Hank Willis Thomas to Deliver the Mandy and Cliff Einstein Visiting Artist Lecture at Otis College
Thomas was named one of the 100 most influential people shaping the future of art by Time in 2026.
Otis College of Art and Design’s Fine Arts program presents the Mandy and Cliff Einstein Visiting Artist Lecture with Hank Willis Thomas on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, 7:00–9:00 pm. The event will be held in The Forum on Otis College’s campus at 9045 Lincoln Boulevard in Los Angeles and is free and open to the public. Register here.
In this lecture and Q&A, Thomas will discuss his wide-ranging practice and its exploration of identity, race, community, and the visual culture that surrounds us. Through photography, sculpture, video, and public art, Thomas often reclaims and reworks familiar images and symbols, inviting viewers to look more critically at the stories and assumptions embedded within contemporary culture. Before the public lecture, Thomas will meet with current Otis students.
Thomas’s practice reflects a deep interest in love, belonging, collective memory, and civic dialogue. His public artworks bring these ideas into shared spaces across the country, including The Embrace (2023), his monument to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King in Boston Common in Massachusetts, and With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited (2025) at Davidson College in North Carolina. He also co-founded For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that uses art to foster civic engagement, discourse, and direct action.
Of Thomas’s public work, Time magazine wrote in TIME100 Art 2026 that he “embodies what civic engagement can look like for an artist looking to express the complexity of American society.”
Thomas at the dedication for With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited (2025); Image from Davidson College; photograph by Christopher Record and John Gomez.
About Hank Willis Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He has presented solo exhibitions at the Portland Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the National Building Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery, among others. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, High Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the National Gallery of Art.
His public artworks include REACH (2023), created with Coby Kennedy at O’Hare International Airport; Duality (2023) at The Underline in Miami; The Truth is I Love You (2023) at the Austin Public Library; and Unity (2019) in downtown Brooklyn. Thomas was the recipient of the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts (2022) and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (2018) and the Gordon Parks Foundation (2019), among others.
Thomas was the Harmer/Eisner Artist-in-Residence for the Aspen Institute Arts Program from 2024-2025. He holds a BFA from New York University and an MA/MFA from MASS Art and California College of the Arts, respectively, and has received honorary doctorates from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, California College of the Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.
About the Mandy and Cliff Einstein Visiting Artist Lecture Series
Funded through a generous gift from Mandy and Cliff Einstein, the Mandy and Cliff Einstein Visiting Artist Lecture Series provides Otis College students an opportunity to learn and engage directly with major figures in the art world today. Invited artists spend time with Otis students and give a free public lecture. Past guests have included Doug Aitken, Kelly Akashi, Dawoud Bey, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Theaster Gates, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Edgar Heap of Birds, Shirin Neshat, Jeffrey Vallance, Kara Walker, Zoe Whitley, and Anicka Yi.
