Lorraine O'Grady: Miscegenated Family Album

In Miscegenated Family Album (1994) pioneering conceptual artist Lorraine O’Grady invites us into a deeply personal and historical dialogue. Through a photo-installation of diptychs, she juxtaposes photographs of ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti with images of her older sister, Devonia Evangeline O’Grady Allen, and members of their respective families.

The diptychs that belong to this series were selected from a 1980 performance by O’Grady in which 65 image pairs of Nefertiti and Devonia Evangeline were projected behind the artist’s live action. These works draw striking parallels between the two women—their husbands and children, mixed-race backgrounds, and the estranged relationships with their sisters.

The word miscegenation evokes the history of laws that once prohibited against marriage between people of different races. In the United States, these laws were declared unconstitutional in 1967. O’Grady’s Miscegenated Family Album probes these tensions in order to suggest the ambiguity and complications of belonging, situating O’Grady’s family in a wider history of racial and gendered relations.

At the same time, the installation represents O’Grady’s process of mourning for her estranged sister, who had died before the two could reconcile. In many ways, this body of work serves as an elegy, reflecting on loss and the endurance of memory, both personal and collective. In the intimacy of these portraits, we become witnesses to a poignant autobiographical narrative playing out over time.

The exhibition is generously supported by Lucille and Richard F.X. Spagnuolo.

Guest curated by Donna Honarpisheh.