Multi-media British artist Thomas J. Price is known for his experimentation across diverse media including film, performance, photography and sculpture. His work is deeply philosophical, the artist often referring to ancient culture to probe its influence on contemporary Western art and society. While Price’s work is very specific to his time, place and background, there are broad ramifications for his questions our narrow conception of who shapes our world.
The underlying theme that links across his bodies of work is the subconscious bias that humans share. For example, in a series of photographs Price manipulates art history books of classic Greek sculpture. He folds and overlays images to tell his own subtle narratives, reflecting the times we live in today. In a series of stop animation videos, Price mimics the way that archaeologists imagined our ancient ancestors. Price’s plasticine figures are not ancient homo sapiens or Neanderthals, but rather, black male figures whose hairstyles betray them as contemporaries. Price suggests how outdated assumptions about black men, shaped by 19th century scientific experiments, restricts the real lives of contemporary men of color.
Most recently Price has focused on the traditional forms of figurative sculpture to challenge our assumptions about public monumentation. Price uses a classic posture from Greek sculpture in Within the Folds (Dialogue 1), 2020, the artist’s most recent work. Price hacks into the tradition of public sculpture of almost exclusively male generals, patricians and noblemen by presenting a black British man, standing in comfortable fashion-forward sportswear, and looking into space.
Price’s title, Within the Folds (Dialogue 1), might suggest that Price is bringing his figure “into the fold” of art history, but also his facility in rendering fabric in a hard material. Dialogue 1 may refer to Plato’s Dialogues, whereby the philosopher used the format of give-and-take discussion to educate his students and readers on complex topics. Price has created a series of these portraits of idealized black male subjects, drawn from an area of London with a large Caribbean diasporic community. Like many artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, Price moves beyond the traditional public art narratives of community or nation-building by presenting us with our neighbor, someone whose history is often buried beneath the prejudices of our time.
Price’s “art history hack” is part of the contemporary impulse by women, artists of color or of diverse sexual orientations to simultaneously celebrate and critique art of the past in order to insert new narratives of contemporary life into our shared space.
Multi-media British artist Thomas J. Price is known for his experimentation across diverse media including film, performance, photography and sculpture. His work is deeply philosophical, the artist often referring to ancient culture to probe its influence on contemporary Western art and society. While Price’s work is very specific to his time, place and background, there are broad ramifications for his questions our narrow conception of who shapes our world.
The underlying theme that links across his bodies of work is the subconscious bias that humans share. For example, in a series of photographs Price manipulates art history books of classic Greek sculpture. He folds and overlays images to tell his own subtle narratives, reflecting the times we live in today. In a series of stop animation videos, Price mimics the way that archaeologists imagined our ancient ancestors. Price’s plasticine figures are not ancient homo sapiens or Neanderthals, but rather, black male figures whose hairstyles betray them as contemporaries. Price suggests how outdated assumptions about black men, shaped by 19th century scientific experiments, restricts the real lives of contemporary men of color.
Most recently Price has focused on the traditional forms of figurative sculpture to challenge our assumptions about public monumentation. Price uses a classic posture from Greek sculpture in Within the Folds (Dialogue 1), 2020, the artist’s most recent work. Price hacks into the tradition of public sculpture of almost exclusively male generals, patricians and noblemen by presenting a black British man, standing in comfortable fashion-forward sportswear, and looking into space.
Price’s title, Within the Folds (Dialogue 1), might suggest that Price is bringing his figure “into the fold” of art history, but also his facility in rendering fabric in a hard material. Dialogue 1 may refer to Plato’s Dialogues, whereby the philosopher used the format of give-and-take discussion to educate his students and readers on complex topics. Price has created a series of these portraits of idealized black male subjects, drawn from an area of London with a large Caribbean diasporic community. Like many artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, Price moves beyond the traditional public art narratives of community or nation-building by presenting us with our neighbor, someone whose history is often buried beneath the prejudices of our time.
Price’s “art history hack” is part of the contemporary impulse by women, artists of color or of diverse sexual orientations to simultaneously celebrate and critique art of the past in order to insert new narratives of contemporary life into our shared space.
Multi-media British artist Thomas J. Price is known for his experimentation across diverse media including film, performance, photography and sculpture. His work is deeply philosophical, the artist often referring to ancient culture to probe its influence on contemporary Western art and society. While Price’s work is very specific to his time, place and background, there are broad ramifications for his questions our narrow conception of who shapes our world.
The underlying theme that links across his bodies of work is the subconscious bias that humans share. For example, in a series of photographs Price manipulates art history books of classic Greek sculpture. He folds and overlays images to tell his own subtle narratives, reflecting the times we live in today. In a series of stop animation videos, Price mimics the way that archaeologists imagined our ancient ancestors. Price’s plasticine figures are not ancient homo sapiens or Neanderthals, but rather, black male figures whose hairstyles betray them as contemporaries. Price suggests how outdated assumptions about black men, shaped by 19th century scientific experiments, restricts the real lives of contemporary men of color.
Most recently Price has focused on the traditional forms of figurative sculpture to challenge our assumptions about public monumentation. Price uses a classic posture from Greek sculpture in Within the Folds (Dialogue 1), 2020, the artist’s most recent work. Price hacks into the tradition of public sculpture of almost exclusively male generals, patricians and noblemen by presenting a black British man, standing in comfortable fashion-forward sportswear, and looking into space.
Price’s title, Within the Folds (Dialogue 1), might suggest that Price is bringing his figure “into the fold” of art history, but also his facility in rendering fabric in a hard material. Dialogue 1 may refer to Plato’s Dialogues, whereby the philosopher used the format of give-and-take discussion to educate his students and readers on complex topics. Price has created a series of these portraits of idealized black male subjects, drawn from an area of London with a large Caribbean diasporic community. Like many artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, Price moves beyond the traditional public art narratives of community or nation-building by presenting us with our neighbor, someone whose history is often buried beneath the prejudices of our time.
Price’s “art history hack” is part of the contemporary impulse by women, artists of color or of diverse sexual orientations to simultaneously celebrate and critique art of the past in order to insert new narratives of contemporary life into our shared space.
