Boston Globe, 2024. Murray Whyte reviews O’Grady’s “Both/And” at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Whyte notes the multifaceted nature of O’grady with a life that includes a stint at the US Department of Labor, writing rock criticism, and teaching. All of these positions converged into her art making process, beginning with the performance “Rivers, First Draft.”
Forbes, 2024. Chad Scott reports on O’Grady’s “Both/And” exhibit at the Davis Museum of Wellesley College. As an alum of Wellesely, O’Grady’s exhibit and accompanying archival materials offers a unique experience for students to learn about the journey of a former student forging their own path in the art world.
Patch, 2024. Jainie Winter reports on O’Grady’s “Both/And” solo exhibit, showing at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. In the article Winter provides an overview of O’Grady’s work and the themes she often explores such as “calls for an anti-hierarchical approach to difference.”
Boston Globe, 2024. Ahead of the showing of “Both/And” at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Murray Whyte provides a comprehensive background on O’Grady beginning as one the few Black graduates of Wellesley College in 1955. Whyte offers an overview of some of O’Grady’s most renowned works that are included in the exhibit such as “Mlle. Bourgeoise Noire,” “Rivers, First Draft,” and “Cutting Out The New York Times”
Wellesley Magazine, 2024. Kerry Gaertner Gerbracht offers an insightful look into O’Grady’s prolific career as a writer, teacher, and artist in this article covering the opening of “Both/And” at the Davis Museum. Gerbracht notes the expansion of the exhibit from its original showing which includes pieces directly related to her time at Wellesley College as a student.
The Wellesley News, 2024. The reopening of Davis Museum at Wellesley College began with the opening of O’Grady’s “Both/And” retrospective exhibit. In this review of opening night, Phoebe Rebhorn pays special attention to the inspiration that alum O’Grady can serve for current Wellesley students. An accompanying symposium, gave insight on the lessons of O’Grady’s art which calls for a consistent pushing of new boundaries and encourages limitless thinking.
The Bay State Banner, 2024. Susan Saccocia reviews O’Grady’s “Both/And” at the Davis Museum at O’Grady’s alma mater, Wellesley College. Saccocia describes several of O’Grady’s most prominent works on display in the exhibit and highlights how the show weaves the narrative of O’Grady’s lustrous and expansive career.
WBUR, 2024. Arielle Gray explores the works featured in O’Grady’s “Both/And” exhibit as well as O’Grady’s own writing and words, Arielle Gray. While some may view some of O’Grady’s life as a journey to become an artist, Gray highlights how she always was one. Synthesizing O’Grady’s impact on the art world and her own view of her body of work, Gray finds that it’s not only a critique of or disruption O’Grady seeks, but she crafts a world that shows “all of her multiplicity and nuance.”
The Momentary, 2024. To commemorate the acquisition of “Untitled: Mlle Bourgeoise Noire,” by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Larissa Ramey examines O’Grady’s presentations of Black womanhood and identity within her work which sheds light on the intricate intersection of race and gender in contemporary society.”
The New York Times, 2023. Claude Manet’s “Olympia” served as the central piece in the “Manet/Exhibit” at the Met which brought the painting to New York for the first time. Jasin Farago notes that O’Grady is one of the few critics who has offered attention to the maid, who was actually a French model named Laure.
ARTnews, 2023. In this list of 100 Greatest New York City Artworks, O’Grady’s “Art Is…” is named fifth for its joyous celebration of Black life and art outside the institutional setting of museums and the mainstream art world.
Art History, 2023. Jamie Danis reviews Stephanie Sparling William’s “Speaking Out of Turn: Lorraine O’Grady and the Art of Language” in conjunction with “Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction” by Sarah Louise Cowan. Danis contends with the importance of giving critical and arguably overdue attention to Black American women artists without minimizing the wide-range of their careers outside of the mainstream art world.
New York Magazine, 2023. Prior to the Manet/Degas show pairing which brought Claude Manet’s famed “Olympia” to the Met for the first time, Madeline Leung Coleman reflects on the painting and its complexities. Turning to Laure, the model who posed as the maid, Colemain recounts O’Grady’s seminal “Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity,” which dismisses the notion that Laure’s primary function is of aesthetic, tonal contrast.
