Lorraine O'Grady, Announcement Card 3 (Seated Palmate), 2020. Courtesy of the Lorraine O’Grady Trust and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, Mexico City) © 2025 Lorraine O’Grady/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.
First exhibition in France of Lorraine O’Grady
Lorraine O’Grady, an African-American conceptual artist with Caribbean heritage, began her artistic career at 46 and became known for her bold performances critiquing racial and gender inequality in the art world. In France, her work has been seen mainly through collective exhibitions, such as the current show at the Palais de Tokyo, featuring her 1983 performance “Art Is. . .” This exposure led to her first solo exhibition in France at the Mariane Ibrahim gallery, highlighting her impact and historical significance.
The works in this exhibition span four decades of O'Grady's artistic journey. One of her most iconic series, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire (1980–1983)—a set of black and white photographs—used performance to protest exclusion in the art world, including a striking 1981 intervention at the New Museum. Her latest body of work, The Knight series (2020), reflects her evolving inquiry into identity and visibility. These pieces explore the question, "If everything is hidden—race, class, age, gender—what remains?"
Over four decades, O'Grady transitioned from performance to photography and collage, using art to explore themes of hybridity, personal history, and political critique. Works like Rivers, First Draft (1982), also shown in this exhibition, reenacted her life’s journey, while collages such as The Strange Taxi (1991) illustrated her narrative approach to identity and diaspora.
Excerpted words written by Christine Coste for Le Journal des Arts.
