Duke Up, 2020
For Those Who Will Know—In her introduction for O’Grady’s “Writing in Space,” the first collection of the artist’s writing, Aruna D’Souza illuminates the throughline of forward-thinking found in O’Grady’s groundbreaking art. Resisting the simple and rigid classifications that box in many women and Black artists, O’Grady has continuously complicated and challenged cultural notions of binarism. This provocation has taken form in all modes of her practices—from her seminal performance of alter ego Mlle Bourgeoise Noir to the recurrent diptychs bridging unexpected figures like Michael Jackson and Charles Baudelaire. D’Souza delineates how these works are foregrounded by O’Grady’s training as a writer.
Miscegenated Family album Linda Goode Bryant Black artists Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution histography diaspora black women artists black female subjectivity Mlle Bourgeoise Noir writing in space western cultural hegemony Body Is the of My Experience Flowers of Evil and Good Cutting Out The New York Times hybridity Cutting Out CONTY The Clearing Village Voice the Black and White Show Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline Rolling Stone black avant-garde Olympia's Maid Aruna d’Souza cultural criticism performance art 2020 diptych Landscape (Western Hemisphere) Iowa Writers Workshop RIVERS archive First Draft