Lorraine O'Grady

Lorraine O'Grady included in the group exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL.

The institution's press release follows:

The 1990s were a period of profound social, political, and economic transformation. From the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc to the rise of transnational trade agreements, the decade’s large-scale shifts ushered in an era of international connectivity and social upheaval. In the cultural sector, art exhibitions expanded and turned global, and dialogues around identity, especially by those who have suffered systemic oppression, were featured front and center in cultural debates. The forces of this pivotal decade also had a major effect on the production, circulation, and presentation of art from the Caribbean.

Taking the 1990s as its cultural backdrop, Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today is the first major group exhibition in the United States to envision a new approach to contemporary art in the Caribbean diaspora, foregrounding forms that reveal new modes of thinking about identity and place. It uses the concept of weather and its constantly changing forms as a metaphor to analyze artistic practices connected to the Caribbean, understanding the region as a bellwether for our rapidly shifting times.

Artists with ties to the Caribbean often reference the region’s colonial histories, migratory flows, and environmental extractions. Forecast Form argues that the Caribbean is constituted by diaspora and movement, featuring artists whose work challenges traditional assumptions of Caribbean culture and its representation. A rethinking of contemporary art in the Caribbean, Forecast Form positions the region as a place where the past, the present, and the future meet—where continuous exchanges forecast what is to come while remaining grounded in the histories that shape the present.