Mary Ellen Bartley
Please join us at UNTITLED, Miami Beach where the gallery will present an exhibition of photographs by Zanele Muholi, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Mickalene Thomas, three artists of color whose work engages with issues of race, sexuality and desire in photography. All three investigate studio portraiture from a queer perspective, while simultaneously drawing on cultural references from Renaissance painting to homoerotic literature to 1970s issues of Jet Magazine. Using role-playing and performance to reclaim the representation of black bodies, Sepuya and Muholi both appear in front of the camera, functioning as subject, photographer and viewer, while Mickalene Thomas directs a tableaux of glamorous black women who serve as stand-ins for the artist and her desires.
Currently on view at the gallery through December 9th with an exhibition of new self portraits from her Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) series, Zanele Muholi’s 2017 solo presentation at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, was named as one of Artforum’s Best of 2017 exhibitions. In addition, she was a featured artist in this year’s Performa 17 biennial. She has been the subject of a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and was one of four inaugural solo exhibitions at the Luma Foundation, Arles. On November 22, 2017, Muholi was named a Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the highest cultural award by the government of France.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s 2017 debut solo exhibition at Yancey Richardson has been named one of the top exhibitions of the year in the current Artforum. His work is currently on view in the New Museum’s exhibition Trigger: Gender as Tool and Weapon and he will be featured in the March 2018 exhibition New Photography at the Museum of Modern Art. Sepuya’s work has been recently acquired by multiple museums including the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the International Center of Photography.
Mickalene Thomas’s multi-disciplinary practice incorporates photography, photo collage, painting and video. In 2017, she was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Moody Center for the Arts Houston, and was featured in group exhibitions at the New Museum and the Wexner Center for the Arts. In 2016 she presented solo exhibitions at the Aspen Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. She is currently preparing a solo exhibition for the Art Gallery of Ontario.