ICA Boston, 2023. O’Grady’s “The Firm Palm” was included in the “Forecast Form,” the first major group exhibition in the U.S. that focused on Caribbean diaspora. O’Grady’s piece was especially pertinent to the exhibit as it highlights her Boston upbringing in the context of her Jamaican heritage.
American Folk Art Museum, 2023. In 2023, the American Folk Art Museum launched a virtual program inspired by O’Grady’s concept of “both/and” to “examine the Museum’s collection beyond binary ideas of [art].”
Artforum, 2023. Artforum wonders if the trend of highly regarded artists like, O’Grady, departing well-known galleries, such as her former representation, Alexander Grey Associates, is indicative of a wider trend within the industry. O’Grady joined Marian Ibrahim Gallery in September of 2023 and is the gallery’s most established artist.
ARTnews, 2023. Alex Greenberger covers the news that O’Grady joined the Chicago-based Marian Ibrahim Gallery, departing from Alexander Gray Associates. In the article O’Grady is quoted as noting her belief in Mariane Ibrahim who she describes as a trailblazer in the art industry.
The Guardian, 2023. Veronica Esposito’s review of group exhibition, Inheritances, at the Whitney curated by Rujeko Hockley. Along with Ephraim Asili’s 2020 film ‘The Inheritance,” Hockley cites O’Gradys “Rivers, First Draft” as one of the major inspirations for the show as he sought to present challenging works of Black avant-garde art.
Protodispatch, 2023. A conversation between Laura Raicovich and the organizers of Loophole of Retreat, Simone Leigh and Rashida Bumbray on the physical, social, and cultural construction of the event. Accompanying pictures to the article feature O’GRady’s talk with Leigh, a highlight of the symposium.
Journal of Architectural Education, 2023. A conversation between V. Mitch Ewn and Tina Campt begins with a statement proposed by O’Grady at the close of Loophole of Retreat: Venice, a symposium of Black women writers, artists, and thinkers. In what Ewn and Campt regard as a call to action, O’Grady asks, “‘We can’t guilt trip forever, that won’t work. So the question is, how imaginative are we going to be?’” The question frames the cruciality of going beyond white audiences and spectators to speak to other Black women.
RP, 2014. Gail Lewis explores themes of “intergenerationality as a form of coalition.” Pointing to O’Grady’s “Olympia’s Maid,” Lewis argues for the use of subjectivity and self-reflection as sites of analysis that are critical to coalition building for liberation.
Hyperallergic, 2023. Lorraine O’Grady, Emily Jacir Among American Academy of Arts’s 2023 Awardees — In 2023, O’Grady was one of five recipients of the Arts and Letters Awards in Art, one of the most distinguished art awards. Taylor Michael notes that O’Grady’s work is recognized for addressing hybridity and Black female subjectivity.
FF2 Media, 2023. Artist Lorraine O’Grady’s Both/And Philosophy Rings True — In her article commemorating the two-year anniversary of O’Grady’s “Both/And” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, Julia Lasker reflects on the critical philosophy that underpins many of O’Grady’s works: both/and. Since the debut of Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, O’Grady has sought to combat the exclusionary nature of the mainstream art world which, as Lasker writes, “categorize identities…into an ‘either/or’ binary.”
The Brooklyn Rail, 2022. Forecast Form — Gervais Marsh’s review of “Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora 1990s to Today” examines the metaphorical and literal fluidity of Black and Indigenous Caribbean diasporas. O’Grady’s The Fir-Palm and The Strange Taxi are highlighted as reminders of O’Grady’s Jamaican lineage.
Art in America, 2023. How Iconic Gallery Just Above Midtown Swapped Art History’s Lone Geniuses for Vibrant Community — Josie Roland Hodson reviews “Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces,” noting the range of featured artists which included frequent and better-known artists such as O’Grady alongside “those less familiar to the mainstream art press.”
The Strategist, 2023/ 22 Best Black Coffee-Table Books — Tembe Denton-Hurst provides a comprehensive list of coffee-table books from Black artists and writers. The list includes Both/And, the accompanying catalogue to O’Grady’s retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. O’Grady is also noted as an icon in “The Soul of a Nation Reader,” featured on the list.
