Abstract

The continued lack of visibility and representation of Black women in studies of historical and contemporary performance art not only forces their work to exist within the margins, but their exclusion also exposes broader questions around the terrain for decolonising performance histories. In order to begin to recover interventionist performances by Black women, this article focuses on the work of African American conceptual artist and theorist Lorraine O’Grady. It recuperates O’Grady’s performance work and expand Black feminist histography for performance art. In the 1980s, O’Grady created Mlle Bourgeoise Noire (1980–83), a series of performative invasions into mainstream art spaces in New York as the persona Mlle Bourgeoise Noire to enable her to become visible in exclusionary spaces. O’Grady’s performances sought to disturb the structures of race, gender and class that excluded her as a Black woman from the mainstream art world. In turn, I argue, her intrusion complicated the already existing and speculative modes of blackness.

摘要

黑人女性在历史和当代表演艺术研究中的持续缺乏知名度和代表性不仅迫使她们的作品存在于边缘，而且她们的排斥也暴露了围绕表演历史去殖民化领域的更广泛问题。为了开始恢复黑人女性的干预主义表演，本文重点关注非裔美国概念艺术家和理论家洛林·奥格雷迪的作品。它恢复了奥格雷迪的表演作品，并为表演艺术扩展了黑人女权主义史学。1980 年代，奥格雷迪创作了Mlle Bourgeoise Noire（1980-83），一系列表演性入侵纽约主流艺术空间，作为黑资产阶级的角色，使她能够在排他性空间中变得可见。奥格雷迪的表演试图打破种族、性别和阶级的结构，这些结构将她作为黑人女性排除在主流艺术界之外。反过来，我认为，她的入侵使已经存在的和推测的黑暗模式变得复杂。