A Futile Attempt to Take a Portrait of Everyone Who Attended the Last Regular Season Game

Artist Hank Willis Thomas American, born 1976

Date2013

MediumDigital chromogenic print

Dimensions11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of Daylight Books

Object number2015.14.1

On View

Not on view

Label TextMade up of individual portraits of Durham Bulls spectators, in a baseball-cardlike format, Thomas’s gridded images become larger explorations of people coming together in support of a singularly American pastime. According to Thomas, “What’s struck me is community. Honestly, just being in a space where people come out to spend time with their loved ones, to cheer something on that they can all get behind. It’s like good old American fun.”

Made by Thomas in collaboration with a group of photographers and their iPhones, these group portraits reflect Thomas’s attempt to take a picture of every single person who attended the last game of the season. In his words, “I was really trying to figure out how to make something personal and unique that had a voice. So, ironically, it took a chorus of voices to do that.”
[L. Dougherty, "Bull City Summer," 2014]

ProvenanceCreated Durham, NC, 2013; collection of the artist, New York; Daylight Books, Hillsborough, NC; given to NCMA, 2015.

Published ReferencesSam Stephenson, ed., Bull City Summer (Hillsborough, NC: Daylight Books, 2014), illus. (color) (different print). Object Rights Statement

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