Until January 7, 2023, head to the Yale University Art Gallery to see contemporary paintings by Mickalene Thomas MFA ’02 curated alongside historical objects.
On the exhibition, ArtNews writes, “Small 19th-century portraits (painted miniatures, daguerreotypes, tintypes, silhouettes, and prints) featuring Black sitters—some known, some unknown, some free(d), some enslaved—make up an imagined community, in Thomas’s words a “chosen family,” in the exhibition space. These are joined by 20th- and 21st-century pieces by the likes of Lebohang Kganye, Sula Bermudez-Silverman, Curtis Talwst Santiago, Wardell Milan II, Devin N. Morris, Adia Millett, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, and Betye Saar. The curators chose the contemporary works to expand upon notions of “domesticity, family, interiority, intimacy, and ownership that existed under slavery and continue to affect our lives today,” as Thomas writes in her catalogue essay.”
Photo credit: Installation view of “Mickalene Thomas / Portrait of an Unlikely Space,” 2023, at Yale University Art Gallery, with exhibition design elements by Mickalene Thomas and Rose Prentice (1771–1852) by Sarah Goodridge (on the table).PHOTO JESSICA SMOLINSKI/YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY