Two hands crossed at the wrists. Two fists full of cotton. A blurred thicket of stalks. These are the elements of Hank Willis Thomas's (b. 1976) 2014. This artwork's subject, Black hands holding white cotton, immediately recalls a vast image bank that narrates the long, intertwined history of race and labor in the making of the Atlantic world. As if to emphasize this entanglement, the image has been cropped and pixelated to specifically draw our attention to the intimacies of fiber and flesh that literally expand its geographies. Lined skin on each hand is smoothed out so that we notice each ridge, crease, and fold. Veins form deep rivulets that straighten and then snake across the back of the laborer's hand, joining wrist to finger. The vein ends where the side of the finger touches the cotton fiber, and its serpentine path beneath the skin recalls the carefully demarcated waterways, along which cotton bales flowed, that spread out across maps of the United States.The right palm faces down, and between the edges of thumb and forefinger cotton oozes out as if squeezed from the tightly closed palm. Its rounded edges follow the curve of the join between thumb and finger while its surface glistens like the rounded, worn-smooth nub of the worker's knuckle. By contrast, the open palm of the left hand is almost entirely covered by the tufts of cotton it holds. They bloom out and gather around the edges of the palm. The view we have leaves the bent fingers, crouching around the tufts of cot-Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/chapter-pdf/911669/9781478021377-001.pdf by guest on