Adrian M. S. Piper at MoMA

In lieu of a review of Adrian M. S. Piper's (1948-) remarkable show at MoMA this summer, which I made sure not to miss, I am posting some images from it--with random bits of text--images of the artworks that I wanted to sit with, to think with, to puzzle over, to pore through, to question and listen to, to learn from, to emulate--for, as I was again made aware by this show, one of a series by Piper that I have seen, I always gain something new when I engage with her mode and networks of thought and practice, and I realize that she was ahead of the curve not just in terms of her fusion of philosophy and artmaking, but of conceptual theorization and practice, critical intersectional gender and race studies in and as art, and multimedia and multimodal performance.

As was the case at the last Piper show I attended--I want to say at the New Museum, in its old haunt, before it moved to the glitzy new stacked, box building it now occupies on the gentrfied Bowery--I walked slowly, taking (lots of notes), this time with perhaps just as many if not more photographs--did I even have a camera phone back then, because I surely wasn't carrying the digital camera I had, or my 35 mm one--and allowed myself at times to be comfortable with not knowing, not fully understanding, while also recognizing various moments of connection and relation. The effects of opacity are one of the great pleasures of complex art. One thing that Piper's art said then and now was that it was going to make me do some work, that it was not going to be easy, that the result would be knowledge, but also joy, and a kind of pleasure that only such work would provide.

As a black viewer, there was and remains the added benefit of the deeper dimensions of Piper's art; even if my experience was the same as hers, I still could see what lay behind, below, above, around it, its fugitivity, to use Fred Moten's term, in not so plain sight. One anecdote brings this home: as I stood looking a series of framed birth certificates (or something along those lines), a white father and son approached the pieces as well. I'd already leaned in close to read them, and was standing off to the side, writing in my notebook, as they did so. The son, spotting a word on one of the certificates, asked the father, "What is an 'octoroon'?" The father turned to him and said, "Hmm. I don't know." A few beats passed, and I said, "It means one-eighth black." I did not explain, or say any more. The father answered, "Ohhhhh, OK. OK. I get, the 'octo'-'. Right." He didn't thank me, nor did the child look over at who'd opened a new window for him at the exhibit, which was fine. But that word would probably sit with them, as would the manner in which they learned its meaning, just as I realized how much--and at times how little--I had a guide in my head to what Piper was up to.

Now, some images:

VOTE/EMOTE: "List the fears of what we might think of you"

Do you see yourself and what do you fear?

What will you answer in the interactive anonymity of the booth?

What is the value of conceptual rigor, particularly today?

Double Recess: Depth, or its illusion, descent

A series, maintained and now, archived and contained--or not

Self(-portrait) with doll--at age 5 (1966)--what happens when
we represent how an absence of representation erases us?

Looking, listening

Adrian Piper's untitled self-portrait, in her youth:
what do we really see here?

"Sensory consciousness is of essentially undifferentiated sensory information." - Adrian Piper

The grid and the network: consciousness
(the experiment)

Abstraction, network and grid

Hypotheses, situations, charts & photos

Mapped and unmapped -
Untitled Map, 1969

Instructions / details

What's captured, what's lost, what's created
by the record of the performance?

Unrepeatable, but the charts & photos provide documentation

Concrete Infinity Document Piece, 1970

Seriation

Seriation

Catalysis III (1970) - to put the self on display
in performance, in everyday life -
consciously & what is not conscious
in the performer & the viewer,
what is catalyzed

The Mythic Being -
what does it mean to embody
a myth, to man-
ifest it

The Mythic Being

"Get out of my way, asshole"

"I am the locus of consciousness" - Nietzschean figure

"I Embody Everything You Most Hate and Fear," 1975

"We will confront each other as aliens,
hostile, because we evince only our
mutual indifference."

"This is not the Documentation of a Performance" (1976)

"It's just art" -
how many of you are in there

What does portraiture reveal
and conceal

An open letter to Donald Kuspit (Kuspit
Extermination Fantasy), 1987

"Aspects of the liberal dilemma"

Listen and you might
not get lost, even if you already are

Funk lessons

A story: _________________

Self-portrait exaggerating her
Negroid features -
how free are you, how black

"WHAT IF / SO WHAT?"

Vanilla Nightmares

Behind every leader there's the
(black) specter of history

Behind every story there's the
(black) specter of hi/story

Dear White Friend, 

"Our families have been intermarrying
for centuries, think about it"

"Octoroon"

Time to know (or know that you don't and should):

"Whut choo lookin at, Mofo"

A: "Rodney King"

Repeat: "Everything will be taken away"

A game within a (language) game

News, Dr. Piper is no longer "black,"
but based on DNA evidence, is.....

"To participate, you will have to sign the contract and agree
not to break it, anytime, ever...."