ARTIST TALK｜People Everyday
Mon, Jun 16
|New York
Join us for the Artist Talk featuring Arist Hank Willis Whomas and the curator Emann Odufu.
Time & Location
Jun 16, 2025, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
New York, 15 E 40th St 5th FL, New York, NY 10016, USA
About the event
About this event
Schedule
6:00 PM – Doors Open
6:30 PM – Conversation Begins
Moderator: Andrew Serwer
Participants: Hank Willis Thomas (artist), Emann Odufu (curator)
7:30 PM – Audience Q&A
8:00 PM – End of Program
About the Conversation
This artist talk brings together conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas and exhibition curator Emann Odufu in conversation with journalist and Liu Shiming Art Foundation board member Andrew Serwer. Together, they will explore the themes of the current exhibition People Everyday, as well as the resonance between Liu’s artistic journey in 20th-century China and Thomas’s reflections on identity and history in a contemporary U.S. context.
About the Artist
Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ) is a conceptual artist whose practice spans photography, sculpture, installation, and public art. His work explores perspective, identity, and collective memory, often incorporating archival imagery and retroreflective materials. Thomas is the co-founder of For Freedoms, a national platform for civic engagement through art.
About the Curator
Emann Odufu is a creative producer, curator, and cultural critic whose work bridges visual art, film, and social practice. Born and raised in Newark, NJ, his practice explores Afro-Futurism, Black cinema, and the politics of representation across disciplines. In People Everyday, he brings together Liu Shiming and Hank Willis Thomas to consider how ordinary lives become vessels of memory, resilience, and transformation.
About the Moderator
Andrew Serwer is editor-at-large at Barron's and former editor-in-chief of both Yahoo Finance and Fortune. Renowned for his pioneering financial journalism and multimedia storytelling, he has profiled figures such as Bill Gates and Larry Ellison. Serwer currently serves on the board of the Liu Shiming Art Foundation.
About Liu Shiming
Liu Shiming (1926–2010) was a pioneering Chinese sculptor known for his deeply narrative depictions of working-class life. Trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, he developed a distinctive “Chinese Method” that merges traditional aesthetics with modernist form. His works are held in major collections across Asia, Europe, and North America. The Liu Shiming Art Gallery opened in Manhattan in 2024.