Bryan Keith Thomas
at The Guardhouse
Main Entrance, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
January 24 – April 20, 2025
FOR-SITE is honored to present Bryan Keith Thomas at The Guardhouse as part of The Guardhouse Program, which is designed to serve three artists annually, each of whom will create a temporary art installation inside a historic, former military guard station at the main entrance to Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. This program activating The Guardhouse is free and open to the public, viewable through the windows 24 hours a day.
Artist and educator Bryan Keith Thomas’s installation at The Guardhouse, entitled Birthright: Revolutionary Aspects of Freedom (2025), invites viewers to reflect, remember, and reimagine the legacies we carry and the freedoms we cherish, celebrating a shared heritage that transcends time and place. Thomas’s art practice celebrates the Black experience through the use of historic symbols such as cotton, roses, church fans, Holy Bibles, and cultural artifacts. His installation will also serve as an important touchpoint for FOR-SITE’s major upcoming exhibition at Fort Point National Historic Site, opening in June 2025, with more details to be revealed in the coming weeks.
The transformative power of memory, heritage, and freedom are central to Birthright. Inspired by the grandeur and symbolism of a 19th-century birthday celebration, the installation pays tribute to the beauty, resilience, and legacy of the Black American experience, offering a dynamic exploration of ancestry and collective memory. In asking the question, “Who has the right to a birthday party?” Thomas underscores the humanity inherent in such celebrations, turning the birthday into an act of self-affirmation and cultural pride.
IMAGE: Bryan Keith Thomas
The installation is free and open to the public, viewable through the windows 24 hours a day.
The Guardhouse is located at the main entrance of Fort Mason Center.
About the Artist
Bryan Keith Thomas was born in Dyersburg, Tennessee, and received his MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He currently resides in Oakland, California, where he serves as Professor of Fine Art within the Painting and Drawing and Critical Ethnic Studies departments at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA.
Thomas received the “White House Honor” as a guest of First Lady Laura Bush for his contributions to the Art in Embassies Program in Washington, DC. His work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally at venues such as Art Basel Miami, de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Oakland Museum of California, Gallery Guichard in Chicago, ArtJaz Gallery in Philadelphia, E&S Gallery in Louisville, the American Embassy in Dakar, Senegal, and the DuSable Museum in Chicago, among others. Additionally, his paintings are included in several private and public collections worldwide.
Bryan Keith Thomas at The Guardhouse is presented by FOR-SITE in partnership with Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. The Guardhouse Program is made possible thanks to generous support from the ARB Fund.