As promised, here is a sneak preview of the very special limited-edition photograph by Hank Willis Thomas that we will be unveiling as a new work in our Limited-Edition Photographs Program. Hank is the first recipient of the Aperture West Book Prize, and as a result his first monograph Pitch Blackness will be published by Aperture in October 2008. As René de Guzman writes of Willis Thomas in her essay contribution to Pitch Blackness, the artist is “most closely aligned with the pioneering African-American artists of the 1970′s and 1980′s, such as Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis ( the artist’s mother, who is also an acclaimed photographer, scholar and curator), and his immediate predecessors Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker.” The artist’s work deals with issues of grief, black-on-black violence in America, the ways in which corporate culture is complicit in the crises of black male identity and how advertising and the media represent African Americans. With his characteristic pointedness and dark humor informed by his personal experiences, Hank Willis Thomas is one of the most compelling emerging artists working today. Aperture is looking forward to bringing his work to a wider audience. Keep checking the website for print availability or email prints@aperture.org with inquiries.