Gogo Graham | Do I Make You Proud?

January 10 – February 8, 2025

Sargent’s Daughters is pleased to present “Do I Make You Proud?,” the debut painting exhibition of multimedia artist and designer Gogo Graham. Appropriating signifiers of American exceptionalism and competition, Graham’s paintings and sculptures capture the violence and precarity inherent to those concepts.

Graham’s painting practice is self-taught and draws on references ranging from Renaissance paintings, to propaganda posters, to reality television. Two large works feature cropped, close-up images of female boxer figures, pulled from the early 1990s reality program “American Gladiators.” Highly made-up and garish, they leer at the viewer with expressions caught between rage, exhaustion, and triumph. These boxers, along with Graham’s more surreal compositions, evoke the spectacles that are often employed to paper over the hypocrisy and cruelty of contemporary culture.

Another reference to televised competition comes in a kinetic sculpture in the form of a Merry-Go-Round horse styled as a Kentucky Derby winner, draped with ribbons and rosettes. With its repeated up-and-down motion and emaciated appearance, the work embodies the grueling reality of American capitalism, with its cycles of ambition, performance, and precarity. For Graham, “Do I Make You Proud?” explores the decay behind the thin veneer of American supremacy, but refuses any simple interpretations or easy conclusions. Instead, the expressive and tactile nature of the work forces viewers to confront uncomfortable realities and consider their own positions.

Gogo Graham (b.1990, San Jose, California) is a visual artist and fashion designer who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BS in Textiles from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. 

Recent performances and exhibitions include Super Suckling, a performance featuring Cecilia Gentili, Lubov Gallery (New York, NY), Birthday Boy, Lubov Gallery, (New York, NY). She had her first solo sculpture exhibition DrgnLdy 1.1 in at 67 Ludlow (New York, NY), which was reviewed by Artforum.

She was an artist in residence at the Boffo Fire Island (New York, New York). Graham’s work has been featured in Interview Magazine, The Cut, Dazed, W Magazine, Artforum and Vogue.