Biden-Harris campaign video directly adapts Lorraine O'Grady's 1983 golden frame performance

A two-minute campaign film for the Biden-Harris US presidential campaign, released over the weekend following projected election results, directly translates conceptual artist Lorraine O'Grady's 1983 performance 'Art Is'. In that original work, participants were posed inside golden painting frames during Harlem's African-American Day Parade, documented through photographs. The new video features people from diverse backgrounds across America appearing within empty golden frames while 'America the Beautiful' plays. Campaign officials discovered O'Grady's work through documentation displayed in the exhibition 'Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power' at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. O'Grady told the New York Times that the translation of her ideas is almost direct, noting Biden's message mirrors what she told the artworld about inclusion within a large, diverse community. The artist gave her blessing for the campaign's adaptation, which draws from her vision of healing through diversity and unity. The performance originally occurred in 1983 at a parade in Harlem.