(If Loving You is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right
Artist
Mickalene Thomas
(American, born 1971)
Date2006; printed 2014
MediumSelenium toned fiber print
Dimensionsimage: 29.8 × 38.1 cm (11 3/4 × 15 in.)
framed: 38.7 × 47 cm (15 1/4 × 18 1/2 in.)
framed: 38.7 × 47 cm (15 1/4 × 18 1/2 in.)
ClassificationsPrints
Credit LineMuseum purchase through the estate of Blake Robinson
Object number2022.3
Label TextStaged in her studio, If Loving You is Wrong is one of several intimate portraits Thomas created of her then-lover and longtime muse Maya. It also served as a primary source for Thomas’s collage Left Behind 2 Again. Side-by-side, this photograph offers unique insight into Thomas’s artistic process. Several collaged elements, like the hanging curtain and floral pattern of the couch, are nearly direct citations from the 2006 photograph, whereas the zebra pattern on the floor has been abstracted into black and white blocks. The photograph’s title was taken from a song performed by 1970s American rhythm and blues artist Luther Ingram (1937–2007).On View
Not on viewCollections
