Lorraine O'Grady, The Clearing: or Cortés and La Malinche, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, N. and Me, 1991/2019. Detail. Courtesy of the Lorraine O’Grady Trust and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, and Mexico City) © 2025 Lorraine O’Grady/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Lorraine O'Grady: LANDSCAPE (WESTERN HEMISPHERE)
Andil Gosine shares with Small Axe his deeply personal experiences with Lorraine O’Grady, a singular force in his life whose influence has shaped his thinking and artistic practice since 2010. Reflecting on their years of collaboration, Gosine begins his tribute by recalling the creation of the video Landscape (Western Hemisphere) for the 2010 Buffalo art biennial Beyond/In Western New York, using it as a lens to explore O’Grady’s unique creative process.
Gosine highlights O’Grady’s ability to merge the personal with the historical, a quality that profoundly shaped his own approach to art. Both coming from social science backgrounds, they saw art as a powerful tool for knowledge and analysis, capable of revealing both the conscious and the subconscious. O’Grady’s commitment to beauty, truth, and her enduring impact on Gosine’s practice are elements he will continue to explore in the years ahead. He concludes with a sentiment shared by many: "We will all be catching up to Lorraine O’Grady for decades to come".
