Lynne Cooke, “Lynne Cooke’s Highlights of 2021.” Artforum, Dec 1, 2021.
9: LORRAINE O’GRADY (BROOKLYN MUSEUM)
(CURATED BY CATHERINE MORRIS AND ARUNA D’SOUZA)
This much-anticipated retrospective, with its invaluable catalogue, highlighted the signal contribution O’Grady has made to the discourse of identity politics over five decades. Turning to visual art in her mid-forties after stints as an intelligence analyst for the US government, a translator, and a rock-music critic for the Village Voice and Rolling Stone, O’Grady was keenly aware of the pressure of time and, consequently, the need to make
every project count. The thirteen projects featured in “Both/And” variously straddled Conceptual art, performance, video, and photo- and text-based works. Identifying as a diasporic subject, O’Grady not only challenged second-wave feminism for its marginalization of Black women, she focused on racial exclusion in the art world more generally in fiercely intelligent, subversive work laced with wit and humor. (…)