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”
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.
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.
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.