Adrian Piper

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Adrian Piper

Background & Education 1969 - School of the Visual Arts 1974 - B.A. in Philosophy from City College

of New York 1981 – Ph. D in Philosophy from Harvard Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown,

Harvard, Michigan State, & USCD Became first tenured African American

woman in the field of Philosophy Has written several books Currently is living and working in Berlin

Methods/ Techniques Performance art Drawing on photographs of the

performance art Calling Cards Collage Text – Reading is a key element! Multi-media – music, film, spoken narrative

Approaches to Subject Matter Contemporary artist

Feminist artist, mixed race artist, and an academic Explores issues of class, sexuality, gender and

Race Conceptual art – Makes viewers think and ask

questions Uses herself

Almost all art has some sort of self portrait Making a statement about how the contemporary

art sector operates Breaks with the stereotypical notion of how and what a

black artists should produce Creates complex philosophic concepts about identity

within experiments

Mythic Being Series 1972 - 75 Disguised herself

Androgynous, racial indeterminate young man, dressed in black t-shirt, flared jeans, big sunglasses, an Afro wig, mustache, and is smoking a cigarette

Performance Art Then drew on the photographs of the

performance Added speech from her teenage journals

• Mythic being: It doesn't matter who you are if what you want to do to me is what I want you to do for me (in 3 parts)

• Color Coupler Prints• 24 x 17 in. each

• Village Voice Ad

• Numbers 1-4• 17 in total• Ads published

monthly on Village Voice Gallery Page

• Mythical Being: Let’s Talk• 6 old crayon drawings of B/W

Photographs

I/You (Her) 1974 Piper’s face with a collage of a white

woman’s face Speech balloons track Piper’s

estrangement from other women

• Mythic Being: I/You (Her) Numbers 1 -3• B/W photograph with felt tip pen and collage• 8 x 5 in each• Set of 10

I/You/Us 1975 Series of 6 Photographs Undisguised Piper under talk bubbles Demanding attention Argues angrily but still witty Fictional nature of race as a fixed category

of identity Race and it’s social effects

• The Mythic Being: I/You/Us #1• Paperc ollage and felt tip pen

on B/W• 17.25i x 12.25in

Catalysis Series 1972 -73 Public performances

Subway and city streets Forced confrontation between viewer and artist

Rode through subway with a cloth in her mouth

Walked through streets with “wet paint” painted on her shirt

Attention is directed at viewing the public’s confusion, disgust, and fear

Calling Cards 1986-90 Manipulates Business cards Examines stereotypical depiction of

Blackness is deployed within pop culture environments

Performance Art Direct and intimate social confrontation Guerilla Performance/Social Intervention

• Political Self Portrait No. 2

• Self Portrait – Exaggerating my Negroid Features

• Self-Portrait as a Nice White Lady,

• 1995 • Photograph altered with oil

crayon, • 10 x 8 in.

Relatedness to Other Artists Barbara Kruger – Text in Image Elizabeth Catlett – Art based on her

experience as a black woman

Adrian Piper

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