First of the Month, 2023. This Met is Mine — In his thoughtful essay, Ben Khadim DeMott details his first encounter with O’Grady’s Miscegenated Family Album at the Booth collection at the University of Chicago which unearthed his own familial memories of trips to Met and viewing the Ancient Egyptian exhibit. Through research DeMott finds that “(Cross Generational) L: Nefertiti, the last image; R: Devonia\’s youngest Daughter, Kimberley,” is a part of the larger performance piece, “Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline.” He explores the cathartic potential of art as shown in O’Gradys works which serve first as a balm not an analytic correction of history.
post notes on art in a global context, 2023. Disrupting the Institution through Language and Enactment — Veronika Molnar’s essay examines the cultural importance and legacy of Hungarian Roma artist, Omara. Molnar highlights the parallels between Omara’s disruptions and interventions of art openings and O’Grady’s Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, which reflect the institutional struggles of both Black women artists in the United States and Romani women artists in Europe.
Hyperallergic 2023. What Just Above Midtown Meant for Black Artists — Taylor Michael reviews “Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art” which included stills from O’Grady’s Mlle Bourgeoise Noire as well as her most recent persona, The Knight.
The Kitchen, 2022. In 2022 Lorraine O’Grady was The Kitchen’s gala honoree. Alex Jacquet’s article surveys O’Grady’s work and situates it in dialogue with multi-disciplinary artist, Simone Leigh, who has cited O’Grady as a critical influence. Both O’Grady and Leigh, confront a “historic script” to re-contextualize subjectivity of Black women.
Alexis Jacquet and Angelique Rosales Salgado, “Lorraine O’Grady and Simone Leigh”— A view of the work of Lorraine O’Grady, The Kitchen’s 2022 gala honoree, in conversation with multi-disciplinary artist, Simone Leigh who has cited O’Grady as a critical influence. Both O’Grady and Leigh, confront a “historic script” to re-contextualize subjectivity of Black women.
Siddhartha Mitter interviews Simone Leigh on Sovereignty, her installation for the U.S. Pavillion at the Venice Biennale. Leigh’s mentor, O’Grady, expresses enthusiasm for the symposium Loophole of Retreat that will accompany the show in October 2022.
Lorraine O’Grady’s exhibition of diptych photographs, “Body Is the Ground of My Experience,” is included in a list of standout shows in the first-ever New York Art Week. Thirty years after the photographs were first made, the works are re-contextualized following the artist’s 2021 retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, “Both/And.”
In a review for the New York Times, Holland Cotter makes note of the similarities and differences between two concurrent exhibitions in New York City that highlight artists of Caribbean descent. “Juan Francisco Elso: Por América,” a solo exhibition at El Museo del Barrio is discussed alongside the group show “Sin Autorización: Contemporary Cuban Art.” Exhibited at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, “Sin Autorización” features Elso and O’Grady amongst other Afro-/Cuban artists.
Tom Patterson forms a based chronology of O'Grady's diverse range of careers. He notes her positions as an intelligence analyst for the federal government and a freelance writer for Rolling Stone, all of which she held before she was 40 years old. He studies her persona “Mlle Bourgeoise Noire” in her pivot to start an art practice in the latter half of her life.
Rizvana Bradley responds to Seph Rodney’s essay published in Hyperallergic, “Discovering How Black Women Might Forge a Path to Freedom.” In recounting the “Loophole of Retreat” conference – organized by Simone Leigh at the Venice Biennale in 2022 – Bradley offers a sound critique of Rodney’s writing on the conference, which reconsiders in/accessibility in artistic discourse.
Ama Codjoe reads from her recently published collection of poems, Bluest Nude, which considers her cultural visibility. She cites artists Lorraine O’Grady, Simone Leigh, and Evie Shockley in their uses of language as a form that is critical of itself, particularly in the way it is employed.
Loring Knoblauch considers Body Is The Ground of My Experience (1991/2019) as a “reprise” of O’Grady’s retrospective Both/And, exhibited the year prior. She suggests that the show is vital to understanding O’Grady’s late photographic prints.
Folasade Ologundudu interviews Linda Goode-Bryant on her gallery project, Just Above Midtown. The gallery space hosted exhibitions for emerging artists of color from 1974 to 1986. The two discuss MoMA’s acquisition of the JAM archive. Goode-Bryant expresses that while she feels validated for the work that she and her collaborators did, she is also considering the danger of ‘cultural co-option’ that may arise with archiving her project at a predominately white arts institution.
