Heather Kapplow, “When protest came dressed in a tiara.” Experience Magazine, May 1, 2019.
She appeared, uninvited, at a 1980 art opening in a New York gallery, calling herself “Mlle Bourgeoise Noire” — French for “Ms. Black Middle Class.” Dressed in an elegant tiara and a gown made of white gloves, she held a bouquet of white chrysanthemums sprouting out of the handle of a white cat o’nine tails.
Moving graciously through a bemused crowd, she handed out the flowers, ever-smiling and asking, “Won’t you lighten my bouquet?”
Then, when the flowers were gone, she began flogging herself viciously, shouting out verses adapted from a poem by Léon-Gontran Damas: “No more boot-licking…No more ass-kissing…No more buttering-up…No more pos…turing…of super-ass..imilates…BLACK ART MUST TAKE MORE RISKS!!!”
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, the alter ego of pioneering artist Lorraine O’Grady, took the insular New York art world by storm for a brief time in the early 1980s. Though the character seemed half poetess, half beauty queen, what she really represented was political action: a way to voice frustration and a strong desire for change within a world that wasn’t ready for the sound.
Decades before mainstream pop artists like Beyoncé and Childish Gambino were drawing headlines for their confrontational work, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire was critiquing art communities from both without and within. She may not have changed the world — at least, not right away. But she set a fierce and memorable standard for action and imagery that challenges the status quo.(…)