ASPEN: Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas, Shug Avery Breakfast, 2016. Image via aspenartmuseum.org

Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities

March 10 - June 12, 2016

ASPEN ART MUSEUM

637 East Hyman Avenue

Aspen, CO

From aspenartmuseum.org:

As the Aspen Art Museum’s 2015–2016 Gabriela and Ramiro Garza Distinguished Artist in Residence, New York–based artist Mickalene Thomas has developed a new body of work in the medium of film and video. The AAM’s exhibition Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities recasts and reconfigures notions of beauty, gender, race, and representation. Thomas uses the copy-and-paste sensibility of her paintings and collages to edit portraits of women together, creating a larger narrative of what it means to be a woman in the world today.

Exhibit Link 

Mickalene Thomas on Muses, Models, and Mentors

NEW YORK: History

Mickalene Thomas, Les Trois Femmes Noires, 2006, C-print, Edition 1/5, 47.5 x 56.75 inches. Image via billhodgesgallery.com.

November 20, 2014 – January 10, 2015

BILL HODGES GALLERY

529 West 20^th Street, 2E

New York, NY

From Bill Hodges Gallery press release:

Bill Hodges Gallery is pleased to present History, which features the work of several historic and contemporary artists on a medium that is arguably the most significant to the history of art.

History showcases works on paper and imparts a testament to the medium. Photographs, drawings, lithographs, serigraphs, and etchings by renowned artists Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, Lyle Ashton Harris, Carrie Mae Weems, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Jacob Lawrence, Chester Higgins, and Roy DeCarava comprise the variety of mediums and artists exhibited.

Mickalene Thomas brings contemporary photographic style to the exhibition like none other. Le Trois Femmes Noires portrays the elegance of ebony skin through form, expression, and the juxtaposition of pattern. Also on view is a drawing by painter Kehinde Wiley, which served as a study for his work Passing Posing (The Martyrdom of St. Symphorian). Wiley’s work often plays on the statuesque figures depicted in classical painting. For this work, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ The Martyrdom of St. Symphorian provides the foundation in which Wiley expounds upon in a work of art entirely of its own respect.

The way in which African American artists have influenced one another, in turn influencing those who come after, is also considered in the curation of this exhibition. Minstrel, a striking photograph created during 1987 and 1988 by Lyle Ashton Harris, commands attention and is about as “in your face” as a photograph can get. Moreover, the late Roy DeCarava’s photograph Untitled (Man with Portfolio), while far less confrontational, still manages to permeate the viewer with its heaviness.

Jacob Lawrence’s artwork is impactful both when examined individually and within the context of art history. Included in this exhibition is a distinctive example of his work, a well-documented drawing, Children at Play (circa 1955). This is a work notably created during a period in between the making of some of Lawrence’s most influential works, evidencing his varying methods of process. Also included in the exhibition is Romare Bearden’s Introduction for a Blues Queen (Uptown at Savoy), a monoprint from his 1979 Jazz series. It is the original used to print the entirety of the sequence, as confirmed by the Bearden Foundation and the ink on the back of the work.

Exhibit Link

CHICAGO: Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas's mother's lipsticks, 2014, cast bronze. Image via kavigupta.com.

I was born to do great things

September 19 – November 15, 2014

KAVI GUPTA CHICAGO

835 West Washington Boulevard

Chicago, IL

From kavigupta.com:

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness..." - John Keats

Kavi Gupta CHICAGO | BERLIN is proud to announce its first solo exhibition with New York based artist Mickalene Thomas, entitled I was born to do great things. 

  

I was born to do great things are the quoted words of Sandra Bush, Mickalene Thomas's late mother, a statement that speaks for both the dynamic life that she lived as well as her influence and inspiration on Thomas's artistic practice as her longtime muse. Bush has been prominent as a subject in Thomas's works over the past 14 years, inspiring her examinations of identity and style through her magnetic personality and undeniable presence. This presentation of new work explores the personal story of the woman behind the inspiration. This is a story in celebration of womanhood, motherhood, and the power of art as a totem for personal memory, a story in celebration of Sandra.

Exhibit Link

NEW YORK: Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas, Untitled #1 (detail), Acrylic, oil paint, glitter, rhinestones, oil pastel, dry pastel, graphite, and silk screen on wood panel. 96 x 82 inches. BlackArtistNews photo. All rights reserved.

