Mickalene Thomas presents Femmes Noires an active look at the black female body in celebrity culture and art history.

BY: LEANNE BENN

Perception and visual culture is everything. Views and interpretations of women in culture are highly important, especially for women of colour. What about the representation of black women in celebrity culture and western art history. Brooklyn based artist Mickalene Thomas has opened up the discussion here in Toronto at the AGO. Teaming up with AGO’s assistant curator of photography, Julie Crooks, Thomas has opened her first large-scale solo exhibition in Canada, entitled Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires on November 29^th.

Femmes Noires or woman black, what is it all about? Thomas presents a piece of herself in all of her work, a reflection of her own struggles and artistic culture through the eyes of a queer black woman. The exhibition includes paintings, video montages, silk screens and photography all in a well laid out and comfortable “living room” inspired space on the 5^th floor of the AGO’s Vivian and David Campbell Centre for Contemporary Art.

Thomas blurs the lines of reality, imagery and celebrity culture through various pieces of her work; often her paintings present texture and depth, using rhinestones, acrylic and even enamel almost in the form of a collage. Female power, sexuality, gender and sense of self are all reflected either through small scale or larger than life pieces silkscreened onto mirrored surfaces.

The unique exhibit is also in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Centre in New Orleans (CACNO) which will be her next stop for this exhibit. Most of Thomas’s work is reflective of American diaspora over the years, from celebrities such as Whitney Houston to Wanda Sykes, who appear in clips in one of her video montages. There are portraits of Diana Ross, Dianne Carroll and the powerful voice of Eartha Kitt echoing through the space as she adds a unique voice over to one presentation presented on a series of distressed television screens.

In a very puzzled and jig saw like nature, viewers are meant to make their connections of powerful speech presented on the exposed bodies of a black woman who undeniably have always been overlooked in traditional art history. Thomas is a starting point for the reflection of her work, it is an extension of her life and her own becoming, In one silkscreen presentation, Thomas uses visuals from the movie, The Colour Purple, which for a 13-year-old girl questioning her sexuality was a powerful time in her life as one scene presented a kiss between two black females. Along with personal inspirations through Thomas’s mother and her partner she even recreated a video sequence to the song Black Little Angels by Eartha Kitt and Thomas even hired a woman who looked like her mother in the recreation of the video. The song is for all the black angels, the blacks in heaven. The voids in art history where black women have always been but have been overlooked. Thomas draws inspiration from other artists in art history such as Picasso and especially Edoaurd Manet. Thomas has a deep interest in the research of art history; she explores themes and connections and even realized that Manet sometimes worked with women of color.

To really experience, Thomas’s work without giving away too much it’s necessary to explore this aspect of visual culture through your own eyes. Your own perception, your own feelings and meaning of what it is like to be a strong black woman.

The Femmes Noires exhibition will run at the AGO from November 29^th – March 24^th  2019.