Seph Rodney recounts his experience at Simone Leigh’s symposium held in conjunction with the artist’s presentation of Leigh’s work at the US Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. The symposium “Loophole of Retreat” brought together artists and theorists alike to consider political liberation and sovereignty for Black women. He writes about Lorraine O’Grady’s conversation with Leigh, one that concerned the Decolonize Museums protests that happened outside of her retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum in 2021. She began to question just what the privilege of a solo institutional show provided her, and how she could make new allyships with those afforded less power than her, notably trans activists.
Aruna D’Souza offers historicizes the foundational years at Just Above Midtown, the gallery project of Linda Goode-Bryant, which platformed artists including David Hammons, Lorna Simpson, and Maren Hassinger early in their careers. D’Souza addresses the show’s goals to highlight the gallery’s history of the 1970s and 1980s, while also enlivening its archive as it remains active into the 2020s. For Goode-Bryant, the question of integrity arises: “Can JAM be JAM at MoMA?”
Ela Bittencourt delivers polished prose after visiting Body Is The Ground of My Experience on view at Alexander Gray Associates in 2022. Notably, she praises O’Grady’s hybrid mode of making critique into a pleasurable venture.
Curator and critic Jacopo Crivelli Visconti names Miscegenated Family Album, on view at Frieze New York in 2022, as “nothing less than one of the masterpieces of the 20th Century.”
O’Grady receives a mention amongst artists Allan Sekula, Frederico Morais, Park Chan-Kyong, and Marcel Broodthaers. All artists, Heddaya contends, maintain a “writerly” approach that he likens to the art historical impulse to compare and contrast two forms alongside each other in a diptych format.
The New Yorker’s “This Week” section announces O’Grady’s solo retrospective, “Both/And,” set to open the Brooklyn Museum the following week.
In a review of the retrospective Both/And, Siddhartha Mitter sings the praises of O’Grady’s deft political critique. Having developed a rapport with the artist through his repeated reviews of her work, he quotes the artist in conversation: “I am making incisions on the skin of culture” […] “it is work I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.”
In a review of Lorraine O’Grady’s solo exhibition “Both/And,” Hyperallergic’s Alexandra M. Thomas discusses the politics asserted by the artist within the museum. Thomas writes, ““Both/And” thinking posits a refusal of either/or framework that is endemic to the West. In disavowing [Western] binaristic thinking, we can instead dwell on the nuance of the world’s disarray and uncertainty.”
G.M. Burns reviews Stephanie Sparling Williams’ new book, Speaking Out of Turn: Lorraine O’Grady and the Art of Language, which he marks as crucial in contextualizing O’Grady’s artistry. The article also includes an interview with Dr. Williams that explores her interest in engaging the artist’s work.
Anni Irish offers an overview of O’Grady’s art practice in consideration of her retrospective, Both/And, focusing on key conceptual stakes, such as the artist’s interest in language as form.
Jillian Steinhauer reviews O'Grady's retrospective exhibition “Both/And” at the Brooklyn Museum. The article highlights O'Grady's pioneering work in performance art and her exploration of race, gender, and identity in her practice. Steinhauer describes O'Grady's personal history, including her West Indian heritage, her education, and her career as a writer before she turned to art, another aspect of her life that significantly informs her art practice.
Upon the opening of O’Grady’s retrospective Both/And, Artforum devotes much of its March 2021 issue to her prolific art practice. Catherine Damman provides a decades-long overview of her career, Mira Dayal focuses on Miscegenated Family Album, and David Fiasco interviews the artist on new works in progress.
Christina Sharpe writes a crucial essay upon the publishing of Lorraine O’Grady’s collected writings and interviews, entitled Writing in Space, suggesting that the artist’s “fierce intelligence, wit and humor, curiosity, anger” is the grist for social revolution.
After a visit to O’Grady’s retrospective Both/And, Cassidy George commends the artist’s life’s work: to demand art institutions to prioritize inclusion.
Holland Cotter, a chronic reviewer of O’Grady’s work, calls attention to the exhibition design of her retrospective, Both/And. She remarks on how the artist’s pervasive installation, which weaves throughout the museum, encourages viewers to reconsider the institution’s permanent collection through a critical lens.
