MICKALENE THOMAS: FEMMES NOIRES
November 2, 2019 – June 14, 2020
Opening: Saturday, Nov 2, 5:30 – 10pm
Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires is an exhibition of new work—collages and montages by Mickalene Thomas that confront and subvert stereotypes with powerful, self-possessed depictions of Black women.
BIO
Mickalene Thomas makes paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations that draw on art history and popular culture to create a contemporary vision of female sexuality, beauty, and power. Blurring the distinction between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary, Thomas constructs complex portraits, landscapes, and interiors in order to examine how identity, gender, and sense-of-self are informed by the ways women (and “feminine” spaces) are represented in art and popular culture.
Thomas received a B.F.A. from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY in 2000 and an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT in 2002. Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA; Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON; The Dayton Art Institute, OH; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA (2017); Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA (2017); Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA (2017); Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts, Atlanta, GA (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016); Aspen Art Museum, CO (2016); Aperture Foundation, New York (2016); George Eastman House, Rochester, NY (2014); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2012-13); Santa Monica Museum of Art (2012); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2012); Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2011); and La Conservera Contemporary Art Centre, Ceuti, Spain (2009).
Thomas’s work is in international public and private collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; MoMA PS1, New York; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Yale University Art Collection, New Haven, CT; and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
Thomas has been awarded prizes and grants, including the USA Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow (2015); Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2013); Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award (2012); and the Timerhi Award for Leadership in the Arts (2010). She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
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CAC galleries are open Wednesday-Monday, 11am-5pm, General Admission is $10/$8 Students & Seniors, Free to CAC Members, Free on Sundays for Louisiana residents, Courtesy of The Helis Foundation. Advance Tickets are available at the CAC Box Office, 900 Camp Street and online at www.cacno.org or by calling 504 525-2580. CAC Members receive free admission to the galleries, discounts for performances and early seating. Join at cacno.org.
