“She’s always keeping us on our toes,” remarked the Director of the Brooklyn Museum, Anne Pasternak, referring to artist Mickalene Thomas, with whom she just finished a panel discussion. The discussion was for AS IF Magazine’s first Artist Speaker Series, which they hosted with premiere luxury watchmaker, Audemars Piguet at the Brooklyn Museum on November 7. The talk was moderated by Audemars Piguet’s art advisor, András Szántó. 

“Mickalene Thomas draws on her experiences of being an African-American woman living and working in America,” said AS IF Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Tatijana Shoan. “She brings her experiences to life in incredible textured, raw, and colorful works of art that command us to think of the female form in ways outside of the white female form we have seen portrayed in art throughout centuries. Her body of work speaks to people who never, or rarely, saw themselves represented in museums in the past, and allows audiences to either relate, or contemplate what that means. Her work pushes the conversation of art in dynamic and inclusive ways that ultimately impact society as a whole, and when art can do that we all benefit from its power. This is why we at AS IF, and our partners at Audemars Piguet, felt it was important to have Mickalene Thomas as our first artist in our speaker series.”

 

AS IF’s Artist Speaker Series aims to discuss the evolving role art has in society. Over the last several years, AS IF has witnessed how art has connected to a wider, diverse, and more inclusive audience, and this series will help communicate the ways artists are affecting change in our world today on both artistic and social platforms.

 

For the panel discussion, Thomas, Pasternak, and Szántó discussed everything from the state of contemporary art, the need for more black women artists in the contemporary space, how the art world is continuing to change, and how Thomas has managed to carve out a space for herself where black women are rarely heard and seen.