In light of O’Grady’s retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, Murray Whyte argues for the artist’s embrace of cultural hybridity through an in-depth analysis of her art practice. Specifically, she considers how O’Grady’s insistence to be “both/and” – to contain multiple backgrounds at the same time, refusing a singular identity – could usher in the next generation of interdisciplinary, multicultural artists.
O’Grady’s retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, Both/And, receives a sincere note of respect on Jack Bankowsky’s top ten exhibitions seen in 2021.
In a one-paragraph review of Both/And, Lynne Cooke includes O’Grady’s retrospective in her highlights of 2021, noting the artist’s “fiercely intelligent, subversive” defiance of race-based exclusion in the New York art world and Second-wave feminist movement.
O’Grady’s retrospective Both/And (and her publication Writing in Space) receive an honorable mention in Holland Cotter and Roberta Smith’s roundup of 2021’s most notable art exhibitions.
Alexandra M. Thomas affirms the range of O’Grady’s literature upon the release of her collected essays and interviews entitled Writing in Space, making clear the wisdom in her scholarship, much of which was written before she was (recognized as) a practicing artist.
Zachary Small reports on President Biden’s homage to “Art Is…” in his 2020 presidential campaign advertisement. The article places O’Grady amongst other artists similarly addressing the political climate of 2020. While Alexander Gray warns that “a piece like this is so easy for advertisers to appropriate,” the article makes clear that O’Grady gave her blessing on the campaign’s concept. “Biden is saying the same thing to the country that I was saying to the art world.”
After President Biden’s 2020 election win, reporter Eric Kohn interviews the campaign’s media production team. Biden’s video director Andrew Gauthier speaks to his interest in artists Lorraine O’Grady, Richard Linklater, and Barry Jenkins, all of whom influenced the iconic media campaign.
For Artforum, Colby Chamberlain articulates the nuanced, critical value of O’Grady’s “haiku diptychs.” In the review, he traces O’Grady’s deconstruction of print language to the post-Modernist lineage of Benjamin, Derrida, and Mallarmé, which she taught at the School of the Visual Arts around the same time the prints were in production.
Heather Kapplow conducts a formal analysis of O’Grady’s performance persona, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, in an attempt to bridge her pioneering artwork of the 1980s with the activism of Black public figures in the 2010s.
Chase Quinn casts light on O’Grady’s performance personas in his review of the exhibition From Me to Them to Me Again. The writer considers the artist’s persona of Mlle Bourgeoise Noire to exemplify her career of fighting against art world racism and Western binarism at large.
The “Goings-on About Town” section of The New Yorker zeroes in on O’Grady’s “poetic, yet pointed” revised collages, Cutting Out CONYT. When a personal voice begins to show itself in the works, it camouflages itself: the journalist who writes headlines blurs with the artist who composes the text into provocative absurdities.
Alexandria Deters offers a detailed formal analysis of Cutting Out CONYT. The article considers how the collages present as – but in reality, are far from – a ‘stream of consciousness’ approach to writing. Deter draws sobering connections between the sensational headlines of the 1970s with the political climate of the 2010s.
In a review of Cutting Out CONYT, Sarah Cascone describes O’Grady’s statements on political narrative as profoundly revealing and “previously unthinkable” in her earlier series Cutting Out the New York Times.
Written in the Fall 2018 Art Guide, Hyperallergic suggests that O’Grady, in her interrogation of print journalism issued in her series Cutting Out CONYT, calls for a collapse of language’s ability to signify meaning for a wide-ranging public.
In a review of We Wanted A Revolution, Garcia considers the art exhibition as a corrective method for recentering Black women “on the forefront of form and the avant-garde,” and in doing so, she calls for revisions to the art historical canon’s sole emphasis on European male avant-gardists. The article takes a firm stance that the patriarchy cannot be taken down without simultaneously dismantling systemic racism.
Drawing on the Black Feminist scholarship of Hortense Spillers, Beth Capper interprets O’Grady’s performances as representing life lived in the “interstice” between two worlds. The rigorously academic essay situates O’Grady’s work in a lineage of radical Black artists (David Hammons and Jean-Michel Basquiat, to name two) who deal with the limits of language and the politics of visual representation.
