Known for his appropriation and modification of mass-media imagery, Hank Willis Thomas wallpapers the Roberts & Tilton's Project Room with over 3,000 photographs of African American pin-up models from 1950 to the present. The sequence of weekly portraits spans the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power movement, Women's Liberation, racial integration and post-colonial thought, up to the inauguration of First Lady Michelle Obama. The installation marks a fascinating shift in the image of the ideal African American woman, especially when traced through the politics of representation, and speaks to the media’s influence on public opinion. Thomas' mother, historian, Deborah Willis, Ph.D. writes in her forthcoming book, Posing Beauty, that "A re-reading of beauty through historical, art and advertising photographs reveals how racialized beauty was posed and reconsidered as a political act." Beauty is political, and over the past century numerous black-owned publications took it upon themselves to posit the essence of "black beauty" at a given moment. By surveying their recent history, Thomas is questioning how the politics of beauty in the present moment will be viewed in hindsight by future generations.