# @mickalenethomas on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DScIm7vgmzV
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/38088385-mickalenethomas-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/c414cc6954.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-12-19T09:28:26.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Mickalene Thomas (@mickalenethomas) — https://gondola.cc/mickalenethomas

## Caption

Standing beneath the glass of the Grand Palais in Paris, I’m reflecting on the lineage that made me, Black and queer visibility, and the radical act of placing Black women at the center of art history. My work has always been in conversation with the canon—reframing portraiture, interiors, and abstraction through rhinestones, pattern, scale, and gaze—to insist that our stories, our bodies, and our beauty are not marginal, but monumental.

To be the first African-American artist to exhibit at the Grand Palais is a deeply historic and humbling moment. This space has long symbolized cultural authority, yet so many important voices have been absent from inside these walls. My practice challenges that absence, drawing from art history and popular culture to build a new visual language rooted in Black feminism, pleasure, desire, and self-determination.

This exhibition is for my mother, my first muse and all of the women who have inspired me, the artists who paved the way for me , and the generations who will see themselves reflected without compromise. Paris, this moment is about more than arrival—it’s about rewriting the frame and expanding what art history can hold. Salutes to my curator and co-conspirator mseringilbert I could not do this exhibition without you. galerieobadia le_grand_palais _palais #arthistory #artist #mickalenethomas, grandpalais✨

## Stats

- **Views:** 10,437
- **Likes:** 5,553
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- **Comments:** 181

## Tags

mickalenethomas, arthistory, artist

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