Lorraine O’Grady, Untitled (Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Shouts Out Her Poem), 1980-83/2009. Courtesy of the Lorraine O’Grady Trust and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, Mexico City) © 2025 Lorraine O’Grady/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.
The historical performances of Lorraine O’Grady at the Mariane Ibrahim gallery, in Paris
For Le Monde, Philippe Dagen reflects on Lorraine O'Grady's first solo exhibition in the city, but also the last one she prepared herself, as she passed last December, 2024. Celebrated for her iconic persona Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, O'grady's confrontational performances in 1980s New York challenged the exclusion of Black women from the art world through symbolic acts involving a gown of white gloves and a whip.
The exhibition traces her evolution from her early collage work in the late 1970s to large-scale performances like Rivers, First Draft (1982), which fused surrealist imagery with political allegory in Central Park. Dagen highlights how O’Grady’s photographic series juxtapose colonial and American histories—linking figures like Hernán Cortés and Thomas Jefferson with their female, often oppressed counterparts—exposing the contradictions of power and memory. Blending literary insight, surrealist influence, and fierce critique, O’Grady’s work remains a powerful force in the ongoing fight for artistic and social justice.
