Mickalene Thomas Book

June 15, 2022

Phaidon Press’s book of Mickalene Thomas‘s (Amazon affiliate) work caught my eye. It was sitting in front of me shelved in the new work section at my library. I don’t know if I would have taken notice of the book had it not been in the new books section.

I first noticed her work when Thomas’ image of Carrie Mae Weems showed up in my NYTimes feed.

Her collage work fascinated me.

Using digital images in a collage/quilt format.

“As art historian Kobena Mercer points out, collage offers a ‘disarticulation of photographic realism.’ As a diasporic form, it exists as part of a call and response with real world subjectivity; intervening in the pictorial, it is the ‘cut’ that reveals the unseen and undervalued.” (page 124)

I realized that collages and photographic images offered an opportunity to recontextualize the story of Black women. Often marginalized groups don’t have a voice in how they want to be represented, and Thomas gives these images and collages a different perspective of these women. It makes me think of how collages can be used in the Asian American story – integrating history and one’s identity into a similar framework… linking past and present.

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