I can’t recall too many moving image works installed in gallery B, but even if I could, I don’t believe any could compete with the intensity of Mickalene Thomas’ 12 monitor video installation Me as Muse (2016) included the 2018 exhibition Mickalene Thomas: I Can’t See You Without Me.
For the earlier (2017-2018) exhibition Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon at the New Museum – curated by now Director of the Wex, Johanna Burton – Me as Muse was set in a wide corner of a darkened gallery, reflected by the shiny concrete flooring.
Yet at the Wex, the narrowing walls of gallery B directed all of our attention to this work in an intense framing of light and space, while the flooring panels directly mirrored the monitors.
In his essay (‘Mama as Muse’) in the exhibition catalog, Antwaun Sargent focuses on Thomas’ work starring the artist’s mother, Mama Bush. However, his opening quotation from Audre Lorde’s 1982 autobiography Zami: A New Spelling of My Name – “To whom do I owe the woman I have become?” – while framing the analysis of ‘mama as muse’, also redirects attention to the self-presentation and agency of the artist herself. This redirection of attention was reflected by the installation at the Wex, which literally stopped you in your tracks at the narrowing end of gallery B.