Tête de Femme

June 26 – August 8, 2014

LEHMANN MAUPIN

540 West 26^th Street

New York, NY

From Lehmann Maupin press release:

Lehmann Maupin is delighted to debut Tête de Femme, a new body of work by artist Mickalene Thomas. In her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, Thomas explores the intricacies of female beauty through painting and collage, focusing on how artifice serves both to mask and reveal the individual essence of her subjects.

Throughout much of her career, Thomas has drawn from art history with particular interest in classical portraiture, constructed interiors, and iconic representations of the female form. References to Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Romare Bearden and Gustave Courbet may be found throughout her oeuvre. In Tête de Femme (translated as “head of a woman”), Thomas looks to early 20th century Cubism and contemporary Pop references, fragmenting and reducing portraiture to its most formal and geometric elements to create larger-than-life portraits of her models.

While the artist’s earlier works focused on classical depictions of the female form, primarily using powerful black women as the subjects, Tête de Femme more boldly conceptualizes female faces from collaged geometric cutouts. She relies on these shapes in the absence of glamourized female bodies placed in the highly conceptualized environments of her previous work. The series demonstrates the artist’s interplay of line, form, and material, punctuated with an increased use of color. With an affinity for rhinestones and glitter, Thomas utilizes these materials in addition to introducing screen-printing to her practice, giving her paintings a new dimensionality.

In addition to her exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, Thomas will be exhibiting this year at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY from June 20 to October 19 and L’Ecole des Beaux Arts de Monaco, Monaco from July 4 to August 31. She has also been commissioned to create a special mural for the US Embassy in Dakar, Senegal.

Mickalene Thomas, Tête de Femme, installation view at Lehmann Maupin, New York.

 Exhibit Link

SIGNED: Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas photographed by Roberto Chamorro. Image via absoluteartbureau.com.

New York based artist now represented by Kavi Gupta CHICAGO | BERLIN

From KaviGupta.com, March 19, 2014:

Drawing from a long study of art history and the classical genres of portraiture, landscape and still life, Mickalene Thomas's political and pop- culturally infused imagery explores constructed notions of identity and the self. Her multi-referential work presents a complex viewpoint on what it means to be a contemporary woman. Best known for her elaborate rhinestone-encrusted paintings, Thomas’s works explore space, pattern and identity through representations of figures and décor and question popular notions of beauty and embodiment from a fragmented perspective.

In Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2012- 2013, the film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, premiered. This short documentary, a poignant portrait of Thomas’s mother Sandra Bush, has since been screened internationally and aired on HBO in 2014. Bush was both mother and artistic muse to Thomas, modeling for and appearing in some of her most well known paintings. This sophisticated film continues her thoughtful investigations into the transience of female representation. These explorations are echoed in Thomas’s recent collaged compositions of evocative interiors aimed at challenging conventional notions of domesticity and personal space.

Mickalene Thomas lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally including her upcoming exhibitions Face à Face, 2014, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY and Femme au divan II, 2014, l'Ecole des Beaux Art, Monaco. Recent select solo exhibitions include faux real, 2013, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Origin of the Universe, 2012 - 13, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA and Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Mickalene Thomas, 2012, Fontene Demoulas Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art, 2013, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY; Mickalene Thomas: Mama- Bush: One of a Kind Two, 2011, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; Put a Little Sugar in my Bowl, 2011, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles, CA. Thomas earned her MFA from Yale University in 2002, and a BFA from Pratt Institute in 2000. In 2002-03 she participated in the Artist-in-Residence program at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2011 she was a resident at the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program in Giverny, France.

Thomas is represented by Lehmann Maupin in New York and Hong Kong, Susan Vielmetter in Los Angeles, and Galerie Nathalia Obadia in Paris and Brussels.

Mickalene Thomas’s first exhibition with Kavi Gupta CHICAGO | BERLIN is forthcoming. 

Mickalene Thomas artist page at Kavi Gupta

NEW YORK: Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas. How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art, Installation view, 2012. Image via theproposition.com.

decópolis: the talent of others
February 6 – February 24, 2013
Opening Reception: February 8th, 6 – 8pm

THE PROPOSITION
2 Extra Place (@ E 1st Street off Bowery)
New York, NY 

Following her blockbuster solo show, Origin of the Universe, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and her two-venue exhibition, How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art, at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, The Proposition is pleased to collaborate with Mickalene Thomas on a pop-up exhibition entitled decópolis: the talent of others.

