Lesson 11 CONTEXT: Introduction

Susan Meiselas

Susan Meiselas (b. 1948, Baltimore) joined in 1976, where she remains a member, and she currently serves as president of the Magnum Foundation (2016). Meiselas creates multilayered narratives about individuals and societies across the U.S. and the world, while using text, interviews, and archival images as a means to enhance her work. Meiselas’s coverage of hostilities in Central America during the 1970s and 1980s was published widely, and in 1979, the Overseas Press Club awarded her the Gold Medal. Her book Nicaragua was first published by Aperture in 1981, and has since been published twice more (2008 and 2016). Meiselas has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), Hasselblad Foundation Photography prize (1994), Infinity Award (2005), Harvard Arts Medal (2011), and Guggenheim Fellowship (2015). Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey (b. 1970, Charleston, South Carolina) is an American contemporary street artist whose unique graphic style has been widely recognized in both the fine and commercial art worlds. A major artist of the street art movement, Fairey rose to prominence in the early 1990s through the dispersion of posters, stickers, and murals of his Obey Giant campaign. Reoccurring themes found in Fairey’s work include: propaganda, portraiture, and political power. Fairey has been the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Pratt Institute (2015) and the Tony Goldman Visionary Artist Award (2014), and has had exhibitions in Hong Kong, Paris, and New York. Banksy

Banksy (b. 1974, United Kingdom) is an anonymous graphic street artist who gained notoriety and worldwide fame. Little is known of the artist’s life although it is thought that Banksy began his career as a graffiti artist. Most often using spray paint and stencils, Banksy has crafted a signature, immediately identifiable graphic style—and a recurring cast of cops, soldiers, children, and celebrities—through which he critically examines contemporary issues of consumerism, political authority, terrorism, and the status of art and its display. TIME magazine named Banksy one of the world’s most influential people in 2010. Lesson 11 CONTEXT: Introduction

Hank Willis Thomas

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, New Jersey) is a conceptual artist who uses photography to explore issues of identity, history, race, and class. He employs language and familiar imagery to address issues that are often overlooked in our pop culture–obsessed, consumerist culture. He received his BFA from New York University, and an MFA and MA in, respectively, photography and visual criticism from California College of the Arts. Thomas’s monograph Pitch Blackness was published by Aperture in 2008. His work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, among other venues, and is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.