Mickalene Thomas Show Planned for Broad
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| Mickalene Thomas, Din avec la main dans le miroir et jupe rouge, 2023. (c) Mickalene Thomas |
In an unusual partnership, the Broad, Philadelphia's Barnes Foundation, and London's Hayward Gallery are organizing a Mickalene Thomas retrospective. "Mickalene Thomas: All About Love" is to open at the Broad (May 25 to Sep. 29, 2024), followed by runs in Philadelphia and London.
The Santa Monica Museum of Art (today's ICA-LA) organized Thomas' first museum career survey in 2012. That exhibition traveled to the Brooklyn Museum.
Comments
> The themes of the exhibition will extend into a full
> slate of associated programming developed in
> collaboration with the artist, including a summer
> concert series and in-gallery programs centering
> women and Black and queer communities.
That makes me think of this exhibition in 2019:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/california-women-artists-pasadena-exhibition-1464745
The skill shown in works like this from that display never ceases to amaze me:
https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2019/02/15-776x1024.jpg
I wonder if the Lucas Museum in future years will make that style of art more mainstream or au-courant?
Never heard of Thomas before, but a sampling of her works indicates she's another instance of a variety of people out there having a lot of creative and/or technical skill. She is also a reminder that politics very much affect the gatekeepers (or tastemakers) of culture. Such as "queer" now being used in either a very self-consciously or very unconsciously non-pejorative way. Some of what's going on was satirized in this program:
https://www.amazon.com/SOUTH-PARK-PANDERVERSE-Trey-Parker/dp/B0CJPJW9VM
The AMPAS museum next to LACMA premiered in 2021 with some controversy about the way it downplayed the role of Jewish moguls in the movie industry. Politics in the 2020s are all over the place:
https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/11/2023_1115-queer-palestine-1200x815.jpg