The artist Hank Willis Thomas is pointing to one of the images: of two well-dressed, neatly coiffed men standing atop a cliff. "She's Somewhat of a Drag," a 1959 advertisement Thomas repurposed in his series "Unbranded: A Century of White Women." Across his work, Thomas reframes iconic and mundane imagery to connect viewers to historical moments of resistance and reshape our understanding of who counts in society. Here, a pro-football player appears to face off with an enslaved cotton picker, in Thomas' work "From Cain't See in the Mornin' Til Cain't See at Night." His body of work work reflects the observation — and, perhaps, a warning — that we have moved toward “existing in a society of branded consciousness."

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Persons: Hank Willis Thomas, Thomas, Aaron Wessling, Jordan, “, Thomas ’, Drummond, —, ” Thomas, mascara, Jordan Schnitzer, ” Schnitzer, ” Thomas ’, Thomas reframes, Barack Obama, ”, “ I’ve, doesn’t Organizations: CNN, Art, White, White Women, Family, Cotton, Corporate America, Civil Rights, American Express Locations: ”, Oregon, United States, Gorée