Summer Series: Mickalene Thomas

Jul 20, 2023 12:30PM -1:30PM MST

In Conversation with Jasmine Wahi

Summer Series: Featured Artists and Conversations are free and open to the public. Registration is appreciated.

Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas was born and raised in New Jersey and lives and works in New York. One of the most influential artists today, her innovative practice has yielded instantly recognizable and widely celebrated aesthetic languages within contemporary visual culture. She is known for her elaborate paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Not only do her masterful mixed-media paintings, photographs, films and installations command space, they occupy eloquently while dissecting the intersecting complexities of black and female identity within the Western canon. Outside of her core practice, Thomas is a Tony Awards nominated co-producer, curator, educator and mentor to many emerging artists. While embarking on her own monumental solo shows, she simultaneously curates exhibitions at galleries and museums. Thomas’s work has become an undeniable force within the contemporary art world and an indispensable inspiration to younger generations of artists. She has been awarded multiple prizes and grants, including the Pratt Institute Legends Award (2022); Rema Hort Mann Foundation 25th Anniversary Honoree (2022); Artistic Impact Award, Newark Museum (2022); Glass House 15th Anniversary Artist of the Year (2022); Yale School of Art Presidential Visiting Fellow in Fine Arts (2020); Legend in Residence Award, Bronx Museum (2020); Pauli Murray College Associate Fellow at Yale University (2020); Meyerhoff-Becker Biennial Commission at Baltimore Museum of Art (2019); Visionary Award, Pioneer Works (2019); She is the cofounder of the Pratt>FORWARD ‘Artist in the Market’ incubator for post-graduate students, and serves on the Board of the Trustees for the Brooklyn Museum and MoMA PS1.

Jasmine Wahi

Jasmine Wahi is the Founder and Co-Director of Project for Empty Space, a nonprofit organization in New York City and Newark, New Jersey. Her multi-faceted curatorial practice predominantly focuses on issues of femme empowerment, complicating binary structures within social discourses, and exploring multi-positional cultural identities through the lens of intersectional feminism.

In 2023, Ms. Wahi was honored by The Metropolitan Museum of Art for exemplary social impact work. In 2020, PES, Ms. Wahi became the inaugural Holly Block Social Justice Curator at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, while simultaneously Co-Directing Project for Empty Space. While at the museum she curated several renowned exhibitions, including Born In Flames: Feminist Futures and Wardell Milan: AMERIKA. God Bless You If It’s Good To You, which was oriented around the thesis that visibility is the primary tenet of Social Justice. In 2019, Ms. Wahi gave her first TED Talk on intersectionality and visibility, entitled All The Women In Me Are Tired.

A lover of learning and sharing, Ms. Wahi has taught at a number of art institutions, including Yale University, and the School of Visual Arts: MFA Fine Arts department. She is currently in the Faculty of Brooklyn College in New York City. Ms. Wahi received her own Art History education from New York University, where she has a BA in Art History from the College of Arts and Sciences, and an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts.

Jasmine Wahi lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her chihuahua, Momo. You can follow her shenanigans and micro-essays on Instagram at @browngirlcurator.

Summer Series: Featured Artists and Conversations are made possible by the generous support of the following sponsors:

Special thanks to the following individuals whose generosity helps to support the Summer Series programming:

• Rona and Jeff Citrin
• Eleanore and Domenico De Sole
• Sherry and Joe Felson
• Liza and Jon Mauck
• Katie and Amnon Rodan
• Reginald and Leigh Smith

In Conversation:

Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas was born and raised in New Jersey and lives and works in New York. One of the most influential artists today, her innovative practice has yielded instantly recognizable and widely celebrated aesthetic languages within contemporary visual culture. She is known for her elaborate paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Not only do her masterful mixed-media paintings, photographs, films and installations command space, they occupy eloquently while dissecting the intersecting complexities of black and female identity within the Western canon. Outside of her core practice, Thomas is a Tony Awards nominated co-producer, curator, educator and mentor to many emerging artists. While embarking on her own monumental solo shows, she simultaneously curates exhibitions at galleries and museums. Thomas’s work has become an undeniable force within the contemporary art world and an indispensable inspiration to younger generations of artists. She has been awarded multiple prizes and grants, including the Pratt Institute Legends Award (2022); Rema Hort Mann Foundation 25th Anniversary Honoree (2022); Artistic Impact Award, Newark Museum (2022); Glass House 15th Anniversary Artist of the Year (2022); Yale School of Art Presidential Visiting Fellow in Fine Arts (2020); Legend in Residence Award, Bronx Museum (2020); Pauli Murray College Associate Fellow at Yale University (2020); Meyerhoff-Becker Biennial Commission at Baltimore Museum of Art (2019); Visionary Award, Pioneer Works (2019); She is the cofounder of the Pratt>FORWARD ‘Artist in the Market’ incubator for post-graduate students, and serves on the Board of the Trustees for the Brooklyn Museum and MoMA PS1.   Photo by Mickalene Thomas

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Jasmine Wahi

Jasmine Wahi is the Founder and Co-Director of Project for Empty Space, a nonprofit organization in New York City and Newark, New Jersey. Her multi-faceted curatorial practice predominantly focuses on issues of femme empowerment, complicating binary structures within social discourses, and exploring multi-positional cultural identities through the lens of intersectional feminism. In 2023, Ms. Wahi was honored by The Metropolitan Museum of Art for exemplary social impact work. In 2020, PES, Ms. Wahi became the inaugural Holly Block Social Justice Curator at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, while simultaneously Co-Directing Project for Empty Space. While at the museum she curated several renowned exhibitions, including Born In Flames: Feminist Futures and Wardell Milan: AMERIKA. God Bless You If It’s Good To You, which was oriented around the thesis that visibility is the primary tenet of Social Justice. In 2019, Ms. Wahi gave her first TED Talk on intersectionality and visibility, entitled All The Women In Me Are Tired. A lover of learning and sharing, Ms. Wahi has taught at a number of art institutions, including Yale University, and the School of Visual Arts: MFA Fine Arts department. She is currently in the Faculty of Brooklyn College in New York City. Ms. Wahi received her own Art History education from New York University, where she has a BA in Art History from the College of Arts and Sciences, and an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts. Jasmine Wahi lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her chihuahua, Momo. You can follow her shenanigans and micro-essays on Instagram at @browngirlcurator. Photo by Dario Calmese

Learn More