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      Lorraine O’Grady, Artist Who Defied Category, Is Dead at 90

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      She worked in collage, photography, performance, video and installation, and she dealt forthrightly with the complexities of race and gender.Lorraine O’Grady, a conceptual artist who had careers as a research economist, literary translator and rock critic before producing her first art in her 40s, and who went on to influence a generation of younger Black artists, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 90.Robert Ransick of the Lorraine O’Grady Trust confirmed the death.Embracingly interdisciplinary in her formal choices, Ms. O’Grady had no fixed style. She worked in collage, photography, performance, video and installation. And she dealt forthrightly with the complicated realities of race and gender, drawing on her own experience of being excluded from the white art world because she was Black and marginalized within the Black art world because she was a woman. As a result, no one knew quite what to do with her, and her art career remained little known until recently.The child of Lena and Edwin O’Grady, middle-class Jamaican immigrants who had, she said, “more education than they would be allowed to use in this country,“ Lorraine Eleanor O’Grady was born in Boston on Sept. 21, 1934, and grew up within a few blocks of the city’s main public library, where she spent much of her childhood reading and writing.In 1983, Ms. O’Grady created a participatory piece titled “Art Is …” in which performers descended into the street and invited spectators to pose for portrait photos within empty gilded frames.Lorraine O’Grady Courtesy Lorraine O’Grady TrustShe majored in economics and Spanish literature at Wellesley College and, after graduation, took a job in Washington as a research economist with the U.S. Department of Labor, focusing on labor conditions in Africa and Latin America.But her path was a restless one. After a few years, she quit her government job and moved to Europe to write a novel. She returned to the U.S., where she studied at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. For a while, to support herself, she taught high school Spanish. In 1970, she opened a commercial translation agency in Chicago that attracted clients ranging from the Encyclopaedia Britannica to Playboy magazine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mount Vernon Police’s Strip Searches Were Unconstitutional, U.S. Says

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      A report by federal prosecutors found that a Westchester County police department violated the Fourth Amendment “on an enormous scale.”Two women, 65 and 75 years old, were taken to a police station in Mount Vernon, N.Y., after a traffic stop in 2020. Officers instructed both women to undress. Then they were told to bend over and cough.Neither woman was arrested, and an investigation determined there had been no basis for the traffic stop in the first place. One of the women said she had been left “very humiliated” and “on the verge of fainting” from fear after the invasive search, commonly used in drug arrests.The encounter is just one example of a long-running pattern of improper strip searches conducted by the police department in Mount Vernon, in Westchester County, according to a report released Thursday by the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.In the 34-page report, investigators outlined “significant systemic deficiencies” at the very core of the police department that they said had resulted in unnecessarily violent encounters and improper arrests. The report also raised “serious concerns about discriminatory policing in predominantly Black neighborhoods,” according to a statement from the Department of Justice.According to the report, “highly intrusive” strip searches and cavity searches were “deeply ingrained” standard practices in the department. Investigators said that the department had acknowledged that officers performed strip searches on everyone they arrested until at least October 2022, a practice that the report said amounted to a “gross violation of the Fourth Amendment on an enormous scale.”Sometimes, these searches occurred before people were even arrested and were performed even when an officer had no reason to believe the person had drugs or other contraband, according to the report. Several people told investigators that officers had searched them repeatedly even when they had been in custody and under police observation “at all times” between the searches.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2 Indianapolis Officers Are Acquitted of Manslaughter in 2022 Death

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      Herman Whitfield III had told officers “I’m dying” and that he couldn’t breathe after one of the officers deployed a Taser, according to body camera footage.Two Indianapolis police officers were acquitted on Friday of involuntary manslaughter charges in the 2022 death of Herman Whitfield III, after he was handcuffed and placed face down by the officers, who were responding to reports that he was having a mental health crisis.A jury also acquitted the officers, Adam Ahmad, 32, and Steven Sanchez, 35, of all of the other charges they faced, including reckless homicide, a felony, and felony and misdemeanor battery charges, according to court records. Officer Sanchez had also faced a second count of involuntary manslaughter for using a Taser on Mr. Whitfield, but that charge was dismissed before trial, according to one of the officer’s lawyers.Officers Ahmad and Sanchez will return to normal duty after they complete a refresher training, Chris Bailey, the chief of police for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said on social media. As part of a standard protocol, the officers had been placed on various administrative duties after they were indicted, according to their lawyers, John F. Kautzman and Mason Riley.“We had always maintained that they did not do anything wrong in this case,” Mr. Kautzman said in an interview on Friday evening. “They certainly did not engage in any kind of criminal activity.”On April 25, 2022, Officers Ahmad and Sanchez arrived at the Whitfields’ home after Mr. Whitfield’s mother, Gladys Whitfield, called 911 saying that her son was having a mental health crisis. Body camera footage that was released after his death showed Mr. Whitfield, who was 39, walking around the house naked.In another portion of the footage, Mr. Whitfield starts running and an officer draws a Taser and pulled the trigger, stunning Mr. Whitfield. He falls and the officers handcuff him, face down. Mr. Whitfield can be heard saying “I’m dying” and that he can’t breathe and, later, the officers are seen performing CPR on him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A. Cornelius Baker, Champion of H.I.V. Testing, Dies at 63

