A statement from Lorraine O’Grady

Click here to read the artist’s full statement.

“The diptych, appearance to the contrary, is anti-dualistic. That’s why it’s been my weapon of choice to oppose the West’s ‘either/or’ binary, which is always exclusive and hierarchical. I feel that the ‘both/and’ lack of resolution, an acceptance and embrace of it, is what needs to become the cultural goal. The diptych structure and surrealist mode of Cutting Out CONYT both express and argue a holding still and interaction between dissimilars long enough to become familiar.”

—Lorraine O’Grady

_{Cutting Out CONYT, 1977/2017/2024
letterpress printing on Japanese paper, cut out and collaged on laid paper, with diptychs arranged in quadriptychs read clockwise
45 1/4 x 33 1/8 x 2 inches (115 x 84.06 x 5.08 cm) each
Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris, and Mexico City)
© 2024 Lorraine O’Grady/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York}