Mickalene Thomas Brings It Home

In bell hooks’ 1999 novel All About Love: New Visions, the intersectional feminist author defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” This poignant portrayal reverberates in Mickalene Thomas new touring exhibition, which debuts at the Broad in Los Angeles this Saturday. 

‍

The show, titled “Mickalene Thomas: All About Love,” features over 80 pieces that encompass all facets of the artist’s impressive oeuvre. Each room offers a window into a different series: from patchwork paintings and mixed-media collages to meticulously staged photographs and video installations. 

Upon walking into the exhibition, visitors are immediately embraced into Thomas’ intimate ecosystem, which is brimming with vestiges from the artist’s past. The entryway into the exhibition is directly inspired by the facade of Thomas’ childhood home in Camden, New Jersey. Seating scattered throughout the space invokes a reposeful atmosphere reminiscent of a private residence—made even more inviting with the inclusion of a functional living room set stationed in the middle of a spacious gallery room. 

‍

The New Jersey-born, New York-based artist began exploring the complexities surrounding her own identity, the beauty and inspiration she found within her community as well as intergenerational racial trauma after she stumbled across a 1994 retrospective of the American artist Carrie Mae Weems. “It was the first time I saw work by an African-American female artist that reflected myself and called upon a familiarity of family dynamics and sex and gender,” Thomas said in an interview. 

Thomas, known for her depictions of Black domestic life as well as her commitment to addressing historical erasure, has always had representation and cultural visibility at the forefront of her mind—and practice. She has often depicted prominent Black women as subjects in her art. Past subjects include Weems, Oprah Winfrey, Whitney Houston, and former First Lady Michelle Obama—the latter whom Thomas created the first individual portrait of. Angelitos Negros, 2016, Thomas’ approximately 23-minute-long, multiple-channel reflection on the absence of Black angels in Christian art,  is just one of the immersive pieces included in the exhibition. The video collage features footage of the American singer and actress Eartha Kitt as she sings the 1953 track of the same name, mirrored by footage of Thomas and two of her friends each emulating Kitt’s performance.

‍

Partial to large-scale canvases, Thomas frequently depicts her subjects as larger-than-life. Some of the artist’s most expansive pieces are on display, including the 12-foot-wide I’m Feelin Good, 2014, composed of rhinestones, glitter, acrylic, enamel, and oil on a wooden panel. Accompanying the 2014 piece is the sparkling and commanding Portrait of Maya No. 10, 2017, whose eight-feet-tall gaze pierces down at the viewer, demanding to be seen. In addition, a special publication will accompany the exhibition, featuring conversations with Thomas alongside essays by Claudia Rankine, Darnell L. Moore, and Ed Schad, among others. After viewing this exhibition, there is no doubt that visitors will leave as, what hooks dubs, “practitioners of love.”

‍

“Mickalene Thomas: All About Love” is on view until September 29, 2024 at The Broad at 221 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012, USA before touring internationally.