Mickalene Thomas in MULTIPLICITY: BLACKNESS IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN COLLAGE: The Phillips Collection

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage is the first large-scale exhibition dedicated to exploring collage by contemporary Black American artists such as Mickalene Thomas, Mark Bradford, Kerry James Marshall, Tschabalala Self, and Kara Walker. Featuring nearly 60 works by 49 artists, this exhibition celebrates the broad variety and complexity of Black identity in art. Building on a technique that has roots in European and American traditions, the diverse, intergenerational group of artists have created innovative works with pieces of paper, photographs, fabrics, and/or other salvaged materials. The bold compositions, created with an array of experimental techniques, offer poignant expressions of human experience, including fragmentation and reconstruction, shared history and memory, cultural hybridity, gender fluidity, and notions of beauty.