Opens Tonight In Toronto
Solo Show Will Attract The Masses To The AGO
Photos and Story By Stephen Weir
Even though the Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noire exhibition doesn't open until this evening, there is a big buzz in the downtown Toronto already! Internationally acclaimed for her powerful portraits of Black women - New York based artist Mickalene Thomas has brought to Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario a remarkable exhibition that sparks urgent questions about race and sexuality and how we see the Black female body.
On Tuesday the artist came to Toronto to hold court at a crowded morning media scrum. A large group of television, radio and print journalists (including me on behalf of Caribbean Camera) followed the artist through the large multi-media show as she gave the background of each piece in the show.
" I don't speak French," the artist told the Caribbean Camera. "I used French because it is very descriptive (to call the show Femmes Noires).When you get off the elevator and walk into the exhibition, you know immediately what it is all about ... Black women."
Her art is about Black celebrity culture; she says that the Colour Purple changed her life, and she has created one room in the exhibition dedicated to the movie. " I was 13-years old and it was the first time I got to see women of colour together in a film with a sense of love from one woman to another!"
Portraits of Diana Ross and Diahann Carroll are two of the many collage-based works in this large sized 28-piece exhibition, There is also a video wall she calls Do I Look Like a Lady? which features short archival clips of iconic Black female performers from various eras including Whitney Houston, Nina Simone and Wanda Sykes. " I am inserting the figures of Black women, who have largely been forgotten or marginalized throughout the history of Western art."
" I don't speak French," the artist told the Caribbean Camera. "I used French because it is very descriptive (to call the show Femmes Noires).When you get off the elevator and walk into the exhibition, you know immediately what it is all about ... Black women."
Her art is about Black celebrity culture; she says that the Colour Purple changed her life, and she has created one room in the exhibition dedicated to the movie. " I was 13-years old and it was the first time I got to see women of colour together in a film with a sense of love from one woman to another!"
Portraits of Diana Ross and Diahann Carroll are two of the many collage-based works in this large sized 28-piece exhibition, There is also a video wall she calls Do I Look Like a Lady? which features short archival clips of iconic Black female performers from various eras including Whitney Houston, Nina Simone and Wanda Sykes. " I am inserting the figures of Black women, who have largely been forgotten or marginalized throughout the history of Western art."
The exhibition, her first Canadian solo show, looks at Black women through a queer feminist lens. The show, which takes up the whole 5th floor of the Dundas Street gallery includes paintings, video montages, silkscreens and photographs. Many of the works of art show Black women including herself and her partner in various stages of undress.
"I like Canada's (view on nudity and sexuality). When I asked curator Julie Crooks, if the AGO would be putting up warning signs about the content, she looked at me and said Why would we do that?"
The artist told the media at her tour that Instagram isn't as liberated as the AGO. They have blocked the artist's partner from posting pictures of the exhibition on their account. " They told us that if we posted content from the show they (would kick us off) Instagram!"
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