Mickalene Thomas. Afro Goddess Looking Forward (detail), 2015. Rhinestones, acrylic, and oil on wood panel. © 2025 Mickalene Thomas
About the Exhibition
“Mickalene Thomas makes art that ‘gives Black women their flowers.’” —NPR’s Fresh Air
“If the rhinestone is Mickalene Thomas’s signature material, then exuberance is the signature spirit. . . . Through Thomas’s vision, everything seems recast in a prism of glittering, joyful light.” —The Cut
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love is the first major international tour focused on the work of pioneering artist Mickalene Thomas (American, b. 1971), whose influences range from 19th-century painting to popular culture. Co-organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, and The Broad, Los Angeles, and in partnership with the Barnes and Les Abattoirs, Musée–Frac Occitanie Toulouse, All About Love is being shown as a series of independent presentations, with further venues to be confirmed.
The Barnes presentation of All About Love showcases a selection of vivid artworks—paintings, collage, photography, video, and site-specific installation—that celebrates Thomas’s distinctive artistic practice from the late 2000s to the present day. Her work is characterized by spectacularly staged, rhinestoned, large-scale painted tableaux and bold, intimate compositions, decisively foregrounding Black femininity in abundant realms of visual pleasure, agency, and kinship. Whether in imaginative dialogue with canonical works from the history of art or playfully reckoning with popular culture, Thomas’s exuberant portraits offer an empowered vision of beauty and desire, formulated through a sensual, Black feminist lens.
Venues
The Broad, Los Angeles (May 25–September 29, 2024)
The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (October 20, 2024–January 12, 2025)
Hayward Gallery, London (February 11–May 5, 2025)
Les Abattoirs, Musée–Frac Occitanie Toulouse (June 13–November 9, 2025)
Mickalene Thomas. Afro Goddess Looking Forward, 2015. Rhinestones, acrylic, and oil on wood panel. © 2025 Mickalene Thomas
About the Artist
Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971, Camden, New Jersey) is one of today’s most influential artists. Her innovative practice has yielded instantly recognizable and widely celebrated aesthetic languages within contemporary visual culture. Thomas completed her MFA at the Yale University School of Art in 2002 and a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2003, and soon became known for her large-scale acrylic paintings of Black women in states of leisure and repose. Her confident and assured subjects are often depicted in domestic interiors from Black America, claiming the agency of womanhood while deconstructing the art historical canon. Outside of her core practice, Thomas is a Tony Award–nominated co-producer, curator, educator, and mentor to many emerging artists. Thomas’s work has become an undeniable force within the contemporary art world and an indispensable inspiration to younger generations of artists. She lives and works in New York. Photograph by Emil Horowitz
Exhibition Organization
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love is co-organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, and The Broad, Los Angeles, and in partnership with the Barnes and Les Abattoirs, Musée–Frac Occitanie Toulouse. The Barnes presentation is curated by independent curator and scholar Renée Mussai.
Catalogue
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love
This major publication affirms Mickalene Thomas’s status as a key figure of contemporary art. It features notable works arranged in thematic chapters, an interview with the artist by Hayward Gallery chief curator Rachel Thomas, and essays by scholars and curators that cover Thomas’s distinct visual vocabulary, drawing on themes of love and intergenerational female empowerment as well as tenets of Black feminist theory. Hardcover; 224 pages
Sponsors
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love at the Barnes is sponsored by:
Additional support is provided by Agnes Gund, Denise Littlefield Sobel, the Edna W. Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, Emily and Michael Cavanagh, Ralph Citino and Lawrence Taylor, Marianne N. Dean, Arthur M. Kaplan and R. Duane Perry, Sarah Morthland, Ogilvie Family Foundation, Eileen Rosenau, Dalila Wilson-Scott and S. Christopher Scott, Josephine and Sam Switzenbaum, Brenda A. and Larry D. Thompson, an anonymous donor, and other generous individuals.
Ongoing funding for exhibitions comes from the Christine and Michael Angelakis Exhibition Fund, the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund, the Lois and Julian Brodsky Exhibition Fund, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Christine and George Henisee Exhibition Fund, the Aileen and Brian Roberts Exhibition Fund, and the Tom and Margaret Lehr Whitford Exhibition Fund.
In addition, funding for all exhibitions comes from contributors to the Barnes Foundation Exhibition Fund:
Joan Carter and John Aglialoro, Julia and David Fleischner, Victoria McNeil Le Vine, Leigh and John Middleton, Jeanette and Joe Neubauer
John Alchin and Hal Marryatt, Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, Lois and Julian Brodsky, N. Judith Broudy, Elaine W. Camarda and A. Morris Williams, Jr., Eugene and Michelle Dubay, Penelope P. Harris, Jones & Wajahat Family, Lisa D. Kabnick and John H. McFadden, Victor F. Keen and Jeanne Ruddy, Marguerite Lenfest, Maribeth and Steven Lerner, Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation, Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan, The Park Family, Wendy and Mark Rayfield, Anne and Bruce Robinson, Adele K. Schaeffer, Katie and Tony Schaeffer, Donna and Jerry Slipakoff, Dr. and Mrs. Eugene E. Stark, Joan F. Thalheimer, Bruce and Robbi Toll, van Beuren Charitable Foundation, Kirsten White, Randi Zemsky and Bob Lane, Anonymous.