April Austin offers a detailed genealogy of O’Grady’s art career – specifically emphasizing the formative years spent at her alma mater, Wellesley College – on the occasion of O’Grady donating her archive to the College’s library.
Tonya Nelson traces histories of political protests and activism from the civil rights movement to the more contemporary Black Lives Matter movement – problematizing the roots of Western individualism at large. Her critique reveals itself through her analyses of works by Lorraine O’Grady, Maren Hassinger, and Linda Goode-Bryant, all featured in the group exhibitions Soul of a Nation and We Wanted A Revolution.
Upon the opening of the group exhibition We Wanted A Revolution, Jessica Bell Brown celebrates the Black female artists-activists who made space to create their own art world in the 1970s and 80s, including Lorraine O’Grady, Linda Goode-Bryant, and Senga Nengudi. Brown reminds her audience that the work doesn’t stop at this exhibition; she strongly urges museums to acquire the exhibited pieces into their permanent collections.
In a review of Soul of a Nation, Steven Thrasher praises O’Grady for “putting Harlem into focus,” suggesting that art can happen on the street – outside of the confines of the museum – embodied through her 1983 performance work “Art Is…”
Lovia Gyarkye considers how O’Grady’s performance persona Mlle Bourgeoise Noire,” featured in the We Wanted a Revolution exhibition, acted as a catalyst for a more inclusive feminist revolution. The article imagines the available potential in visibility, “if Black women were not just seen, but finally heard.”
Frieze, 2016. In an essay interrogating uses of racial representation and depiction in photography, Evan Moffitt highlights O’Grady’s “Art Is…” 1983 performance which used a literal frame to metaphorically reframe thoughts on what constitutes art and who is allowed to participate in its creation.
Adrienne Edwards' essay on Landscape (Western Hemisphere), written for her "Blackness in Abstraction" exhibit curated for Pace Gallery, is an intellectually brilliant and poetically sensitive reading of the array of meanings residing in the video and the most complex statement on this piece to date.
Emily Colucci's review of "Blackness in Abstraction" highlights O'Grady's full-wall video "Landscape (Western Hemisphere)" as one of the exhibit's most successful pieces both for its embrace of multiple meanings of blackness and for its abstract evocation of landscape sounds and textures.
Kirsten Swenson reviews “Lorraine O’Grady” at Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts — Notes uncanny intersections of O’Grady’s early works with contemporary events. Concludes, “Now, we are beginning to see her art.”
Written in Spanish, Laura Revuelta reviews O’Grady’s solo exhibition “Initial Approach” at Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain. The author places O’Grady in conversation with historical feminist artists and writers such as Jeanne Duval and Carmen Herrera.
Aria Dean’s “Closing the Loop” — In contrasting white “selfie” feminism’s understanding of the body to that of contemporary black feminism, Dean’s feature essay also provides a first updating of “Olympia’s Maid.”
Caille Millner, on Rivers, First Draft as a living Künstlerroman — Whereas to many the performance may seem surrealist (in the way early readers saw García Márquez's 100 Years of Solitude as surrealist when that novel was, if not realistic, quite real), Millner adeptly demystifies the work's collage aesthetic, seeing the piece as literalized metaphor, a guide to women of color wishing to become artists.
"Frame Me": Speaking Out of Turn and Lorraine O'Grady's Alien Avant-Garde — In the first major academic article on O'Grady, Stephanie Sparling Williams, using both the definition of "alien" as stranger and the Brechtian "alienation effect," provides a first line of theorization, stating: "As both alien and avant-garde, [it paves] the way for these two terms to be theorized in close proximity as a distinctive position from which to deploy strategic visibility and voice."
Susan Saccoccia reviews Lorraine O’Grady’s first solo exhibition at the Carpenter Center, entitled “When Margins Become Centers,” focusing on the artist’s approach to connecting personal stories with cross-cultural histories. As Saccocia writes, in a lecture that “unfolded like a great dinner table conversation, rich with anecdotes and touches of humor,” O’Grady shares her drive to “make the invisible visible.”
Published by Alexander Gray Associates, the catalogue of Rivers, First Draft includes forty-eight images of the 1982 performance O’Grady created for the public art program, “Art Across the Park.” The catalogue provides an in-depth look at O’Grady's work, featuring visual documentation of her performance along with writings by the artist providing insight into her creative process and art practice.
