Adrian Piper

1. Adrian Piper

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. Village Voice Ad • Numbers 1-4 • 17 in total • Ads published monthly on Village Voice Gallery Page

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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

18. The Mythic Being: I/You/Us #1 • Paperc ollage and felt tip pen on B/W • 17.25i x 12.25in

19. The Mythic Being: I/You/Us #2 • Paperc ollage and felt tip pen on B/W • 17.25i x 12.25in

20. The Mythic Being: I/You/Us #3 • Paperc ollage and felt tip pen on B/W • 17.25i x 12.25in

21. 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

23. 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

26. Political Self Portrait No. 2

27. Self Portrait – Exaggerating my Negroid Features

28. Self-Portrait as a Nice White Lady, • 1995 • Photograph altered with oil crayon, • 10 x 8 in.

29. Relatedness to Other Artists • Barbara Kruger – Text in Image • Elizabeth Catlett – Art based on her experience as a black woman