Thomas reinstalls the various elements of her tableaux installations–the customized furniture, the 70s-inspired decorative objects, the shag rugs and wood paneling–for the artist-curated exhibition, decópolis: the talent of others. The personalized setting provides Thomas with an ideal backdrop to showcase the work of a group of artists that she has collaborated with through her various projects. These six artists—David Antonio Cruz, Roddy Fitzgerald, Elisabeth Gaffaney, Jayson Keeling, Vincent Oquendo, and Nina Ziefvert—have become a vital part of Thomas’s working process. With this exhibition, she is able to highlight their individual artistic practices within the context of an environment they often help bring to life.

The title of the exhibition decópolis is a hybrid of two words: “Deco” taken from Art Deco, an influential and eclectic style of art made popular in the late 1920s and 30s, and “Polis,” from the ancient Greek word meaning city-state. decópolis can be understood as a “group of artists working across genres and styles that come together to form one collective community.”

For her part, Thomas is debuting a new artistic collaboration with Brother Vellies, a company that produces a style of shoe known as Velskoen (pronounced "fell-skoon" and known colloquially as "Vellies”), the ancestor of the modern-day desert boot. Brother Vellies are made in the coastal town of Swakopmund, Namibia, where a small group of eight Damara gentlemen assemble each shoe by hand, a intricate process that produces only 20 pairs of shoes a day. The brand's Creative Director, Aurora James, worked personally with Thomas to create a capsule collection utilizing Thomas's collection of textiles and fusing them with the brand's traditional designs. All five styles will be on view for the first time and available in limited quantity for pre-order.

On view in decópolis: the talent of others:

David Antonio Cruz presents a collection of small drawings merging the infamous Roger Casement's body with the subjects of his long time photo documentations, which were taken during Casement’s stay in the Congo and Brazil. Cruz has worked as one of Thomas’s production assistants.

Roddy Fitzgerald combines realism and classicism to create stories that represent the contemporary human experience. Fitzgerald has worked with Thomas as her installation coordinator and production assistant for six years.

Elisabeth Gaffaney, who photographs her surrounding environment, focusing on texture, composition and the opulent natural colors that occur in the everyday. Gaffaney is Thomas’s studio manager and serves as a production coordinator on photos shoots and installations.

Jayson Keeling creates artwork that provokes and dismantles pop iconography and the accepted politics of sex, gender, race, and religion by pitting them against the aggressiveness of youth culture. He has worked as Thomas’s photo assistant for seven years.

Vincent Oquendo extracts and pieces together makeup looks from different iconic women and reinvents them in a modern way on his muse. For the pop-up exhibition, Oquendo and Thomas collaborated on a series of five collages based on makeup looks for future photo shoots. Oquendo is a celebrity makeup artist and has collaborated with Thomas for the past four years, including most recently on set with Jessica Chastain for W Magazine and Solange Knowles.

Nina Ziefvert (NINA Z) reintroduces the iconic Swedish clog to the metropolitan market. Her raw yet feminine and functional designs are inspired by her Swedish heritage, global travels and life in Brooklyn. Ziefvert has styled Thomas’s photo shoots for over six years, including recent shoots with Jessica Chastain and Solange Knowles.

Exhibit link

CAPTURED: Xenobia Bailey

Xenobia Bailey photographed December 13, 2012 in New York City. BlackArtistNews photo. All rights reserved.

Xenobia Bailey takes a moment to relax inside a Mickalene Thomas installation at Lehmann Maupin’s West 26^th Street  gallery in New York.  Ms. Bailey was there in celebration of Thomas’s exhibit How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art and appeared in good spirits despite the fact Hurricane Sandy destroyed the storage space containing her artwork and materials. Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Ms. Bailey was being commissioned by the city of New York to create an installation for the new 7 line subway station at 34^th Street between 10^th and 11^th Avenue. Ms. Bailey told BlackArtistNews that the installation is scheduled to be unveiled in 2014.  

