- In full:
- Adrian Margaret Smith Piper
- Born:
- September 20, 1948, New York, New York, U.S. (age 78)
- Awards And Honors:
- Venice Biennale (2015)
Adrian Piper
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Who is Adrian Piper?
Adrian Piper (born in New York City on September 20, 1948) is an American conceptual and performance artist. Her thought-provoking works often explore themes of race, gender, class, and identity.
Piper's artistic journey began at the Art Students League of New York during her high school years. She furthered her education in sculpture and painting at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, earning an associate’s degree in 1969. Piper also holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University.
Piper's notable pieces include The Mythic Being (1972–81) and Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features (1981). In 2002, she established the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) in Berlin.
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What type of art is Adrian Piper best known for?
Adrian Piper is an American conceptual and performance artist known for her thought-provoking explorations of race, gender, class, and identity.
Piper's early works align with the conceptual art tradition. In the 1970s, she began incorporating her multiracial background and gender into her performance pieces. One notable work is The Mythic Being (1972–81), where she walked through New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, disguised as a light-skinned African American man, challenging people's assumptions about race, gender, and class.
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What is conceptual art and how did Adrian Piper use it?
Conceptual art emphasizes ideas over formal or visual components, often using language and sometimes photography to convey meaning.
Adrian Piper, an American conceptual and performance artist, emerged from this tradition and began exhibiting her work in 1969 and 1970. In the 1970s, Piper started to address her multiracial background and gender in performance pieces like The Mythic Being (1972–81). This piece involved her walking through New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, disguised as a light-skinned African American man, challenging people to categorize her by race, gender, and class.
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What is performance art, and how did Adrian Piper participate in it?
Performance art is a time-based art form that typically involves a live presentation to an audience, drawing from various disciplines such as acting, poetry, music, dance, and painting. Arising in the early 1970s, it is an event-based, ephemeral form often recorded via video or photography.
Adrian Piper is an American conceptual and performance artist whose provocative works address race, gender, class, and identity. In her confrontational piece, The Mythic Being (1972–81), Piper, as a light-skinned African American man, walked the streets of New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, repeating phrases from her journals and challenging people to categorize her. Other notable works that forefront her racial identity include Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features (1981) and Funk Lessons (1983).
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How did Adrian Piper's work address issues like identity and race?
Adrian Piper is an American conceptual and performance artist whose provocative works address race, gender, class, and identity.
Piper began to explicitly address her multiracial background and gender in performance pieces in the 1970s. In The Mythic Being (1972–81), she filmed herself as a light-skinned African American man, challenging people to categorize her by race, gender, and class. Other notable works that forefront her racial identity include Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features (1981) and Funk Lessons (1983). In the series My Calling (Card) (1986–90), she typed personal notes to people who offended her by making assumptions about her.
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What are some of Adrian Piper's most famous artworks or performances?
Adrian Piper is an American conceptual and performance artist whose works address race, gender, class, and identity.
Some of her notable works include:
* The Mythic Being (1972–81), a performance piece where she walked the streets of New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, disguised as a light-skinned African American man, challenging people to categorize her.
* Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features (1981), a drawing that foregrounds her racial identity.
* Funk Lessons (1983), a video where she teaches students how to dance to African American music.
* My Calling (Card) (1986–90), personal notes to people who offended her by making assumptions about her.1 Britannica SourceCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Adrian Piper (born September 20, 1948, New York, New York, U.S.) is an American conceptual and performance artist known for her provocative works that treat race, gender, class, and identity.
Piper studied art at the Art Students League of New York while she was in high school. She then studied sculpture and painting at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and graduated with an associate’s degree in 1969. She earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the City College of New York in 1974 and went on to get a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1981 from Harvard University. She spent 1977–78 studying philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. She simultaneously pursued her academic and artistic careers, teaching philosophy at a number of universities before she was appointed a tenured professor of philosophy at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1990.
Piper’s earliest art works emerged from the conceptual art tradition. In 1968 she met and forged a friendship with Sol LeWitt, who connected her with the New York City circle of conceptual artists. She began exhibiting her work regularly in 1969 and 1970, often in conceptual art shows. In the 1970s Piper began to explicitly address her multiracial background—both of her parents were of mixed race—and her gender in performance works. She performed confrontational pieces such as The Mythic Being (1972–81), for which she was filmed walking the streets of New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a light-skinned African American man with a mustache and an afro and wearing sunglasses. She repeated memorized phrases from her personal journals and challenged passers-by to categorize her by race, gender, and class. The piece includes photographs taken of her as her alter ego on which she inserted thought bubbles (e.g., “I embody everything you most hate and fear”).
Other notable works from the 1970s and ’80s that forefront her racial identity include Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features (1981), a drawing, and Funk Lessons (1983), a video in which she teaches students how to dance and listen to popular African American music (as a part of a 1982–84 performance series). For the series My Calling (Card) (1986–90), she typed out personal notes to people who had offended her by making assumptions about her.
In 2002 Piper founded the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) in Berlin, part ongoing art project and part functioning archive of her work. Three years later, she immigrated to Germany. In addition to her prolific career as an artist, Piper self-published on her Web site such philosophical works as Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception and Volume II: A Kantian Conception (2008). The second edition of each was posted in 2013. Piper also founded The Berlin Journal of Philosophy in 2011. She taught at Wellesley College through 2008, at which point her position was discontinued when she refused to return to the United States; she believed her name was on the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s suspicious traveler watch list and vowed not to travel to the U.S. until it was removed.
She has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships for both art and philosophy. Among her many honours are the Skowhegan Medal for Structural Installation (1995) from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the College Art Association Artist Award for a Distinguished Body of Work (2012), and the Golden Lion for best artist at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). In 2018 she published Escape to Berlin: A Travel Memoir to coincide with the opening of her extensive career retrospective “Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965–2016” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.