People Everyday

Hank Willis Thomas & Liu Shiming

Liu Shiming Art Foundation

May 27th- July 31st 2025

Curators Statement:

People Everyday brings together the work of Hank Willis Thomas and Liu Shiming—two artists separated by time and place, yet united in their devotion to portraying the dignity of ordinary lives. Both center the human body, gestures of care, and the formation of community as powerful sites of memory and meaning.

Liu Shiming, working in 20th-century China, created intimate bronze and terra cotta sculptures of boatmen, mothers, and street vendors. Rejecting the monumental, ideological art of his time, Liu’s work embraced the poetic and personal—capturing resilience in everyday moments. His “Chinese Method” merged traditional sculptural forms with modernist abstraction.

Hank Willis Thomas, working in contemporary America, explores how Black identity is shaped by history, media, and collective memory. In People Everyday, Hank utilizes retro reflective photo collages and bronze sculptures of isolated limbs, he invites viewers to reconsider how individual identity, community, and gestures—clenched fists, interlocked hands—carry emotional and political weight.

Anchored by works like Embrace and Cutting Through Mountains to Bring Water, the exhibition explores themes of labor, migration, and memory. Rivers, birds, and mountains recur as symbols of struggle, heritage, and place.

Everyday People is not merely a cross-cultural pairing. It is a poetic alignment. Together, Thomas and Liu affirm that history is not only made by icons, but by the everyday people whose quiet acts of endurance shape the world.