Mickalene Thomas

Is All About Love

“Love is so sacred in a culture of domination, because it simply begins to erode your dualisms: dualisms of black and white, male and female, right and wrong. I’m a seeker on a path... a path about love.” So fully in sync with that premise, Mickalene Thomas embraced the title of bell hooks’ dynamic words for her first internationally touring exhibition, All About Love, showing at The Broad through September 29, 2024. I spoke with curator Ed Schad about a truly vigorous invitation from Thomas to meet her women and become enveloped in a passage of portraits, collage, photography, rhinestones, and Love.

Gwynned Vitello: Let’s start by telling me how you got involved with this show.

Ed Schad: The show was initially pitched to Mickalene by the Hayward in London, and their director approached ours about it. I then took a meeting in London with Chief Curator Rachel Thomas, who had opened the conversation with Mickalene, and yeah, I’ve been on the project ever since.

It’s described as a touring exhibition, so would you describe it as a retrospective? I hope we see Lounging, Standing, Looking in the show.

There hasn’t been an international touring exhibition. This show focuses on 20 years of Mickaelene’s work, and you do get your wish. Lounging, Standing Looking, from 2003, is her earliest work in the show, and there will also be pieces that are fresh out of the studio from 2024. So we have this wonderful arc from her career dating back to her postgraduate period right up to what’s happening day to day right now.