Writing in Space, 1973-2019

Reviews / Votes

"Lorraine O'Grady's work has always been driven by embodied experiences, questioning the construction of identity and what it means to be human. This extraordinary volume charts O'Grady's fascinating musings on these subjects, tracing and shedding new light on her impressive forty-year career whilst highlighting the urgency and continued relevance of her work in our current moment. O'Grady once told me, 'Everything I do could be a book'; this publication goes some way toward meeting that possibility." - Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries "Lorraine O'Grady is one of the foremost conceptual artists of the last century. Writing in Space, 1973-2019 is an indispensable contribution to our appreciation of the breadth and innovation of her singular practice; it asks us to think beyond rigid boundaries that prevent a nuanced consideration of the mutually transformative power of 'text' and 'image.' O'Grady's practice creates new worlds, wherein photography, criticism, literature, and history leave the reader with a renewed sense of creative possibility." - Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem "This is the first book to offer a comprehensive overview of O'Grady's writing. Monumental texts, canonical essays, interviews, performance transcripts, and previously unpublished material form the edited volume, affirming both the range and reach of the artist's significant impact upon an art world that has only belatedly recognized her. . . . The book establishes O'Grady's literary brilliance that shines through her multifaceted creative practice, as she consistently pushes the art world toward deeper thought and political consciousness." - Alexandra M. Thomas (Hyperallergic) "Lorraine O'Grady's importance as a performance artist has tended to overshadow her talent as a writer. Ahead of a Brooklyn Museum retrospective due next year, critic and art historian Aruna D'Souza put together a must-read volume featuring O'Grady's shrewd musings on her own work, the intersections of Blackness and gender, and notions of visibility."
- Alex Greenberger (ARTnews) "A deeply nourishing account of her life, from the years preceding her full approach to artistry and criticism until recent times. . . . Such a collection, 46 years into O'Grady's exceptional career, reflects how the art industry has long excluded Black women artists. It is a delicate and difficult read, and a manifestation of the many possibilities embedded in thoughtful collaboration between an artist and editor who have been longtime supporters of each other's work." - Tyra A. Seals (Art Papers) "This volume is more than a collection of writing by an important artist whose work and thoughts have very belatedly come to larger attention. It is an extremely eloquent analysis of the New York art world since 1973 by one of the most articulate and profound conceptual artists to address questions of race, class, diasporic identity, non-Western philosophy and aesthetics and female subjectivity." - Andrea Kirsh (The Art Blog) "For nearly a half century, Lorraine O'Grady has produced a profound body of art and writing that reckons with and contests the logics of anti-Blackness, coloniality, and extraction that underpin cultural institutions. The texts anthologized in her new volume, Writing in Space, 1973-2019, immerse readers in O'Grady's prescience. . . . The collection spans the four decades of O'Grady's career with interdisciplinary writings that address questions of formal beauty in concept-driven art, interrogate where and how power operates in every part of the organization of museum space, and highlight Black avant-garde and abstract work."
- Christina Sharpe (Art in America) "An absorbing cover-to-cover read, no surprise considering the artist's roots in literature." - Holland Cotter (New York Times) "The book is astonishing for O'Grady's way with words alone. We see how she refines her own artist biographies and the framing of her process over time. Her performance scripts are so richly detailed that they read like closet dramas." - Rahel Aima (Bookforum) "[W]onderful and inspiring. . . . The collection of O'Grady's erudite and charged writings spans 1973 to 2019; each entry contests and reimagines structures of power." - Lisa Le Feuvre (The Art Newspaper)