Documented artwork / public sculpture / version unresolved

All Power to All People

Hank Willis Thomas

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Documented work. Current availability, ownership and installation requirements must be confirmed with the artist.

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At a glance

Year / version: 2017 Philadelphia version; gallery version unconfirmed
Materials: Not documented
Documented setting: unknown
Dimensions: Not documented
Dimensions apply to: Not documented
Availability: Unconfirmed

Places & versions

Installation history

Historical presentations. A past installation does not establish the current location or suitability for a new site.

A complete installation timeline is not available. Consult the linked sources for presentation details.

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Research notes for project planning

How this work was made and presented

Monument Lab, Thomas Paine Plaza, Philadelphia, 2017

A familiar object enters the monument debate

Hank Willis Thomas’s account places All Power to All People in the 2017 Monument Lab program at Philadelphia’s Thomas Paine Plaza, produced with Mural Arts. Enlarging an Afro pick with a raised fist brought a personal object associated with Black identity into a civic discussion about who public monuments represent. That context is essential to the work’s meaning. A host considering related monumental sculpture could begin with the public conversation and the history of the proposed location, then develop interpretation around the object’s transformation in scale.

Hank Willis Thomas — All Power to All People ↗ · Reviewed 2026-10-10

For your project brief

What local conversation about representation would frame the work at the proposed site?

Big Art Partners planning prompt

PAFA record for the 2017 object

Use the object record to distinguish editions

PAFA’s collection record identifies a 2017 All Power to All People in aluminum and stainless steel and specifies an edition of one with two artist proofs. That precision matters when an artwork’s title and imagery circulate across exhibition photographs and public references. The record offers evidence about a particular object, not a general promise about access to another version. For planning, the useful next step is to match the relevant edition or proof, materials and dimensions to the exact object being discussed before drawing conclusions from the title alone.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts — collection record ↗ · Reviewed 2026-10-10

For your project brief

Which exact object, edition or artist proof is relevant to the proposed project?