post notes on art in a global context, 2023. Disrupting the Institution through Language and Enactment — Veronika Molnar’s essay examines the cultural importance and legacy of Hungarian Roma artist, Omara. Molnar highlights the parallels between Omara’s disruptions and interventions of art openings and O’Grady’s Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, which reflect the institutional struggles of both Black women artists in the United States and Romani women artists in Europe.
Ama Codjoe reads from her recently published collection of poems, Bluest Nude, which considers her cultural visibility. She cites artists Lorraine O’Grady, Simone Leigh, and Evie Shockley in their uses of language as a form that is critical of itself, particularly in the way it is employed.
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.
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.
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.
Alexandra M. Thomas affirms the range of O’Grady’s literature upon the release of her collected essays and interviews entitled Writing in Space, making clear the wisdom in her scholarship, much of which was written before she was (recognized as) a practicing artist.
For Artforum, Colby Chamberlain articulates the nuanced, critical value of O’Grady’s “haiku diptychs.” In the review, he traces O’Grady’s deconstruction of print language to the post-Modernist lineage of Benjamin, Derrida, and Mallarmé, which she taught at the School of the Visual Arts around the same time the prints were in production.