Unpublished statement, for Tony Whitfield — A letter to Tony Whitfield in preparation for Just Above Midtown’s Afro- Pop catalogue interview is O’Grady’s most self-conscious to that point. Experiencing a lack of clear precedents for her work, in it she attempts to theorize her relationship to performance art and the paucity of role models, and to face the question of the audience for black avant-garde art.
A joyful performance in Harlem's African-American Day Parade, September 1983, was, from the point of view of the work's connection with its audience, O'Grady's most immediately successful piece. Its impetus ...
An exhibition curated by O'Grady at the black-owned Kenkeleba Gallery on East 2nd Street, NYC, April 22 - May 22, 1983, was a conceptual art piece employing other artists' work to make its point...
A one-night only performance done at Franklin Furnace in early 1983 in what O’Grady later characterized as “a state of physical and psychological exhaustion.”
The Momentary, 2024. To commemorate the acquisition of “Untitled: Mlle Bourgeoise Noire,” by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Larissa Ramey examines O’Grady’s presentations of Black womanhood and identity within her work which sheds light on the intricate intersection of race and gender in contemporary society.”
Sayaka Matsuoka reviews Both/And, noting that the retrospective not only presents O’Grady’s illustrious career, but shows her penchant for self-reflection and forward movement of her work.
Frieze, 2016. In an essay interrogating uses of racial representation and depiction in photography, Evan Moffitt highlights O’Grady’s “Art Is…” 1983 performance which used a literal frame to metaphorically reframe thoughts on what constitutes art and who is allowed to participate in its creation.