thomas's sign blinks on and off, alternating between sets of words: "off-white" and "pitch-black." Both are punctuated by the suffix 'ness,' rendering the adjectives as nouns (blackness and whiteness).

This dissection of syntax by Thomas demonstrates the power of language. From one moment to the next, Thomas's neon sign jumps between the flexibility of "off-whiteness" to the singularity of "pitch-blackness." Thomas exposes the ways in which language can be used to flatten identity, through its proposal of blackness as a racial signifier. Switching between coded words, Pitch Blackness / Off Whiteness problematizes the visualization of race in our everyday life.