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      Working inside the government and out, he lobbied to improve the lives of people with H.I.V. and AIDS, particularly those who belonged to minority groups.A. Cornelius Baker, who spent nearly 40 years working with urgency and compassion to improve the lives of people with H.I.V. and AIDS by promoting testing, securing federal funding for research and pushing for a vaccine, died on Nov. 8 at his home in Washington. He was 63.Gregory Nevins, his companion, said the cause was hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.Mr. Baker — who was gay and who tested positive for H.I.V. — became active in Washington in the 1980s, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. He soon distinguished himself as an eloquent voice for people with H.I.V. and AIDS. A policy wonk and health-care expert, he held positions in the federal government and with nonprofits, including serving as the head of a clinic for the L.G.B.T.Q. community.“He was very kind, very embracing and inclusive — his circles, both professionally and personal, were the most diverse I’ve ever seen, which was driven by his Christian values,” said Douglas M. Brooks, a director of the Office of National AIDS Policy during the Obama administration. “His ferocity appeared when people were marginalized, othered or forgotten.”In 1995, as the executive director of the National Association of People with AIDS, he helped establish June 27 as National H.I.V. Testing Day. “This effort was designed to help reduce the stigma of H.I.V. testing and to normalize it as a component of regular health screening,” Mr. Baker wrote in 2012 on the website of FHI 360, a global health organization for which he served as technical adviser.As an adviser to the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition from 2006 to 2014, Mr. Baker worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to help fund research for the care of Black gay men with H.I.V. and AIDS.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Daniel Penny’s Defense Shifts Focus From Choke to Sickle Cell and Drug Use

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      Lawyers for Daniel Penny, who is accused of choking Jordan Neely to death, called an expert who argued that a combination of factors led to Mr. Neely’s death.Jordan Neely, a Black man who died after he was choked in a subway car last year, had the sickle cell trait, a genetic condition that can affect blood cells and overwhelmingly occurs in Black people. Whether Mr. Neely knew that he had the trait is unclear. But since his death, it has become a point of contention for lawyers.Prosecutors have said that Daniel Penny, who is on trial for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide because he put Mr. Neely in a chokehold, restrained Mr. Neely for about six minutes, cutting off his airway. When Mr. Neely tried to break free, the pressure of Mr. Penny’s chokehold increased, prosecutors said.But Mr. Penny’s lawyers have centered their case on convincing the jurors that Mr. Neely’s death was not caused by the chokehold and that it is impossible to know how much pressure Mr. Penny was exerting. Before they rested their case on Friday, the defense argued that Mr. Neely’s schizophrenia, synthetic marijuana use and misshapen blood cells led to his death. People with the sickle cell trait typically do not have many, if any, sickle-shaped cells or experience symptoms, but blood slides from Mr. Neely’s autopsy shared at the trial showed misshapen cells at the time of his death.Now that both the defense and the prosecution have made their cases, each side will present closing arguments to the 12 jurors and four alternates. The judge presiding over the case, Maxwell Wiley, has decided that closing arguments will not happen until after Thanksgiving.Here is what to know about the defense’s case for Mr. Penny.The Role of Sickle Cell TraitThe medical examiner, Dr. Cynthia Harris, determined that Mr. Neely died from “compression of the neck,” and held firm to her findings through three days of testimony. However, an expert Mr. Penny’s legal team called to testify, Dr. Satish Chundru, rebutted that.Dr. Chundru, a forensic pathologist, said Mr. Neely died from “combined effects.”“Sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint and the synthetic marijuana,” he listed for jurors. He argued that Mr. Penny had struggled with Mr. Neely but had not choked him to death.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tony Todd, Prolific Actor Best Known for ‘Candyman,’ Dies at 69

