Andrew Schoultz
White Noise and Silence: New Paintings and Drawings
June 13 - August 1, 2009
Opening reception Saturday, June 13, 2009, 6-8pm

For the San Francisco-based artist’s second exhibition at Roberts & Tilton, Andrew Schoultz creates chaotic muralistic paintings, but with an ironically subdued and hopeful nature.  In this new body of work, Schoultz addresses notions of blind trust and national public complacency. Several of the works are layered with tones of transparent white paint that push the turbulent imagery into the background, symbolizing a disruptive future under a mask of hope and calm.  The paintings effectively mimic contemporary politics and public affairs, and simultaneously mirror the need for spiritual beliefs in times of suffering.  Initially they appear more minimal than Schoultz’s previous work; however, the overlying surface serenity is in consideration of what is looming in the background. In contrast, other works are painted black, appearing as night landscapes.  The ominous scenes express calmness but suggest that we are on the verge of the unknown and potentially dangerous, and the uncertainty of it is eerie and uncomfortable.  Like relics of history, these works have roots in the past but are relevant to the future.  Even in a drastically changing world, religious, spiritual, and holy rituals are preserved.  Although these works reference monuments, tombs, and sacred places, what they are monuments to, tombs of, and why they are sacred is left unknown. Andrew Schoultz recently exhibited at Chelsea Visits Havana, Cuba, and received the 2009 Commission Award from House of Campari, which will be on display through June 14, 2009 in Los Angeles.

Hank Willis Thomas
Project Room
Black Is Beautiful
June 13 - August 1, 2009
Opening reception Saturday, June 13, 2009, 6-8pm

Roberts & Tilton is pleased to announce the exhibition Black Is Beautiful by Hank Willis Thomas. Known for his appropriation and modification of mass-media imagery, Thomas wallpapers the Project Room with over 3,000 photographs of African American pin-up models from 1950 to the present. The sequence of weekly portraits spans the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power movement, Women's Liberation, racial integration and post-colonial thought, up to the inauguration of First Lady Michelle Obama.  The installation marks a fascinating shift in the image of the ideal African American woman, especially when traced through the politics of representation, and speaks to the media’s influence on public opinion. Thomas' mother, historian, Deborah Willis, Ph.D. writes in her forthcoming book, Posing Beauty, that "A re-reading of beauty through historical, art and advertising photographs reveals how racialized beauty was posed and reconsidered as a political act." Beauty is political, and over the past century numerous black-owned publications took it upon themselves to posit the essence of "black beauty" at a given moment. By surveying their recent history, Thomas is questioning how the politics of beauty in the present moment will be viewed in hindsight by future generations. Hank Willis Thomas is currently included in the Rubell Family Collection’s exhibition 30 Americans, Miami, Florida (through May 30, 2009).  His work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York,, and at the International Center of Photography, New York, New York. Thomas’ first monograph, Pitch Blackness, was published by Aperture in 2008.

Hank Willis Thomas’ Black is Beautiful exhibition is organized in collaboration with Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York.