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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Lorraine O’Grady, Still Cutting Into the Culture—Forty years after O’Grady debuted Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, declaring that Black art to take more risks, O’Grady receives her first retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum which features the launch of a new persona. In this profile, Siddhartha Mitter showcases how O’Grady has continuously pursued new ventures, pushing culture forward in her quests of discovery.
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.
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.
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.”