COVER: Mickalene Thomas / W Magazine / January 2013

Hollywood's "It" actress Jessica Chastain plays muse to artist Mickalene Thomas 

Excerpt:

MICKALENE THOMAS:

“What’s always intriguing to me is transforming my subjects into a character from another era,” says Mickalene Thomas, whose rhinestone-embellished collage paintings, photographs, and installations have regularly given African-American women a starring role. Posed as reclining odalisques, 1970s divas, and bold nudes, they express Thomas’s fascination with female power and stereotypes of black femininity. For this portfolio, Thomas photographed Chastain in one of the ’70s-inspired domestic interiors she had constructed for her recent retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. She created “a performance inside a finished work of art” by instructing Chastain to “wait for your man to come home so you can seduce him.” Though Donna Summer blared from a record player and the set was reminiscent of the disco era, Thomas said her references ranged from portraits by Balthus and Edouard Manet to scenes from the 1983 film Scarface. She asked Chastain to channel her own version of the drug kingpin’s moll in that film (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) and had her blinged out from wig to toe in shimmering shades of gold. “I tend to gravitate toward characters who have a razor-sharp edge,” Thomas says. “I saw Jessica’s character as a woman who has conquered her environment. There’s a sense of triumph.” Throughout her career, the artist, who is African-American, has mostly painted “those closest to me—my friends and family,” but she insists that her choice of subject is not contingent on ethnicity. “I’m interested in their energy and the look in their eyes and the confidence they convey. It’s about the essence of their prowess.”

Read more here.

NEW YORK: Duron Jackson

Duron Jackson. Rikers Island Jail, NY, 2010. Graphite and blackboard paint on wood panel, 36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 70.0 cm).
Collection of the artist. © 2010 Duron Jackson. Photo by Ricky Day. Image via BrooklynMuseum.org.

RUMINATION

November 16, 2012–February 10, 2013

BROOKLYN MUSEUM

200 Eastern Parkway

Brooklyn, NY

The second season of Raw/Cooked presents a series of four exhibitions by under-the-radar Brooklyn artists who have been invited by the Brooklyn Museum with support from Bloomberg to show their first major museum exhibitions. The artists are given the opportunity to work with the Museum’s collection and to display in spaces of their choosing, however unconventional.

The four artists in the series were recommended by an advisory board of well-known Brooklyn artists, including Michael Joo, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Amy Sillman, and Mickalene Thomas, each of whom proposed several promising artists. Brooklyn Museum curator Eugenie Tsai made the final selections.

Raw/Cooked opens on November 16 with Rumination, an exhibition of the work of Bedford-Stuyvesant–based artist Duron Jackson, recommended by Thomas. Jackson’s multimedia installation evokes a private library or reading room, where viewers are invited to contemplate themes of race and power embedded in American history and culture. A minimalist white cube chair is situated at the center of a carpet, both constructed by the artist from black-and-white dominoes. Jackson’s Blackboard Paintings—large-scale geometric abstractions rendered in graphite and blackboard paint—cover the surrounding walls. These works present abstracted aerial views of specific American prisons. Jackson juxtaposes his abstract works with Malvina Hoffman’s early modern sculptural portrait, Senegalese Soldier. Drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, Hoffman’s larger-than-life-sized bust stands at the center of the installation. InRumination, Jackson brings together historical and contemporary cultural representations to explore the inter-related histories of incarceration, surveillance, and control.

Jackson's work can also be seen in Ain't Pressed a two person show with Brandon Coley Cox at the Reginald Ingraham Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibit run is November 1 - December 20, 2012.

YouTube: Raw/Cooked: Duron Jackson

Raw/Cooked is organized by Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum.

Exhibit Link

WORD UP: An Open Letter to Encourage Mutual Citizen Support

New York City Artists Unite to Support the Rockaways and the Flooded Areas of New York City

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

The Rockaways geographically, as you know, are the area that is breaking the waves between the Atlantic Ocean and JFK Airport and New York City in general. Demographically, it is very diverse and not a privileged area.

In recent years, the Rockaways became an incredible inspiration and haven for the artists and creative community of New York. As the Rockaways are, at their best, a melting pot between the local community and the creative energies of the city, it is a location where New York is anticipating and creating the images and dreams we all live on. 

Hurricane Sandy completely devastated the peninsula, and a couple of days after the storm, families with children are still standing next to their destroyed and ruined houses trying to keep warm without food, water, electricity, heat, or internet.

