Partners in Art was proud to support the AGO exhibit Femmes Noires by artist Mickalene Thomas. This exhibit upended and overturned familiar representations and monolithic notions of black women today. Developed in a creative partnership between the AGO and the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans, the exhibit presented a bold collection of Thomas’s vibrant and politically charged paintings, silkscreens, photographs, time-based media and site-specific installations exploring how black women are represented in art and popular culture.

The exhibition also highlighted Thomas’s collage work and the inspiration she takes from art histories and movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, Dadaism and the Harlem Renaissance.

Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires was the first large-scale solo exhibition by this contemporary artist to be staged in Canada. It sparked timely and urgent conversations about race, representational politics, black celebrity culture and sexuality as seen from a black queer feminist perspective.

This project is supported by Partners In Art.