Documentation, documentation, documentation.
Tom Patterson, “Timely before Her Time: Sprawling Show at the Weatherspoon Traces the Prescient Art Career of Lorraine O’Grady.” Winston-Salem Journal, Feb 26, 2022.
Like the proverbial key factors in real estate — location, location, location — documentation may be the most important element in a performance artist’s career.
For a case in point, take the sprawling exhibition of Lorraine O’Grady’s work at Weatherspoon Art Museum on the UNCG campus. More than half of the show consists of photographs and texts documenting performances and other ephemeral presentations O’Grady enacted several decades ago.
A wealth of documentary materials has enabled this belated, comprehensive appreciation and revisitation of O’Grady’s work, timed for an era when the world seems more attentive to the issues she has consistently emphasized.
“Both/And” originated at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y., and is accompanied by a profusely illustrated catalog primarily authored by the show’s co-curators, Catherine Morris and Aruna D’Souza. This 225-page book gives a thorough accounting of O’Grady’s complicated, still-evolving relationship with contemporary art. (…)