The artistic community is sending you this letter to support the city in your amazing, monumental efforts in all boroughs to save our city and to encourage the creative communities in New York to invent exemplary ways of helping our neighbors and fellow New Yorkers!

Respectfully yours,

Marina Abramovic, Doug Aitken, Francis Alÿs, Darren Aronofsky, Tauba Auerbach, Matthew Barney, Klaus Biesenbach, Adrien Brody, Giada Colagrande, Francisco Costa, Anthony D. Curcio Jr., Willem Dafoe, Anna Deavere Smith, Roe Ethridge, James Franco, Lady Gaga, Antony Hegarty, Jonathan Horowitz, Spike Jonze, Steven Klein, Terence Koh, Padma Lakshmi, Madonna, Laurel Nakadate, Gwyneth Paltrow, Richard Phillips, Jonathan Pierce, Rob Pruitt, Terry Richardson, Rockaway Artists Alliance, Cynthia Rowley, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Shimizu, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Mickalene Thomas, Ryan Trecartin, Liv Tyler, Gus Van Sant, Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright, Rachel Weisz, and Italo Zuchelli

Please spread the word, post it, tweet it, or email to friends! 

Help Victims of Hurricane Sandy through the American Red Cross

HOT LINKS: June 28, 2012

Installation view of Wangechi Mutu's blackthrones on view until July 7, 2012 at Gladstone Gallery, Brussels.
Image via Gladstone Gallery. 

Over the past few days, the following news items caught the attention of BlackArtistNews:

Alfred Turner, graphic artist and missionary dead at 59

Art & Soul: Hank Willis Thomas explores the influence of advertising

Blk to the Future Series: Avery R. Young talks Afro Faux.Realism

Extreme Eccentries: Modern Art and its Collectors

FAN-ticizing: Top 5 Directores for Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther Film

Fred Wilson: ‘Museum therapist’ challenges idea of art

Impressive ‘Caribbean: Crossroads of the World’ Spans New York

Ohr-O’Keefe exhibits artwork by Eugene Martin

Review: ‘The Tipping Point of Me and We’ curated by Tempestt Hazel at Little Black Pearl (Chicago)

Wangechi Mutu blackthrones exhibit at Gladstone Gallery, Brussels

You Like It, You Like It Not

IN PERPETUITY: Elizabeth Catlett (1915 - 2012)

Elizabeth Catlett's Reclining Woman rests comfortably across from Mickalene Thomas's Portrait of Qusuquzah at the 2010 Bronx Museum exhibit Stargazers: Elizabeth Catlett in Conversation with 21 Contemporary Artists. BlackArtistNews photo. All rights reserved.

"Many of today's artists are free from the particular artistic, social, and political constraints of Catlett's time but the determination and commitment to create their own space and place in the world while staying true to their artistic and conceptual concerns remains steadfast across generations."

-- Isolde Brielmaier

The Passing of An American Icon: Elizabeth Catlett 

(Black Art in America) 

Elizabeth Catlett, Sculptor With Eye on Social Issues, Is Dead at 96 

(NYTimes)

Sculptor Elizabeth Catlett dies in Mexico 

(The Associated Press)


Artist Elizabeth Catlett, sculptor of Louis Armstrong statue, dies 
(New Orleans Times-Picayune)

"6 haiku (for Elizabeth Catlett in Cuernavaca)"

by Sonia Sanchez

Stargazers: Elizabeth Catlett in Conversation with 21 Contemporary Artists

(Bronx Musuem Exhibit Link)

My Time with Elizabeth Catlett 
by Harriette Cole


Elizabeth Catlett: An Appreciation

POSE: Mickalene Thomas and Carmen McLeod / OUT Magazine / February 2012

All you need is love
Photograph by Martien Mulder

Love is the heart and soul of OUT magazine's February 2012 issue which features this image of Mickalene Thomas and Carmen McLeod as part of  "26 Love Stories." In it the artists share the story of their relationship and their plans to start a family.

Pick up a copy of OUT magazine's The Love Issue to see more photos and read complete stories. 

Click here to read Mickalene Thomas and Carmen McLeod's love story online.

EVENT: Conversations - Among Friends / The Museum of Modern Art / January 24, 2012

THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT.

PLEASE NOTE LOCATION CHANGE.

