Knight, or Lancela Palm-and-Steel, is O’Grady’s most recent artistic persona. The Knight—together with attendants Pitchy-Patchy, her squire, and Rociavant, her horse—has set out to finish what her progenitor Mlle Bourgeoise Noire began 40 years earlier.
In an article written for Libération, Sonya Faure explores the life and work of Lorraine O’Grady, whose first solo exhibition in France is being held at Mariane Ibrahim Parisian space. Known for her powerful performances and photographic collages, O’Grady used art to critique racism, colonial legacies, and the marginalization of Black women in the art world.
The Palais de Tokyo’s Joie collective – Apprendre à flamboyer ! celebrates joy as a form of resistance and solidarity. Featuring artists like Lorraine O’Grady and Thomas Hirschhorn, the exhibition merges art and activism. O’Grady’s 1983 performance Art Is...—framing Harlem paradegoers as art—embodies this empowering call for collective engagement.
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 ...
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.”
A one-time only performance created by O'Grady for "Art Across the Park," curated by Gilbert Coker and Horace Brockington. It was performed in the Loch, a northern section of Central Park, on...
O'Grady's second performance, premiered at Just Above Midtown Gallery on October 31, 1980. In an unexpected turn of events, just one month after Mlle Bourgeoise Noire's invasion of the avant-garde gallery...
O'Grady's first public performance, remains the artist's best known work. The persona first appeared in 1980 under the Futurist dictum that art has the power to change the world and was in...
Forbes, 2024. Chad Scott reports on O’Grady’s “Both/And” exhibit at the Davis Museum of Wellesley College. As an alum of Wellesely, O’Grady’s exhibit and accompanying archival materials offers a unique experience for students to learn about the journey of a former student forging their own path in the art world.
ARTnews, 2023. In this list of 100 Greatest New York City Artworks, O’Grady’s “Art Is…” is named fifth for its joyous celebration of Black life and art outside the institutional setting of museums and the mainstream art world.
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.
The Kitchen, 2022. In 2022 Lorraine O’Grady was The Kitchen’s gala honoree. Alex Jacquet’s article surveys O’Grady’s work and situates it in dialogue with multi-disciplinary artist, Simone Leigh, who has cited O’Grady as a critical influence. Both O’Grady and Leigh, confront a “historic script” to re-contextualize subjectivity of Black women.
Alexis Jacquet and Angelique Rosales Salgado, “Lorraine O’Grady and Simone Leigh”— A view of the work of Lorraine O’Grady, The Kitchen’s 2022 gala honoree, in conversation with multi-disciplinary artist, Simone Leigh who has cited O’Grady as a critical influence. Both O’Grady and Leigh, confront a “historic script” to re-contextualize subjectivity of Black women.
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.
Seph Rodney recounts his experience at Simone Leigh’s symposium held in conjunction with the artist’s presentation of Leigh’s work at the US Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. The symposium “Loophole of Retreat” brought together artists and theorists alike to consider political liberation and sovereignty for Black women. He writes about Lorraine O’Grady’s conversation with Leigh, one that concerned the Decolonize Museums protests that happened outside of her retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum in 2021. She began to question just what the privilege of a solo institutional show provided her, and how she could make new allyships with those afforded less power than her, notably trans activists.
Aruna D’Souza offers historicizes the foundational years at Just Above Midtown, the gallery project of Linda Goode-Bryant, which platformed artists including David Hammons, Lorna Simpson, and Maren Hassinger early in their careers. D’Souza addresses the show’s goals to highlight the gallery’s history of the 1970s and 1980s, while also enlivening its archive as it remains active into the 2020s. For Goode-Bryant, the question of integrity arises: “Can JAM be JAM at MoMA?”
Malik Gaines talks with O’Grady about the meaning behind her retrospective title, Both/And, through which she signifies an affront to Western binarist thinking. Unlike writing, which O’Grady has foreseeably mastered, she keeps returning to art because there is no correct way to do it – her struggle is a source of joy and motivation.
At 86, Lorraine O’Grady is experiencing what she calls her “first big break” with the Brooklyn Museum’s retrospective Both/And. For more than four decades, O’Grady has forged a singular path in performance, collage, and critical writing—work that probes identity, inclusion, and the limits of art history. In conversation with Ben Davis, she reflects on her Boston upbringing, her influence on younger artists, and the unexpected moment when a Biden administration post-election ad brought her work into viral circulation.
In his critically-acclaimed book, and second ‘anti-canonical reader’ Pasts, Futures, and Aftermaths (2021), Adam Pendleton interviews Lorraine O’Grady. The text compiles writings in radical experimental thought and is proceeded by Pendleton’s Black Dada Reader (2017).
Independent curator Barbara London interviews Lorraine O’Grady on her involvement at the gallery Just Above Midtown, speaking in detail about her work “Art Is…” and what comes next for the artist following her retrospective Both/And and the Covid-19 pandemic. London shares her enthusiasm for O’Grady’s new performance persona pictured in her work “Announcement Card (Seated Palmate).”
Kate Guadagnino sits down with O’Grady to learn about her day-to-day as a concept-based artist. She speaks honestly about her process of making art by returning to old projects with fresh eyes, sometimes years later, while also including more personal details like her favorite films and her life at Westbeth. The artist notes that “having come to art later in life, [...] I’m out there to make the best possible work and as close to a masterpiece as I can. [...] What I’m trying to do is get as much of myself expressed as possible because there is so little out there that allows for an understanding of the fullness of the Black mind or soul.”
Jarrett Earnest speaks with Lorraine O’Grady as part of a series of artists who are also writers, for David Zwirner’s podcast. They discuss the artist’s “both/and” approach that is crucial to her retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, and what she learned from her exhibition.
Jillian Steinhauer reviews O'Grady's retrospective exhibition “Both/And” at the Brooklyn Museum. The article highlights O'Grady's pioneering work in performance art and her exploration of race, gender, and identity in her practice. Steinhauer describes O'Grady's personal history, including her West Indian heritage, her education, and her career as a writer before she turned to art, another aspect of her life that significantly informs her art practice.
Zachary Small reports on President Biden’s homage to “Art Is…” in his 2020 presidential campaign advertisement. The article places O’Grady amongst other artists similarly addressing the political climate of 2020. While Alexander Gray warns that “a piece like this is so easy for advertisers to appropriate,” the article makes clear that O’Grady gave her blessing on the campaign’s concept. “Biden is saying the same thing to the country that I was saying to the art world.”
Heather Kapplow conducts a formal analysis of O’Grady’s performance persona, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, in an attempt to bridge her pioneering artwork of the 1980s with the activism of Black public figures in the 2010s.
Lorraine O’Grady’s long engagement with the diptych comes into focus in her collage series Cutting Out CONYT (1977/2017), a radical distillation of her earliest work, Cutting Out the New York Times. Reworked into what she calls “haiku diptychs,” the series is featured in two solo exhibitions this fall—at Alexander Gray Associates in New York and at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah—as well as in her solo show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In a review of Soul of a Nation, Steven Thrasher praises O’Grady for “putting Harlem into focus,” suggesting that art can happen on the street – outside of the confines of the museum – embodied through her 1983 performance work “Art Is…”
A conversation between artists Lorraine O’Grady and Juliana Huxtable. The dialogue took place by phone from O’Grady and Huxtable’s respective studios in New York City. This is part one of a two-part discussion and the first time the artists have spoken.
Part two of a two-part discussion between artists Lorraine O’Grady and Juliana Huxtable. The dialogue took place by phone from O’Grady and Huxtable’s respective studios in New York City. This is part two of a two-part discussion and the first time the artists have spoken.