Kindred spirits: Mickalene Thomas’ collaborative photography at Aperture
Even though the outcome of Mickalene Thomas’ artistic practice tends to be large-scale paintings encrusted with rhinestones, along the way she is known to take photographs of her subjects as part of that process. Those photographs are now the subject of ‘Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photography and tête-à-tête’, a two-part exhibition at New York's Aperture Foundation.
The show reinterprets themes that Thomas has been exploring throughout her career. Two years ago, for example, at Lehmann Maupin, the gallery that represents her, Thomas showed 'Tête de Femme', a body of work that saw the artist represent the female form through brightly coloured painting and mixed-media collage.
Now, with 'Muse', she has developed a new installation called tête-a-tête, which picks up on that theme, but does so through photography, pairing her creations with work from photographers who have inspired her, such as Carrie Mae Weems, Renée Cox, and Deana Lawson.
This provides a resonance between artists addressing a similar theme. ‘Collaboration isn’t just about two people or a group of people making a single object,’ Thomas says, during a walk-through of the exhibition, suggesting that collaboration can be just as much about the process itself than about a single outcome. ‘It’s also about the spaces and conversations you have. Can you bring that to the forefront?’
Thomas builds elaborate sets to serve as backdrops for her paintings and photographs. One of those is included in the exhibition, allowing visitors to see both the backdrop and some of the photographs set there.
Her preparation for the exhibition itself seems to have provoked something of a mid-career reevaluation. She now considers her photography an end unto itself. ‘I always considered the photographs secondary, but now I consider them primary,’ she says. ‘They were speaking about notions of beauty that my paintings weren’t.'
Referring to the process of putting together the exhibition, she adds, ‘it shifted from it being a resource to my paintings to it being their own bodies of work’.
On view until March 17, the exhibition will travel to other venues after it closes in New York. An accompanying book, Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs, compiles the work in a single volume.
INFORMATION
'Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photography and tête-à-tête' is on view until 17 March. For more details, please visit the Aperture Foundation's website
Photography courtesy the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong, and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
ADDRESS
Aperture Foundation
547 West 27th Street
4th Floor
New York City
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
Alcova 2024 offers up contemporary independent design in historical domestic backdrops
Alcova 2024 moved to Varedo to take over the spaces of Villa Bagatti Valsecchi and Villa Borsani (on view until 21 April)
By Sujata Burman Published
-
Ama Bar, in Vancouver, is sexy and a little disorienting
Ama Bar features ‘Blade Runner 2049’-inspired interiors by &Daughters
By Sofia de la Cruz Published
-
Kembra Pfahler revisits ‘The Manual of Action’ for CIRCA
Artist Kembra Pfahler will lead a series of classes in person and online, with a short film streamed from Piccadilly Circus in London, as well as in Berlin, Milan and Seoul, over three months until 30 June 2024
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
The Met’s ‘The Real Thing: Unpacking Product Photography’ dissects the avant-garde in early advertising
A new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York explores the role of product photography and advertising in shaping the visual language of modernism
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Tony Notarberardino’s Chelsea Hotel Portraits preserve a slice of bygone New York life
‘Tony Notarberardino: Chelsea Hotel Portraits, 1994-2010’, on show at New York’s ACA Galleries, is the photographer’s ode to the storied hotel he calls home and its eclectic clientele
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘LA Gun Club’: artist Jane Hilton on who’s shooting who
‘LA Gun Club’, an exhibition by Jane Hilton at New York’s Palo Gallery, explores American gun culture through a study of targets and shooters
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published
-
Todd Gray’s sculptural photography collages defy dimension, linearity and narrative
In Todd Gray’s New York exhibition, he revisits his 40-year archive, fragmented into elaborated frames that open doors for new readings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Frieze LA 2024 guide: the art, gossip and buzz
Our Frieze LA 2024 guide includes everything you need to know and see in and around the fair
By Renée Reizman Published
-
New York artist Christopher Astley showcases an alternative natural world
At Martos Gallery in New York, Christopher Astley’s paintings evoke an alternative natural world and the chaos of warfare (until 16 March 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published