A Walk Through the World of Lorraine O'Grady — Heather Kapplow, the Boston reviewer, replicates O'Grady's working method by walking backwards, turning the exhibit itself into a diptych, video on one side, wall works on the other, setting in motion a permanent back-and-forth questioning and answering between the two so that the only resolution is to embrace a permanent, un-hierarchized equivalence.
Cate McQuaid on "Where Margins Become Centers" — In this enthusiastic review of the Carpenter Center show, which she later discussed further in an end-of-year column on Boston's galleries, the award-winning critic declares that, after the early performances, O'Grady's work "grew more precise and more searing."
Carpenter Center Exhibition Booklet — One reviewer called it an "Indispensable brochure." Besides checklist and illustrations, Lorraine O'Grady: Where Margins Become Centers contains an incisive essay by the CCVA's curator James Voorhies, an article by O'Grady and interview by Cecilia Alemani,, as well as Andil Gosine's foundational essay, "Lorraine O'Grady's New Worlds."
Cathy Lebowitz on "En Mas'" — Leibowitz discusses O'Grady's "Looking for a Headdress" video and installation as a mimicry of the relation of the diaspora to its originary culture and indicates that its informal density accomplishes a great deal efficiently.
Louis Bury on "Art Is..." — Bury's lengthy and magisterial review is a model of intellectual attention to what is being seen — both inside and outside the frame. Beginning with the freedom of the piece's title, it examines framing as form, content and metaphor, and illluminates police presence and the relation of viewer to viewed.
Blog entry on "Art Is..." at the Studio Museum in Harlem — This brief review by an art historian frames "Art Is..." as a "meta-art proposition" and draws interesting parallels to works by later black artists.
Alan Gilbert review of Lorraine O'Grady at Alexander Gray — The editor of the College Art Association's caa.reviews, through a close formal description of "Cutting Out the New York Times," mimicked by that of the "Rivers, First Draft" wall installation, points to how their form provides an associative logic needed to make sense of the individuation process unfolding on the wall.
Holland Cotter, Art & Design — Cotter's review of O'Grady's exhibit at Alexander Gray focuses on her use of collage in both "Cutting Out the New York Times" and "Rivers, First Draft" as a method of shaping her complex history.
Feature on "EN MAS': Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean" — Reviewer Rebecca Lee Reynolds displays keen appreciation of the format of O'Grady's "reaction video," her commission for "EN MAS," which opened at CAC New Orleans before its traveling tour to the National Galleries of the Cayman Isalnds and of The Bahamas, plus centers of the diaspora.
Jillian Steinhauer on Baudelaire and Michael Jackson — After encountering O'Grady in a video by Adam Pendleton, Steinhauer finds a 10-minute segment on YouTube of the Performa Institute event in which O'Grady speaks about Baudelaire, Jackson and Modernism.
Animating the Archive: Black Performance Art's Radical Presence – Alexis Clements' review of "Radical Presence" at the Grey Art Gallery, NYU, discusses the ways in which O'Grady's photo-document installation of Mlle Bourgeoise Noire enables one to imagine at least in part what it might have been like to be present during the performance.
Piece on Basquiat referencing O'Grady's 1993 Artforum article — ArtInfo executive editor Ben Davis's feature, "Saving Basquiat," points to O'Grady's 1993 Artforum article and highlights the question it raised: Could knowing black fine artists have saved him?
Lisa Scanlon on O'Grady's archive at Wellesley College — Associate editor Scanlon, writing on the newly opened Lorrraine O'Grady Papers, the College's first major alumnae archives, calls the collection a means to preserve the records of the artist's "permanent rebellion."
Emily Nathan, The New York List — Analysis of New Worlds focusing on how the works' resistance of "easy classification" and their straddling of "artificial divides of genre and type" serve to replicate O'Grady's thoughts on the contemporary world, one "shaped and inflected by miscegenation."
Unpublished article on New Worlds — The unpublished article by Gosine, a York University (Toronto) professor who'd written earlier on hybridity in O'Grady's work, is a perceptive and detailed analysis of the subject's treatment in her New Worlds show at Alexander Gray, NY.