We Wanted A Revolution

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New York Times, 2021

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.

Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Egypt criticism Art Is... Jamaica Devonia/Nefertiti Miscegenated Family album both/and Stange Taxi writing in space Brooklyn Museum black female subjectivity The Clearing Announcement of a New Persona (Performances to Come!) Olympia's Maid Cutting Out CONYT hybridity Boston Aruna d’Souza Just Above Midtown New Museum Simone Leigh black avant-garde Linda Goode Bryant Catherine Morris Rivers First Draft the Caribbean Soul of a Nation diptych Cutting Out The New York Times We Wanted A Revolution

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WBUR, 2018

In a review of We Wanted A Revolution, Garcia considers the art exhibition as a corrective method for recentering Black women “on the forefront of form and the avant-garde,” and in doing so, she calls for revisions to the art historical canon’s sole emphasis on European male avant-gardists. The article takes a firm stance that the patriarchy cannot be taken down without simultaneously dismantling systemic racism.

systemic racism performative activism We Wanted A Revolution black avant-garde white feminism black women artists erasure/invisibility Faith Ringgold 2018 ICA Boston Lorna Simpson

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Media Diversified, 2017

Tonya Nelson traces histories of political protests and activism from the civil rights movement to the more contemporary Black Lives Matter movement – problematizing the roots of Western individualism at large. Her critique reveals itself through her analyses of works by Lorraine O’Grady, Maren Hassinger, and Linda Goode-Bryant, all featured in the group exhibitions Soul of a Nation and We Wanted A Revolution.

The Fir-Palm Maren Hassinger The Clearing Landscape (Western Hemisphere) Linda Goode Bryant Adrian Piper 2017 hybridity black women artists Just Above Midtown black writers political art Soul of a Nation Mlle Bourgeoise Noire We Wanted A Revolution Art Is... Black Lives Matter

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Hyperallergic, 2017

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.

art-world racism We Wanted A Revolution Eileen Harris Norton performance art Maren Hassinger Kellie Jones Linda Goode Bryant 1960s Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980 Harlem Women’s Liberation Toni Morrison Studio Z 1970s Senga Nengudi AIR Gallery Just Above Midtown 2017 Black liberation black avant-garde black women artists Women Students and Artists for Black Liberation Mlle Bourgeoise Noire black writers protest 1980s Brooklyn Museum AfriCOBRA white feminism radicalism Combahee River Collective

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The New Republic, 2017

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.”

Brooklyn Museum black female subjectivity We Wanted A Revolution political art Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Miscegenated Family album 2017 black women artists race and class The Whitney Museum

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