The AUDACITY of LORRAINE O’GRADY

At 89, the eternally PUNK-ROCK PERFORMANCE and CONCEPTUAL ARTIST still gets a kick out of CRASHING art-world parties. Only now she’s the GUEST of HONOR.

Story by SORAYA NADIA McDONALD

What if Lorraine O’Grady—acclaimed artist, glorious wit, and the very best kind of miscreant renegade—turned out to be a knight in shining armor? It’s a question I find myself contemplating as I sit across from her in the café at the Whitney Museum of American Art, just a few blocks from her studio in Manhattan’s West Village. For more than four decades, O’Grady has exercised a kind of valiance as she has sought to create a place for herself within the racism, sexism, and inhospitality of the art world. Beginning in the late 1970s and early ’80s, her conceptual and performance art took aim at the constellation of forces that conspired to marginalize artists of color in mainstream institutions and galleries—and women of color especially. Instead, O’Grady found community with the…

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Harper's Bazaar (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2024

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