identity

316

Meer, 2026

"I dream I cross the river in one stride" brings together the work of Clémence Gbonon, Brittney Leeanne Williams, and Autumn Wallace in an exhibition inspired by Lorraine O’Grady’s landmark essay Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity. Presented at Mariane Ibrahim, the exhibition explores Black female subjectivity beyond inherited binaries, embracing complexity, embodiment, vulnerability, and self-definition. Through painting and sculpture, the artists create images that are self-authored, expansive, and resistant to fixed categories, extending O’Grady’s enduring influence on contemporary art and feminist discourse.

Chicago Art Scene feminist art Contemporary Art Olympia's Maid group exhibition identity Clémence Gbonon representation Autumn Wallace Black Contemporary Art Brittney Leeanne Williams Lorraine O'Grady Legacy and Influence black women artists I dream I cross the river in one stride Black feminism Frantz Fanon black female subjectivity sculpture The Wretched of the Earth painting Contemporary Painting Mariane Ibrahim

Read MoreDownload PDF

Chicago Reader, 2026

Reviewing After O'Grady at Mariane Ibrahim, Rachel Dukes examines how three contemporary artists—Autumn Wallace, Brittney Leeanne Williams, and Clémence Gbonon—extend the legacy of Lorraine O'Grady’s influential essay Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity. Through painting and sculpture, the exhibition explores Black women’s subjectivity beyond limiting binaries, emphasizing embodiment, movement, spirituality, and liberation. The exhibition demonstrates the continuing relevance of O'Grady’s ideas for contemporary artistic practice.

Contemporary Art Olympia's Maid After O'Grady identity Rachel Dukes representation Clémence Gbonon Black Contemporary Art Autumn Wallace Lorraine O'Grady Brittney Leeanne Williams black women artists Exhibition Review Black feminism Legacy and Influence black female subjectivity sculpture painting Mariane Ibrahim feminist art

Read MoreDownload PDF

Our Culture Mag, 2026

Destiny Is a Rose, on view at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles through August 16, 2026, presents more than 80 works from the collection of Eileen Harris Norton, marking fifty years since her first acquisition in 1976. The exhibition celebrates her longstanding commitment to artists of color, women artists, and those connected to California, featuring works by Kerry James Marshall, Mark Bradford, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and Lorraine O’Grady, among others.

Frank Bowling Destiny Is a Rose Noah Davis Hauser & Wirth Lynette Yiadom-Boakye artists of colour Alma Thomas Californian artists Mlle Bourgeoise Noire gender identity Mark Bradford David Hammons Glenn Ligon Jack Whitten Amy Sherald women artists Kara Walker Eileen Harris Norton Carrie Mae Weems race

Read MoreDownload PDF

The Wattis Institute, 2022

Lorraine O’Grady, the focus of our 2021-22 research season, is joined in conversation by CCA Assistant Professor Sam Vernon. The two artists discuss the impact of Lorraine’s work on a younger generation and on contemporary culture in general. This dynamic, intergenerational discussion addresses topics related to Lorraine’s work and its sphere of influence.

historical memory identity Sam Vernon personal narrative

Read MoreDownload PDF

Collector Daily, 2022

Loring Knoblauch considers Body Is The Ground of My Experience (1991/2019) as a “reprise” of O’Grady’s retrospective Both/And, exhibited the year prior. She suggests that the show is vital to understanding O’Grady’s late photographic prints.

embodiment interdisciplinary body as landscape photomontage Conceptualism archive Jamaica hybridity other media lineage Miscegenated Family album Body is the Ground of My Experience Barbara Kruger photography blackness portraiture The Fir-Palm black women artists The Clearing The Strange Taxi Boston collage landscape 2022 identity

Read MoreDownload PDF

The New York Times, 2018

In his review of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at the Brooklyn Museum, Holland Cotter examines how Black artists responded to racism, civil rights struggles, and questions of identity through politically engaged art. The exhibition highlights more than 60 artists whose work challenged social structures and redefined the role of art in public life.

Soul of a Nation Contemporary Art Black art Black Power movement African American artists race and representation political art civil rights movement activism identity Brooklyn Museum Holland Cotter

Read MoreDownload PDF