Hank Willis Thomas So Glad We Made It, 1979 from the series Unbranded:

Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968–2008 2006

B 1976 Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
Chromogenic color print
24 × 27 , in. (60.9 × 71 cm)
Fund for the Twenty-First Century. 2011

The McDonald’s advertisement that served as the point of departure for So Glad We Made It, 1979
appeared on page 55 of the Ebony magazine for April 1979; the ink-dot pattern used to reproduce
images—enlarged here, like the advertisement itself—betrays the picture’s source in a printed page.
Hank Willis Thomas’s sole intervention was to digitally erase the McDonald’s logos from the packaging,
although the burgers’ foam boxes, and the french fries’ red cardboard sleeves, remain instantly
recognizable. The photograph depicts two casually but impeccably dressed couples enjoying their meal
in a tastefully decorated living room, all sharing a smile while the men play a game of backgammon.
Transferring the image from its original context onto the walls of an art space, Thomas invites us
to reexamine it, replete with its metaphoric allusions to difference: the simple opposition of brown
and white pieces on the backgammon board, the conflation of interior (domestic) and exterior (wild)
spaces through the verdant plants that anchor the room’s corners, and the juxtaposition of the
sartorial affluence of the sitters with the fast-food packaging of their evening meal.
Each disparate element is woven into a tableau that, as an advertisement, makes seamless the
myriad opinions of client, advertising executives, art director, copywriter, photographer, and focus
groups. The collective process of those professionals, Thomas suggests, might result in an image that
is somehow more revealing than the production of an individual artist working at a specific moment.
Thomas helps us to deconstruct the advertisement: by removing the McDonald’s logos—asking us to
see the photograph as a photograph, not an ad—he lays bare the calculations that have gone into it
and encourages us to “take responsibility in actually mining and looking at the images that our society
is creating.” This responsibility extends beyond formal analysis to the cultural assumptions embedded
in different modes of looking: how do we approach an image on the worn pages of a mass-circulation
magazine intended for African-American consumers, as opposed to the framed print on the pristine
walls of institutions that historically have often neglected African-American artists?
For the series that So Glad We Made It, 1979 comes from, Unbranded: Reflections in Black
by Corporate America 1968–2008, Thomas selected two advertisements from each year within
the named timespan from the pages of magazines targeting African-American audiences. The first
year, 1968, was the year in which Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated;
Thomas concluded with the year in which Barack Obama was first elected U.S. president. After
scanning each advertisement, Thomas merely eliminated the branding referents. He refers to
himself as the editor of the series, making selections that highlight the perceptions and assumptions
of corporate America in relation to African-American consumers across four decades.
Thomas has been harnessing advertising to expose social expectations, prejudices, and
aspirations for more than fifteen years. Photography is just one part of his art; he works in a variety
of mediums, but most important, he is a convener, uniting social justice and artistic practice, connecting
popular culture with fine art, expanding audiences beyond intended consumers. As Thomas explains,
“I see ‘race’ as a divide-and-conquer strategy that threatens our survival as a species. I highlight it in
my work in an effort to expose the problematics and fragility of it as a concept. I am calling attention
to it in an attempt to get us to acknowledge our perpetual suspension of disbelief that maintains this
questionable status quo.”

Sarah Hermanson Meister

424 425
Hank Willis Thomas So Glad We Made It, 1979 from the series Unbranded:
Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968–2008 2006
B 1976 Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
Chromogenic color print
24 × 27 , in. (60.9 × 71 cm)
Fund for the Twenty-First Century. 2011

The McDonald’s advertisement that served as the point of departure for So Glad We Made It, 1979
appeared on page 55 of the Ebony magazine for April 1979; the ink-dot pattern used to reproduce
images—enlarged here, like the advertisement itself—betrays the picture’s source in a printed page.
Hank Willis Thomas’s sole intervention was to digitally erase the McDonald’s logos from the packaging,
although the burgers’ foam boxes, and the french fries’ red cardboard sleeves, remain instantly
recognizable. The photograph depicts two casually but impeccably dressed couples enjoying their meal
in a tastefully decorated living room, all sharing a smile while the men play a game of backgammon.
Transferring the image from its original context onto the walls of an art space, Thomas invites us
to reexamine it, replete with its metaphoric allusions to difference: the simple opposition of brown
and white pieces on the backgammon board, the conflation of interior (domestic) and exterior (wild)
spaces through the verdant plants that anchor the room’s corners, and the juxtaposition of the
sartorial affluence of the sitters with the fast-food packaging of their evening meal.
Each disparate element is woven into a tableau that, as an advertisement, makes seamless the
myriad opinions of client, advertising executives, art director, copywriter, photographer, and focus
groups. The collective process of those professionals, Thomas suggests, might result in an image that
is somehow more revealing than the production of an individual artist working at a specific moment.
Thomas helps us to deconstruct the advertisement: by removing the McDonald’s logos—asking us to
see the photograph as a photograph, not an ad—he lays bare the calculations that have gone into it
and encourages us to “take responsibility in actually mining and looking at the images that our society
is creating.” This responsibility extends beyond formal analysis to the cultural assumptions embedded
in different modes of looking: how do we approach an image on the worn pages of a mass-circulation
magazine intended for African-American consumers, as opposed to the framed print on the pristine
walls of institutions that historically have often neglected African-American artists?
For the series that So Glad We Made It, 1979 comes from, Unbranded: Reflections in Black
by Corporate America 1968–2008, Thomas selected two advertisements from each year within
the named timespan from the pages of magazines targeting African-American audiences. The first
year, 1968, was the year in which Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated;
Thomas concluded with the year in which Barack Obama was first elected U.S. president. After
scanning each advertisement, Thomas merely eliminated the branding referents. He refers to
himself as the editor of the series, making selections that highlight the perceptions and assumptions
of corporate America in relation to African-American consumers across four decades.
Thomas has been harnessing advertising to expose social expectations, prejudices, and
aspirations for more than fifteen years. Photography is just one part of his art; he works in a variety
of mediums, but most important, he is a convener, uniting social justice and artistic practice, connecting
popular culture with fine art, expanding audiences beyond intended consumers. As Thomas explains,
“I see ‘race’ as a divide-and-conquer strategy that threatens our survival as a species. I highlight it in
my work in an effort to expose the problematics and fragility of it as a concept. I am calling attention
to it in an attempt to get us to acknowledge our perpetual suspension of disbelief that maintains this
questionable status quo.”

Sarah Hermanson Meister

424 425