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The focus of the Jack Shainman Gallery is to exhibit, represent, and champion artists from all over the world.  The artists represented employ all mediums but there is a tendency towards conceptual as well as politically and socially engaged artwork. The Gallery will be featuring the exhibits entitled Pitch Blackness by Hank Willis Thomas and the Fabulist Colored Life by John Bankston.

Co-hosted by the HBS African-American Alumni Association and the HBS Club of New York in celebration of Black History Month, our evening will feature a synopsis by the gallery director as well as a discussion by one of the featured artists, Hank Willis Thomas.

Employing visual language and materials commonly used in mass-media, Hank Willis Thomas presents works in Pitch Blackness that trace black history through visual culture in an attempt to dissect, reinterpret,and re-imagine iconic moments from the "black past" and to investigate the complexity of race in America in the 21st century. Hank Willis Thomas has exhibited his work nationally at venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA.  His work is featured in several public collections including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the International Center of Photography in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.

The Fabulist, a teller of tales, is both the imaginary author and subject of the stories. Large-scale paintings present scenes from his fantastical life. In the title, the word "colored" implies multiple meanings; topics of race, gender, identity, equity and isolation are all at play in these exquisite works that straddle the imagined and the real.  John Bankston's works are represented in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Berkeley Art Museum, the City of Chicago, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

• Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009
• Time:  6:30pm Registration; 7:00pm Program Begins
• Location:  Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W. 20th St. (Between 10th & 11th Avenues), New York City.
• Cost:  $20 Members; $40 Non-Members & Guests; Wine, beverages and light snack will be served.