Conversations: Among Friends

Featuring artists Derrick Adams, Clifford Owens, Xaviera Simmons, and Mickalene Thomas

Introduction and Collectible essay by Christopher Y. Lew, Assistant Curator, MOMA PS1

Tuesday, January 24, 2012
7:00 pm program | 8:15 pm reception
Doors open at 6:45 pm

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Celeste Bartos Theater 3
4 West 54th Street
New York City, NY

Tickets ($35) may be purchased at The Museum information and film desks, online at MoMA.org or through The Friends of Education Office.

All tickets will be held at the door.

Presented by the Friends as part of the series Conversations: Among Friends, this evening's program features a conversation between artists Derrick Adams, Clifford Owens, Xaviera Simmons, and Mickalene Thomas, with an introduction and Collectible essay by Christopher Y. Lew, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1. Following the program, guests are invited to continue the conversation and meet the participants at an intimate reception catered by Fantasy Fare in The Agnes Gund Garden Lobby.

Read full program event in PDF format here

LISTED: Black Artists make OUT in 2011

Duane Cramer | Photographer & Activist

The 2011 OUT100

OUT | December 2011 - January 2012

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GAVIN BOND

Emerging and established black visual artists are among honorees of OUT magazine's men and women who made 2011 a year to remember. 

Mickalene Thomas | Artist

Paul Mpagi Sepuya | Artist

Julie Mehretu | Artist

Dee Rees | Screenwriter & Director

Pick up a copy of OUT magazine's OUT100 issue to see more photos and read complete stories.
Click here to view images and read online.

AUCTION: Art, photo collection going up for bids after being seized from Birmingham attorney

It's the real thing by Hank Willis Thomas is being auctioned November 16th by the IRS in Birmingham, AL.

IRS to auction off art, photo collection seized from Birmingham attorney

Text: Stan Diel | Birmingham News

Published: November 1, 2011

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A large collection of photographs and paintings, including many by emerging African-American artists, will be sold at an IRS auction later this month after being seized from a prominent Birmingham attorney to settle a tax debt.

The collection of about 250 paintings and photographs by artists including William Eggleston and Mickalene Thomas has been appraised at more than $500,000 and was seized by the IRS from Russell J. Drake, of the Birmingham firm Whatley Drake & Kallas.

Drake, in an interview Monday, said art is his passion, particularly the work of emerging young African-American artists, and he's saddened to see the collection go.

"I regret that I'm in this position," he said. "The recession had a devastating effect on me. It was sort of a perfect storm for a lot of lawyers."

According to documents on file in Jefferson County Probate Court, the IRS filed two liens against Drake totaling about $497,000. He said that's "an old number," and is no longer representative of what he owes the IRS.

Regardless, the collection could raise a substantial amount, said Roberta Colee, the IRS liquidation specialist handling the sale. About 50 different artists and photographers are represented, including Kerry James Marshall, Raymond Pettibon and Mark Flood.

Marshall, a Birmingham native who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, was featured on the PBS program "Art 21" and is known for paintings and sculpture that pay tribute to the civil rights struggle. New York artist Mickalene Thomas is famous for her enamel and sequined paintings of women, which the New York Times called "as impenetrable as they are spectacular."

One of her works, a painting of a topless prostitute titled "She works hard for the money," was pulled from the sale after it was judged too provocative by the IRS. At least two other of her works remain in the auction.

To casual observers, though, the photographer Hank Willis Thomas may be the most recognizable. The collection includes at least two photos by Thomas, who is perhaps best known for his "Priceless #1," a satirical take on the "priceless" Mastercard commercials that makes a powerful statement about inner-city violence.

The piece includes text placed over a photo of a grieving African-American family. It says "3-piece suit: $250; new socks: $2; 9mm pistol: $79; gold chain: $400; bullet: 60 cents ... Picking the perfect casket for your son: Priceless."

Thomas, a graduate of California College of Fine Arts' masters program and artist in residence at Johns Hopkins University, once lectured at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

The art may be sold individually or in the aggregate, with a minimum bid of $20,000, the IRS said in a prepared statement.

DETAILS 
What: IRS auction of about 250 paintings and photographs 
When: 9 a.m. Nov. 16. Registration and viewing begins at 8 a.m. The art also can be viewed Nov. 15 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. 
Where: Embassy Suites Hotel, 2300 Woodcrest Place, Birmingham, AL

© 2011 al.com. All rights reserved.

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