Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present the desire of the other, an exhibition of new work by Mickalene Thomas. An internationally recognized artist based in New York, Thomas is best known for her large-scale paintings combining art historical, political, and pop cultural references to explore the contemporary female form. Blurring the distinction between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary, Thomas introduces complex notions of femininity, sexuality, class, and power. Through an exploration of artifice, she also challenges common definitions of beauty and historical and artistic representations of women. For her first exhibition in China, Thomas will present a series of recent paintings and works on paper that highlight her varied use of media, including oil and acrylic paint, enamel, silkscreen, rhinestones, and collage. The artist will be present for an opening reception at the gallery on Friday, November 18, from 6-8 PM.

Thomas often draws inspiration from multiple artistic periods and cultural influences found throughout Western art history, particularly the early modernists such as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edouard Manet, and Romare Bearden. She models her figures on the classic poses and abstract settings popularized by these modern “masters” as a way to reclaim agency for women who have been presented as objects to be desired or subjugated. Though Thomas draws from a number of time periods and genres, her use of pattern and domestic spaces often references periods throughout the 1960s-’80s. This was a time of immense social and political conflict, change, and transformation—the civil rights movement, the Black is Beautiful movement, and the second wave of feminism—during which many women, particularly African-Americans, rejected and redefined traditional standards of beauty.