Mickalene Thomas: All About Love
"Mickalene Thomas: All About Love" is the first exhibition in France devoted to the work of the pioneering artist. Les Abattoirs is the final stop on an international tour of this exhibition, following The Broad in Los Angeles, The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and the Hayward Gallery in London.
"All About Love" reflects on more than two decades of Mickalene Thomas' career through the presentation of vibrant works celebrating love and the brilliance of Black wowen. Paintings, collages, photographs, videos and installations make up an unprecedented exploration of her work, which resolutely brings Black femininity, power and love to the forefront. Whether in dialogue with canonical works of art history or popular culture, her exuberant portraits, with their ravishing patterns and rhinestones, offer a vision of beauty and desire, formulated through a sensual black feminist perspective. The exhibition shares its title and several of its themes with the pivotal text by feminist author bell hooks, in which love is an active process rooted in healing, carving a path away from domination and towards collective liberation.
Born in 1971 in Camden, New Jersey, Mickalene Thomas completed her MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2002 and a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2003. Soon after, she became known for her large-scale acrylic paintings depicting black women in states of leisure and repose, incorporating rhinestones, a central material in her practice that symbolizes the complexities of femininity and opulent granduer. Showing women with confident, self-assured expressions, the subjects of her work are often depicted in domestic interiors that celebrate Black American life by reclaiming the agency of wowanhood while deconstructing the canons of art history.
Similarly, Thomas' figurative photographs, collages and paintings recontextualize scenes from 19th -century French painters such as Henri Matisse and Édouard Manet, challenging the subjugation and oppressive narratives upheld by Western archives, cultural institutions and systems of representation. The exhibition was initiated and organized by the Hayward Gallery in London and led by Chief curatore Rachel Thomas. It is curated for Les Abattoirs by Lauriane Gricourt, Director of the museum.
Touring:
The Broad, Los Angeles (25 May - 29 September 2024)
The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (20 October 2024 - 12 January 2025)
Hayward Gallery, London (11 February - 5 May 2025)
In pictures
