Championing The Marginalized, Bailey House Honors Artist Mickalene Thomas And Her ‘Divine Orchestration’

Mickalene Thomas, who fluidly and fiercely navigates an array of media to create compelling visual narratives that celebrate and future-proof Black and female identities, was awarded the 2024 Gina Quattrochi Arts & Legacy Award on Monday night at the Bailey House Art House benefit at The Bowery Hotel.

The 2nd annual Art House raised funds for housing and other lifesaving programs for thousands of New Yorkers. This year’s live and silent auctions showcased a wide array of artworks by emerging and established artists including Alex Dodge, Angelo Filomeno, Anthony Castro, Ashley Longshore, Ben Evans, Boris Torres, C.J. Chueca, Candace Hicks, Cecile Chong, Chan Chao, Damien Davis, Dana Robinson, David Pher, Diane Schottenstein, Dylan Hurwitz, Emerald Rose Whipple, Emilio Perez, Eric Manuel Santoscoy-McKillip, Helen Esberg, Jeremy Sorese, Judie Swanson, Julia Kunin, Justin Allen, Karlos Carcamo, Kevin Sabo, Linda Dennery, Louis Venturelli, Marisol Martinez, Mickalene Thomas, Nicole Eisenman, Pacifico Silano, Peter Harkawik, Peter Tunney, Philip von Zweck, Rob Davis, Rob Wynne, Ruben Baghdasaryan, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Sarah Gibeault, Stephanie Gonzalez-Turner, Taha Clayton, and Wil Pierce, along with works donated by The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and Herb Ritts Foundation. Founded in 1983 by a coalition of community leaders responding to the AIDS crisis that devastated the vibrant downtown Manhattan art scene, Bailey House became the first community-based organization in the United States to address poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, mental health, substance use, and chronic illness to improve health outcomes for marginalized, low-income New Yorkers living with HIV.

“I’m truly humbled,” Thomas said, accepting the honor. “While I may not know all of you personally, your presence here tonight tells me you support and stand up for underrepresented groups, many that I often feature in my work, like the Black community, the queer community, the most vulnerable in New York City, who need us to be their voice tonight, tomorrow and beyond. As an artist who aims to give voice to those that go unheard in many ways, I’m grateful to Bailey House, and all of you who make it possible.”

The award pays tribute to the life-changing advocacy legacy of Quattrochi, longtime Bailey House CEO, who died in 2016 at age 63. Thomas joins prominent Bailey House event supporters and honorees over the years, including Nan Goldin, Nicole Eisenman, Whoopi Goldberg, Debbie Harry, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Cynthia Nixon, Catherine Opie, and Billy Porter.

Thomas’ singular oeuvre, spanning paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations, borrows from art history and popular culture to convey original representations of female sexuality, femininity, beauty, and power. Her elaborate portraits, landscapes, and interiors explore identity and gender in contemporary life, while drawing from the art historical cannon. Thomas uses rhinestones to layer and amplify parts of her paintings, cultivating a nuanced visual language that subverts normative depictions of femininity and sexuality. Rhinestones capture and refract light, much like diamonds, lending sparkle and shine. Deriving their name from rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine, rhinestones have played myriad roles in popular culture, embellishing attire and accessories since the 18th century, adorning the stage costumes of Elvis Presley and Liberace, and bedazzling the faces and bodies of girly and flamboyant social media influencers.

“Through my art, I often and continue to use Black women as a vehicle, as a reflection, of who I am in my world, and to create various forms that are presented in these traditional venues and historical spaces, because those are spaces that we don’t often see ourselves, but we know that those are spaces we deserve to be in,” Thomas said.

Robert Verdi, a self-described “Fearless Entrepreneur + Fashion Superhero + Unstoppable Tastemaker,” charmed the crowd with his eloquent introduction.

“At her current exhibition at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, walking through the galleries raises questions about the depths of our society’s consciousness and awareness of Black beauty, inclusivity, and representation,” Verdi said. “In her 20-plus years of creating Mickalene has not abdicated her responsibility to the truth of things. Her whole life is a reaction to hostility, to intolerance. Everything that she does is about blurring the lines about what’s acceptable and providing options for people whose ideals don’t conform to the limited standard of beauty. It is through the eyes of this artist and her vision to show us the world as she sees it, immersed in Black beauty, driven by feminine power, and overflowing with seduction. That’s pure Mickalene magic. She’s in her power at every moment. She’s in her power at this moment right now. She’s in the act of creation, and the act of living her purpose, which is not static. There is no top of the mountain for my friend Mickalene Thomas to reach. She senses what possibilities we all believe lie in the future, and moves to bring them into the now. Her life and work is part of a divine orchestration.”

Featuring more than 90 works created over the last two decades, Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, is on view at The Broad through September 29. The exhibition shares a title and themes with pioneering Black feminist author, theorist, educator, and social critic bell hooks’ 2018 New York Times bestseller investigating the social ills that divide our society, and modeling a healing future.