MARCH 11 – APRIL 21, 2021

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA — SOCO Gallery is thrilled to present Love Rules by Brooklyn-based conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas.

The Charlotte presentation of Love Rules was made possible with support of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, and planned in conjunction with Raleigh-based Artsuite, who unveiled an  outdoor edition of the  piece  in the fall of 2020.  When unlit, the clear neon sign spells out “Love Rules” and when illuminated, it transitions between “Love Rules” and “Love Over Rules”.

The wordplay is pertinent, powerful, and a direct homage to the artist's cousin, Songha Willis, who was murdered in Philadelphia in 2000. It immortalizes the last words Songha spoke.

Thomas is an internationally renowned artist known for his focus on themes related to perspective, identity, media and popular culture. Love Rules is about community striving towards an intersection rather than a division. Truth, Mr. Thomas says, is unique. “There will always be different perspectives. Rather than fighting, we should bring more truths out there. We need to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us.”

Joining together in the message of love and healing, Charlotte and Raleigh’s two city installation of Love Rules, hopes to inspire and remind us to be generous in these challenging times. “Love is a verb of action...not an action of receiving, but an action of giving. My question is what do you do to give love? How is love breaking the rules you have in your life?” (Hank Willis Thomas)

The presentation of Love Rules will coincide with a solo exhibition of 2020 Guggenheim Fellow Linda Foard Roberts’ Lament series at SOCO Gallery.

HANK WILLIS THOMAS (B. 1976)

Hank Willis Thomas’ (b. 1976) work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad including the International Center of Photography, New York, NY; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; The musée du quai Branly, Paris, France; Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong, and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Solo exhibitions of his work have been featured at Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, AK; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Baltimore 

Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, and the African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA, among others.

Major group exhibitions of his work include the 2017 inaugural show at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa; P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Zacheta National Museum of Art, Poland; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, and the 2006 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art, Orange County, CA.

Thomas’ work is included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

His collaborative projects include Wide Awakes, Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), The Writing on the Wall, and For Freedoms. In 2017, For Freedoms was awarded the ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform. Thomas is a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), The Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), Aperture West Book Prize (2008), Renew Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (2007), and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2006).

Thomas holds a B.F.A. from New York University, New York, NY (1998) and an M.A./M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004). He received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME in 2017.