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August 2022

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The Amistad Center for Art & Culture Presents "Digging Deeper"

Artists Willie Cole and Hank Willis Thomas to curate Amistad Center’s historical collection

and present new works inspired by collection materials

HARTFORD, Conn., — A new collaborative exhibition featuring the works of Willie Cole

and Hank Willis Thomas, entitled Digging Deeper, will open this fall at The Amistad Center for Art &

Culture. Both Cole and Thomas were invited to explore The Amistad Center’s extensive collection of art,

artifacts, and archives which document the African American experience and respond with new works

inspired by this rich source material. The show will also include additional objects from The Amistad

Center’s collection to highlight the common threads between historical characterizations of race and presentday

conceptions of African American culture. Digging Deeper is on view from September 19, 2009 through

April 4, 2010 at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, home of the Amistad Center for Art & Culture.

Cole and Thomas are both known for their transformation and reinterpretation of identifiable objects into

works of art, many of which reference race and socio-cultural issues. Cole is best known for his use of irons

and ironing boards to create images of slave ships and African masks. His work often references his family’s

history as domestic workers and their roots in Africa. For Digging Deeper, he created several new pieces

including a video piece entitled Remembering Mammy, which references the place of the mammy figure in

historic and contemporary culture.

Thomas recently gained notoriety for his photographic works, which provide commentary on branding and

consumer culture and often re-appropriate advertisements and other instantly recognizable symbols to suggest

the exploitation and commoditization of African American culture. Thomas’ work for Digging Deeper

includes a large scale mixed media installation entitled Greetings from the Sunny South, which is a house-like

structure that incorporates more than 500 post cards from The Amistad Center's collection. The post cards

depict stereotypical imagery as well as personal photographs that were adapted to post card form.

The artists also created two cabinets of curiosity inspired by pieces from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum

of Art – where The Amistad Center is housed. One cabinet, titled “Curious objects from the demise of a

peculiar institution,” holds objects from The Amistad Center’s collection including advertisements, product

packages, and other objects of ephemera that seem immediately offensive to today’s viewers, but were once

readily accepted by society. The other cabinet, called “Curious objects from the now yet to be understood,”

includes objects contributed by both Cole and Thomas that are unproblematic today, but may be questioned

by future generations.

A high-quality catalog will accompany the exhibition. There will be an audio guide available via cell phone

at no additional charge. Major support for this exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for

the Visual Arts, with additional support from the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation and the

Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism. Educational materials and programs are sponsored by the

GE Foundation.

Founded in 1987, The Amistad Center for Art & Culture is a not-for-profit cultural arts organization housed

at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut—the nation’s first public art museum

and the first major museum in the region to house a gallery devoted to displaying African American culture.

For more information about The Amistad Center visit www.amistadartandculture.org.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is located at 600 Main St. in Hartford, Connecticut. The Museum

is open Wednesdays to Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Please visit

www.wadsworthatheneum.org for more information.

Contact:

Kimberly Reynolds Sascha Freudenheim / Molly Kurzius

Director, PR & Marketing Resnicow Schroeder Associates

860-838-4055 212-671-5172 / 5163

Kimberly.reynolds@wadsworthatheneum.org sfreudenheim/mkurzius@resnicowschroeder.com

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