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      Mr. Todd’s decades-long career spanned across mediums and genres, but he was largely associated with a scary figure summoned in front of a mirror.Tony Todd, a prolific actor whose more than 100 film and television credits included “Candyman” and “Final Destination,” died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 69.Jeffrey Goldberg, Mr. Todd’s manager, announced the death in a statement on Saturday morning. He did not specify the cause.Mr. Todd’s decades-long acting career spanned genres and mediums. He starred or had prominent roles in several films, including the 1990 remake of “Night of the Living Dead,” “The Crow,” “The Rock” and Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning Vietnam War movie, “Platoon.” His television credits include “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “24,” “The X-Files,” and many other shows. He also lent his rich voice to animation and video games.He was perhaps best known for his role as the titular demon in the 1992 movie “Candyman.” He told The New York Times in 2020 that he was proud of playing the terrifying figure with a hook for a hand, a Black man who had been wronged in life and is summoned from the beyond by people who call his name five times while looking in a mirror — unleashing vicious attacks in which the Candyman slices to death those who dared to disturb him. “If I had never done another horror film,” he said, “I could live with that, and I’d carry this character.”Mr. Todd reprised the role in the film’s 1995 and 1999 sequels and returned to it for the 2021 reboot, directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Jordan Peele.In the “Final Destination” franchise, Mr. Todd played the role of the mysterious funeral-home owner William Bludworth — the rare recurring character in a film series that famously killed off all of its new characters by the time the end credits rolled.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judith Jamison, Alvin Ailey Dancer of ‘Power and Radiance,’ Dies at 81

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      Judith Jamison, a majestic dancer who became an international star as a member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and who directed the troupe for more than two decades, building it into the most successful modern dance company in the country, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 81.Her death, at NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, was announced by Christopher Zunner, a spokesman for the Ailey company, who said she died “after a brief illness.”Ms. Jamison performed Alvin Ailey’s “Cry” at New York City Center in 1975. “Cry,” an immediate hit, made her a star.Jack Vartoogian/Archive Photos, via Getty ImagesAt 5-foot-10, Ms. Jamison was unusually tall for a woman in her profession. “But anyone who’s seen her onstage is convinced she’s six feet five,” the critic Deborah Jowitt wrote in The New York Times in 1976.“I was the antithesis of the small-boned, demure dancer with a classically feminine shape.” Ms. Jamison (pronounced JAM-ih-son) wrote in her 1993 autobiography, “Dancing Spirit.”It wasn’t just her size and shape that were distinctive, however. She was a performer of great intelligence, warmth and wit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Trenton Doyle Hancock Learned From Philip Guston

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      The Jewish Museum pairs the Texas artist with a 20th-century master. Together they confront racism with horror — and humor.When Trenton Doyle Hancock discovered the artist Philip Guston, it was a revelation. Hancock had just transferred from junior college in his hometown, Paris, Texas, to nearby East Texas State University. He was taking a printmaking class and working with a haunting photograph he’d made of himself partially cloaked in a white sheet with a noose around his neck. The rope wound around his body, including his semi-bare right arm, which holds up a hammer. Titled “The Properties of the Hammer” (1993), it probed the dark contradictions of being a Black man in America.Hancock’s printmaking teacher, Thomas Seawell, asked if he knew about Philip Guston, the New York School artist. Guston had (very controversially) left behind Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s to make figurative, cartoonish paintings of objects like books and shoes, which hearkened back to the Holocaust, as well as hooded Ku Klux Klan figures. Seawell saw a kinship between Guston’s work and Hancock’s, but Hancock had never heard of Guston. So Seawell lent him a book, and the student fell in love.“The forms were so rich, bulbous and tangible,” Hancock, 50, recalled recently. “When you put a colorful toy in front of a child, they want to eat it. That’s how I felt about those paintings: I just wanted to eat them. I didn’t even know you could make work that looked like this. It was totally new to me.”In “The Studio” (1969), Philip Guston’s hooded protagonist is an artist painting his own effigy. The artist was exploring “what would it be like to be evil?” Trenton Doyle Hancock recalled: “The forms were so rich, bulbous and tangible.” The Estate of Philip Guston; via Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkIf you’ve never had the urge to eat a painting, you’re not alone, but meeting Hancock or seeing his art helps make that impulse understandable. He is a voracious consumer of culture, and his work has an intense physicality — in the bodies that are forever bending, stretching and breaking in his images, and in the cutout and collaged surfaces of his paintings. Hancock’s world is a profusion of colors, of media, of characters in his ever-expanding multiverse.His studio in a Houston suburb bears this out. Rooms of the two-story house are devoted to various collections, including sketchbooks dating back to childhood, scraps and detritus (literally dirt swept off the floor of past studios), and plastic bottle caps sorted by color.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More