“Beyond The Pleasure Principle”: Artist Mickalene Thomas To Globally Present New Body Of Work This Fall

Brooklyn-based artist Mickalene Thomas will showcase her new collection of work this fall in a series of exhibitions that will be featured in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. In partnership with Lévy Gorvy, the exhibition series titled “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” will consist of paintings, installations, and video.   

Thomas’s artwork notably focuses on Black women and the body. Her prominent large-scale collage paintings explore themes of female sexuality, beauty, and empowerment. 

“Beyond the Pleasure Principle” is a reference to Janet Jackson’s 1986 song of the same name, and also the momentous 1920 essay by Sigmund Freud. Both works have been influential for Thomas’s artwork. In her upcoming exhibition, Thomas has produced political pieces that speak of Black activism, reimagined portraits of Black women from Jet magazine, and a video that is a collaboration with art advisor and curator Racquel Chevremont.

In a statement announcing the exhibition, gallery co-founder Dominique Lévy expressed her enthusiasm. “We are proud to collaborate with Mickalene Thomas to introduce her latest bodies of work to broad and diverse audiences that span time zones and cultures,” she said. “In Mickalene’s art we see both strength and vulnerability, eloquence and enigma, a temporal painterly sensibility combined with conceptual rigor.”

“She is a truly great American artist, an inheritor of powerful aesthetic and sociopolitical traditions, who is able to challenge the past, rethink conventions, and propose a different vision for the future. It is our joy and honor to share her work internationally at a moment when its powerful relevance and resonance can serve as a call to positive change.”

Beginning in New York and ending in Hong Kong, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” will run from September 9th to October 14th.

The gallery will coincide with the release of the artist’s first major monograph, Mickalene Thomas, which will highlight Thomas’s prolific career. Published by Phaidon Press, the book also features essays by Kellie Jones and Roxane Gay.

Learn more about what each exhibition will entail by visiting levygorvy.com.