Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires

Breakthrough Exhibition Opening At Toronto's AGO

By Stephen Weir as published in the Caribbean Camera

A first for a noted American artist is about to be made at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).  Opening next Thursday is a solo exhibition by African-American artist Mickalene Thomas – this is the first Canadian solo show for the famed painter / photographer.

Recognize the name? She is best known as being the first artist to create a portrait of the First Lady Michelle Obama. Thomas's silk-screen portrait, "Michelle O," was a riff on Andy Warhol's famous portrait of former First Lady Jackie O and captured the attention of all Americans.

Thomas has made a career out of creating powerful portraits of Black women.  The Brooklyn-based 47-year old artist comes to the AGO November 29th with a remarkable exhibition that sparks urgent questions about race and sexuality and how society sees the Black female body. 

Portrait of Kalena by Mickalene Thomas

The AGO says that Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires is a show, which “explores Black celebrity culture and Western art history through a queer feminist lens, includes paintings, video montages, silkscreens, photographs and several immersive living room tableaux.” 

This large-scale solo exhibition includes over 25 works of art including larger than life collage portraits of Diana Ross and Diahann Carroll. The show will take over the fifth floor of the Dundas Street West’s public gallery.

A centrepiece of the exhibition is Do I Look Like a Lady?  This is a large-scale video installation which features short archival clips of iconic Black female performers from various eras, including Whitney Houston, Whoopi Goldberg and Wanda Sykes.

“This (exhibition) highlights how Mickalene Thomas’s art connects to timely global conversations about race, gender and representation,” Julie Crooks, Assistant Curator of Photography, AGO told the Caribbean Camera. “For Canadian audiences, the exhibition offers not only an exciting introduction to Thomas’s work, but also an opportunity to see how contemporary art can effectively disrupt stereotypes in Western art history and challenge notions of beauty in popular culture.”

Dr. Crooks has been very active in Toronto creating exhibitions about Black Canadian photographers. In 2016 she curated ‘Ears, Eyes, Voice: Black Canadian Photojournalists 1970s-1990s’  - one of the key exhibits at the annual Contact photography festival.  Her first show for the AGO was actually done before she was hired full-time. She was contracted to curate ‘Free Black North’, an exhibition of 140-year old photographs of people living in Ontario many of whom escaped to the province via the Underground Railroad.

The young Canadian photography expert has roots in the UK, Africa and

Los Angelitos Negros 2016 Mickalane Thomas

Barbados.  She recognizes that Canadian museums have been slow to collect and exhibit the work of Black Canadian artists.   

“This show a big step in the right direction and obviously the gallery is looking hard to rectifying (the lack of Black content),” she said.” This is a really great show. The artist’s collages which combine both her paintings and her photographs will catches the attention of the city, it has so much appeal.”

“When we decided to feature her work I visited her studio in Brooklyn and we began an ongoing conversation about her art. She will be coming up to Toronto for our official opening.”

- from Thursday's Caribbean Camera

This exhibition is a co-production between the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Contemporary Arts Centre, New Orleans. Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires runs to March 24, 2019 in Toronto and then will travel to New Orleans in the spring.

STEPHEN WEIR
Stephen Weir & Associates | stephen@stephenweir.com