Rivers and Just Above Midtown, 2013, 2015
Text read at MOMA's Now Dig This! symposium — A meditation on why Rivers, First Draft might not have existed without the Just Above Midtown Gallery’s challenging and supportive environment.
Writing
My Attraction to the Surrealists, 2013
For Simone Leigh and Performa's conference on Black Surrealism — O'Grady taught a course on Futurism, Dada and Surrealism at SVA for 20 years but had not written of the movements' effect on her work. These rough notes made for a conference presenter indicate why she loved their methodologies more than their art.
My 1980s, Art Journal 2012
Artist feature, CAA Art Journal, Summer 2012 — Based on her lecture in conjunction with the exhibit This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1980s, the article puts several early works in historical context and explains O'Grady's reverse trajectory from "post-black" to "black."
Contributor Text, Paris Triennale, 2012
Text for the 2012 Paris Triennale English-language website — Written to replace a curatorial text on the Trennale's English website, the text describes the effect of O'Grady's hybrid background on content and form in her work, elaborating this with respect to Miscegenated Family Album, her "novel in space" in the Triennale.
Four Diptychs, 2010
[In English] Pétunia: magazine féministe d'art contemporain 2, France — The French feminist magazine Petunia’s invitation to create a centerfold sparked O’Grady’s piece in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, The First and the Last of the Modernists. The text documents her decision to contrast images of Baudelaire and Michael Jackson.
BodyGround Image Descriptions, 2010
Unpublished paragraphs on individual works in INTAR exhibit, 1991 — Written to answer FAQs about the works without prescribing viewers' responses. The photomontages were not based in Surrealist or Dada randomness. To make arguments and not just images or dreams, rational sources were twisted so unfamiliar subjective material of the "other" might enter.
Email Q & A with Artforum Editor, 2009
O’Grady used the margin comments of her Artforum editor on “The Black and White Show” in part as an opportunity for background clarification on the situation of race in the 1980s art world.
The Black and White Show, 2009
1983 curated show, re-presented in Artforum, May 2009 — The artist portfolio that accompanied a survey article on O’Grady’s work by Nick Mauss in a two-article Artforum cover spread combined impressionistic text on her experience curating “The Black and White Show,” 1983, with historically analytic captions for works from the show.
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire 1980-81, Synopsis 2007
Posted to the moca.org WACK site — O’Grady posted this brief synopsis of the performance and its background on the WACK! exhibit’s excellent website. Significantly, she also posted 13 largely unknown photos-with-captions documenting the performance, which historically had been victim to two iconic images. Lacking a full context, they had become empty signifiers.
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire and Feminism, 2007
WACK! audio statement, published in Art Lies #54, Summer 2007 — For WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, the first major museum exhibit of feminist art, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A., O’Grady was asked to record an audio statement for the cell-phone tour to explain how her piece related to the show’s theme.
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire and Feminism #2, 2007
WACK! gallery talk, published in Art Lies #54, Summer 2007 — As part of her gallery talk for WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at MOCA, LA, O’Grady read this statement inspired by Marsha Meskimmon’s important catalogue essay, in which the theoretical underpinning for the show’s historic statement of including 50% non- U.S. artists had been laid out.
re Art Is. . ., to Moira Roth, 2007
Unpublished email exchange — During an e-mail exchange in which they were sharing ideas and work, O'Grady sent Roth a copy of Lucy Lippard's review of Art Is. . . . Roth's questions prompted O'Grady to elaborate on the making and meaning of the performance.
Re Cutting Out the New York Times, 1977 [2006]
Binder statement for Daniel Reich exhibit — At curator Nick Mauss’s request, O’Grady first exhibited five of the 26 cut-outs that she’d done on successive Sundays, from June 5 to November 20, 1977, in a group show nearly 30 years later — Between the Lines, in March 2006 at Daniel Reich Temporary (The Chelsea Hotel). She wrote a binder statement about her original work method and state of mind.
The 1980s: An Internet Conference, 2005
Moderated online by Maurice Berger — O’Grady’s replies to Berger’s questions, both reproduced here, were extensive. The conference, with 30 posters and hosted on the Georgia O’Keefe Museum website, provided an opportune moment to re-think her 80s work in its larger historical context.
Political response to William Kentridge, 2002
LACMA panel paper, revised for publication in X-Tra — O’Grady recounts an incident from her pre-art life in explanation of her response to the work of the white South African artist.
GG Alma Thomas on Flannery O’Connor, 1999
Flannery O'Connor: In Celebration of Genius, 75th year Festschrift — This personal article by Guerrilla Girl Alma Thomas on one of O'Grady's key authors, Flannery O'Connor—who wrote as a Catholic in the Protestant South—discusses O'Connor's meaning for later "minority" artists in a pluralized world.
The Diptych vs the Triptych, 1998
Unpublished statement — Excerpt from a conversation between Lorraine O’Grady and a studio visitor, 9.12.98.
Artforum International, 1998
Published letter re “Ronald Jones on 'Black Like Who?'” — Response to "Crimson Herring: Ronald Jones on 'Black Like Who?' [Harvard University symposium on stereotypes in art]," Artforum International, vol. xxxvi, no. 10, Summer 1998. Letter published as "Poison Ivy," in Artforum International, vol. xxxvii, no. 1, October 1998.
Studies for Flowers of Evil and Good, 1998
Wall statement for exhibit at Thomas Erben Gallery, Soho — Written for the first exhibit of “Studies #3 and 4 for Flowers of Evil and Good” at Thomas Erben Gallery, NYC, this discussion of the father of modernism Charles Baudelaire and his Haitian common-law wife Jeanne Duval, as well as Picasso and O’Grady’s mother Lena, places their relationships in the postmodernist moment.
Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline, 1997
Art Journal, College Art Association — In this article for Art Journal, Winter 1997, the special issue on performance edited by Martha Wilson, O’Grady focuses first on Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline, then discusses its relationship to Miscegenated Family Album, alluding to the advantages and disadvantages of the move from performance to photo installation.
The Space Between, 1995
Artist brochure statement for Lorraine O’Grady / MATRIX 127, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, May 21 – Aug 20, 1995. Adapted from “Lorraine O’Grady, conceptual artist,” in Susan Cahan and Zoya Kocur, eds., Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education. New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and Routledge, 1996.
Thoughts on Diaspora and Hybridity, 1994
Unpublished lecture, Wellesley College — Written shortly after the “Postscript” to “Olympia’s Maid,” this lecture delivered to the Wellesley Round Table, a faculty symposium on Miscegenated Family Album, takes a retrospective look at O’Grady’s earlier life and work through the prism of cultural theory.
black female subjectivity performance art 1994 hybridity historiography The Dual Soul nature vs culture autobiography the Caribbean Miscegenated Family album race and class diaspora Ancient Egypt Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline sibling rivalry Olympia's Maid Wellesley College Gayatri Spivak artistic process post-modernism
Sean Landers, SWM, 1994
One of three cover articles on Landers, Artforum, April 1994 — By mutual consent, this was O’Grady’s last article for Artforum. It was also not included in the Sean Landers gallery press kit.
Olympia’s Maid, 1992, 1994
Afterimage 20, 1992; expanded, New Feminist Criticism, 1994 — This first-ever article of cultural criticism on the black female body was to prove germinal and continues to be widely referenced in scholarly and other works. Occasionally controversial, it has been frequently anthologized, most recently in Amelia Jones, ed, The Feminism and Cultural Reader, Routledge.
black female subjectivity black women artists black writers Stuart Hall erasure/invisibility psychoanalysis race and class Olympia's Maid sex and sexuality white feminism dance Gayatri Spivak Judith Wilson post-modernism religion and spirituality 1994 The Strange Taxi 1992 poststructuralism nature vs culture
Basquiat and the Black Art World, 1993
Artforum International — O’Grady’s column on the occasion of Basquiat’s first retrospective, at the Whitney Museum, was the first to examine Basquiat’s relation to the black art world. It discusses her personal relationship to Jean-Michel and analyzes the mainstream art world’s “primitivist” responses to his work.
The Presence that Signals an Absence, 1993
Catalogue Essay, Coming to Power, David Zwirner Gallery — Written for the unpublished, photocopied catalogue of Coming to Power: 25 Years of Sexually X-plicit Art by Women, curated by Ellen Cantor and presented by David Zwirner Gallery and Simon Watson/The Contemporary, NYC, the essay examines O’Grady’s inclusion in the show and responses to her diptych The Clearing.
WAC (Womens Action Coalition), 1992
Front-of-book feature, Artforum, October 1992 — O’Grady was one of less than a handful of women of color active in the Womens Action Coalition. WAC had been begun by women in the New York art world in response to Anita Hill’s denigration during the congressional hearing on Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Black Women Film Directors, 1992
Film column, Artforum, January 1992 — Written during a tentative “break-through” year for black women film directors, the article was a search for answers to the question, “Why are there so few even now?” It found the situation for black women to be an exaggeration of that for women in general.
Art in America, 1984
Unpublished letter re “Report from the East Village” — Unpublished letter re the omission of Kenkeleba Gallery and O’Grady’s The Black and White Show from the feature section, “Report from the East Village: Slouching Toward Avenue D,” in Art in America, Vol 72 No 6 (Summer 1984). Receipt not acknowledged.
Performance Statement #3, 1983
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.
Black Dreams, 1982
Heresies #15: Racism Is the Issue — Published in the Heresies collective’s journal, this was O’Grady’s first attempt to deal publicly with issues of black female subjectivity. It is based firmly in personal anecdote and psychological description rather than the more theoretical analysis she would later employ.
Performance Statement #2, 1982
Unpublished statement, for Judson Memorial Church, unsent — In writing a proposal to perform Rivers at Judson Memorial Church, a venue with important avant-garde history, O’Grady unexpectedly reached greater clarity on the spiritual aspects of her work, especially its forms.
Rivers, First Draft, 1982
Working script — O’Grady’s most autobiographical performance was a “three-ring” simultaneous narrative performed one time only in the Loch section of Central Park on August 18 for “Art Across the Park,” curated by Gilbert Coker and Horace Brockington. This script, redrafted until the day of performance, and a set of photo-documents are the only remains.
Performance Statement #1, 1981
Unpublished statement, for Lucy Lippard — O’Grady early on felt the need, and was asked, to explain herself —as in this reply to a request by Lucy Lippard on politics in art. Lippard, curating “ACTING OUT: The first political performance art series,” had invited her to perform. The letter dated 1.1.81 addressed practical and other issues and became her first statement on performance art.
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire at JAM, 1980
High Performance #13, Artist’s Chronicle — Her first submission to a performance art journal was a description of Mlle Bourgeoise Noire’s earliest appearance, a guerrilla action at Just Above Midtown, the country’s only black avant-garde art gallery.
The Wailers and Bruce Springsteen, 1973
First published in Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll, 2010 — A piece written by O’Grady in 1973 for the Village Voice, but rejected by her editor because it was "too soon for these two" and finally published in 2010 by Abrams Image, reviews the night the Wailers with Bob Marley led in for Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band.