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Writer's pictureGwyneth Haidar

Adrian Piper: Artist of the month for black history month.

In honour of black history month, February’s artist of the month is Adrian Piper.



Born in 1948 in New York City, Piper is a conceptual artist and philosopher whose work deals with the issue of race in America. After earning her undergraduate degree at the School of Visual Arts, she completed her PhD at Harvard in 1981. Much of Piper’s work is influenced by philosophy, in particular, Emanuel Kant. In 2018 Piper had a retrospective at MoMA in New York which detailed her entire career and was one of the most prolific shows the museum has seen. While Piper has made many works, there are a few which stand out to me.



Perhaps her most well-known work, Piper created the Catalyst series in the 1970s. This was a series of performance pieces in which she traveled around New York altering her appearance. Such performances included wearing a sign that said “Wet Paint”, stuffing her mouth with a towel while riding the subway and dousing herself with a concoction of eggs, vinegar milk and cod liver oil. Another performance series of note is “My Calling Card”. In this series, Piper carried around calling cards and distributed them at dinner parties and other such social engagements when any of the guests made racist comments.


In recent years, Piper has founded The Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation located in Berlin, Germany. The intention of the foundation is to archive Piper’s work with a focus on her philosophical accolades. In addition to performance works, Piper has worked in many other mediums such as print and video.






To find out more, visit, http://www.adrianpiper.com



Artworks:

"The Mythic Being: Say It Like You Mean It," 1975. Silver gelatin print, oil crayon. 8"x 10" (20.32 x 25.4 cm). Private Collection. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin.


“Catalysis III. Documentation of the performance”,1970Photographs by Rosemary Mayer. Collection Thomas Erben, New York. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin


My Calling (Card) #2 and My Calling (Card) #1, by Adrian Piper (1986)


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