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Writing in Space, 1973-2019 gathers the writings of conceptual artist Lorraine O'Grady, who for over forty years has investigated the complicated relationship between text and image. A firsthand account of O'Grady's wide-ranging practice, this volume contains statements, scripts, and previously unpublished notes charting the development of her performance work and conceptual photography; her art and music criticism that appeared in the Village Voice and Artforum; critical and theoretical essays on art and culture, including her classic "Olympia's Maid"; and interviews in which O'Grady maps, expands, and complicates the intellectual terrain of her work. She examines issues ranging from black female subjectivity to diaspora and race and representation in contemporary art, exploring both their personal and their institutional implications. O'Grady's writings-introduced in this collection by critic and curator Aruna D'Souza-offer a unique window into her artistic and intellectual evolution while consistently plumbing the political possibilities of art.
List of contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: For Those Who
Will Know / Aruna D'Souza xix
1. Statements and Performance Transcripts
Two Biographical Statements (2012 and 2019) 1
Cutting Out the New York Times (CONYT), 1977 (2006) 6
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire 1955 (1981) 8
Rivers, First Draft, 1982: Working Script, Cast List, Production Credits (1982) 11
Statement for Moira Roth re:
Art Is . . ., 1983 (2007) 23
Body Is the Ground of My Experience, 1991: Image Descriptions (2010) 27
Studies for a Sixteen-Diptych Installation to Be Called
Flowers of Evil and Good, 1995-Present (1998) 30
2. Writing in Space
Performance Statement #1: Thoughts about Myself, When Seen as a Political Performance Artist (181) 37
Performance Statement #2: Why Judson Memorial? or, Thoughts about the Spiritual Attitudes of My Work (1982) 40
Performance Statement #3: Thinking Out Loud: About Performance Art and My Place in It (1983) 43
Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline (1977) 50
Interview with Cecilia Alemani: Living Symbols of New Epochs (2010) 53
Interview with Amanda Hunt on
Art Is . . . (2015) 60
On Creating a Counter-confessional Poetry (2018) 64
3. Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity
Black Dreams (1982) 69
Interview with Linda Montano (1986) 77
Dada Meets Mama: Lorraine O'Grady on WAC (1992) 84
The Cave: Lorraine O'Grady on Black Women Film Directors (1992) 88
Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity (1992/1994) 94
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire and Feminism (2007) 110
4. Hybridity, Diaspora, and Thinking Both/And
On Being the Presence That Signals an Absence (1993) 115
Some Thoughts on Diaspora and Hybridity: An Unpublished Slide Lecture (1994) 119
Flannery and Other Regions (1999) 126
Responding Politicially to William Kentridge (2002) 131
Sketchy Thoughts on My Attraction to the Surrealists (2013) 136
Two Exhibits: The Diptych vs. the Triptych (1998) and Notes on the Diptych (2018) 139
Introducing: Lorraine O'Grady and Juliana Huxtable (2016) 142
5. Other Art Worlds
A Day at the Races: Lorraine O'Grady on Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Black Art World (1993) 169
SWM: On Sean Landers (1994) 176
Poison Ivy (1998) 181
The Black and White Show, 1982 (2009) 184
Email Q&A with
Artforum Editor (2009) 198
My 1980s (2012) 203
Rivers and Just Above Midtown (2013, 2015) 213
6. Retrospectives
Interview with Laura Cottingham (1995) 219
Interview with Jarrett Earnest (2016) 239
The
Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Project, 1980-1983 (2018) 250
Job History (from a Feminist "Retrospective") (2004) 260
First There Is a Mountain, Then There Is No Mountain, Then . . . ? (1973) 269
The Wailers and Bruce Springsteen at Max's Kansas City, July 18 1973 (1973) 278
Notes 287
Index 311
Credits
About the author
Lorraine O'Grady
Summary
Writing in Space, 1973-2019 gathers the writings of conceptual artist Lorraine O’Grady, including artist statements, scripts, magazine articles, critical essays on art and culture, and interviews.
