Like Freud, Mickalene Thomas’ couch has made her famous. Normally appearing as a colorful, patchworked backdrop in Thomas’ photos and paintings of lounging African-American beauties (seen on the back wall), it’s a character of its own in this retro living room, transplanted to Chelsea’s Aperture Foundation. (Through March 17th).
Portraits of Picasso’s women inspired Mickalene Thomas’ latest series at Chelsea’s Lehmann Maupin Gallery, including this rhinestone and acrylic collage. Exuberant eye-brows and lashes suggest exotic bird plumage while garish, fauve colors and many sharp angles hint at the sitter’s strong personality. (Through August 8th).
Mickalene Thomas, Carla, enamel, acrylic, oil paint, glitter, rhinestones, oil pastel, graphite and silk screen on wood panel, 96 x 72 inches, 2014.
Mickalene Thomas is having her moment in New York, with gallery shows at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea and on the Lower East Side while her retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum continues. This landscape, now on view on the Lower East Side and titled ‘Vertical View of Jardin D’Eau’ was inspired by Thomas’ residency at Monet’s residence and garden at Giverny, home of his famous water lilies. (At Lehmann Maupin Gallery through Jan 5th).
Mickalene Thomas’s ‘Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois femmes noires,’ rethinks Manet’s 1863 original by substituting three black women for Manet’s two men and a nude woman. Manet’s version was rejected by the Salon, while Thomas’s rhinestone bedecked beauties headline her current show at the Brooklyn Museum (Through Jan 20th.)
Xaviera Simmons is known for her portraits in America landscapes, but in ‘Landscape (2 Women)’ from 2007, her models contend with an urban environment consisting of a dramatic red wall that sends out conflicting associations that include love, anger, danger and a sense of urgency. Simmons past series have sometimes featured subjects with skirts pulled over heads and assortments of objects hung around the waist like visual essays on identity; here, however, the womens’ differently aged bodies and their relationship are left to speak for themselves. (Included in tête-à-tête, curated by Mickalene Thomas at Yancey Richardson Gallery through Aug 24th.)
