Collections: Contemporary Art: A Little Taste Outside of Love

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A Little Taste Outside of Love

Inspired by images of iconic African American women, emblems of the black power movement, and her mother’s photographs from the 1970s, Mickalene Thomas creates monumental pictures that explore and challenge the representation and objectification of women, and black women in particular. Here she casts an African American woman as leading lady in an updated version of a longestablished visual archetype—a sexualized female subject seemingly caught unaware as she reclines passively in her own beauty. In doing so, the artist turns the historic nude on its head and ousts the white European woman from the bed where she often lounges in art, attended by a black maidservant. Thomas also questions traditional notions of good taste through myriad clashing decorative patterns and the disco glitz of thousands of rhinestones, which refer to the artist’s own memories of growing up in the 1970s. “Oil painting was never satisfying to me,” she has said. “I always felt like I had to put something on it or it was never finished.”


• Artist: Mickalene Thomas, American, born 1971
• Medium: Acrylic, enamel and rhinestones on wood panel
• Dates: 2007
• Dimensions: Overall: 108 x 144 in. (274.3 x 365.8 cm) Other (Left section): 108 x 48 in. (274.3 x 121.9 cm) Other (Center section): 108 x 48 in. (274.3 x 121.9 cm) Other (Right section): 108 x 48 in. (274.3 x 121.9 cm)
• Collections: Contemporary Art
• Museum Location: This item is on view in Contemporary Art Galleries, 4th Floor
• Accession Number: 2008.7a-c
• Credit Line: Gift of Giulia Borghese and Designated Purchase Fund
• Copyright: © Mickalene Thomas
• Image: Overall, 2008.7a-c_design_scan.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971). A Little Taste Outside of Love, 2007. Acrylic, enamel and rhinestones on wood panel, Overall: 108 x 144 in. (274.3 x 365.8 cm) Other (Left section): 108 x 48 in. (274.3 x 121.9 cm) Other (Center section): 108 x 48 in. (274.3 x 121.9 cm) Other (Right section): 108 x 48 in. (274.3 x 121.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Giulia Borghese and Designated Purchase Fund, 2008.7a-c (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2008.7a-c_design_scan.jpg)