CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/19/2020

“That’s what art is; we’re the art!”

Featured image is one of 70 photographs documenting Art Is…, the 1983 performance staged by Lorraine O’Grady (aka Mademoiselle Bourgeoisie Noire) as part of the Harlem African American Day Parade. The piece was inspired by a friend’s comment, “avant-garde art doesn’t have anything to do with Black people.” Mademoiselle’s response, according to Soul of a Nation curator Zoé Whitley, was to hire 15 dancers to carry gold frames, "disembarking from the float to interact with the crowd. The performance lasted for eight hours. As the float traversed the several miles-long parade route, the parade announcer mocked, ‘They tell me this is art… I don’t understand that stuff.’ But some members of the crowd responded enthusiastically, ‘Frame me! Frame me! Make me art!’ And ‘That’s right. That’s what art is; we’re the art!’”