Adrian Piper was born September 20, 1948[2] in New York City.[1][3] She was raised in Manhattan in an upper-middle-class black family, and attended a private school with mostly wealthy, white students.[4] She studied art at the School of Visual Arts[4] and graduated with an associates degree in 1969.[1] Piper then studied philosophy at the City College of New York[4] and graduated with a bachelors in 1974.[1] Piper received her masters from Harvard University in 1977 and her doctorate in 1981.[1] She also studied at the University of Heidelberg.[1] Piper was influenced by Sol LeWitt and Yvonne Rainer in the late 60s and early 70s.[4] She worked at the Seth Siegelaub Gallery, known for its conceptual art exhibitions, in 1969.[4] In 1970, she exhibited in the Museum of Modern Arts Information and began to study philosophy in college.[4] Piper has said that she was kicked out of the art world during this time for her race and gender.[4] Her work started to address ostracism, otherness, and attitudes around racism.[4] In Bergers Critique of Pure Racism interview, Piper asserted that while she finds analysis of racism praiseworthy, she wants her artwork to help people confront their racist views.[4] In the 1970s, she began a series of street performances under the collective title Catalysis, which included actions such as painting her clothes with white paint and wearing a sign that read WET PAINT and going to the Macys department store to shop for gloves and sunglasses; stuffing a huge white towel into her mouth and riding the bus, subway and Empire State Building Elevator; and dousing herself in a mixture of vinegar, eggs, milk, and cod liver oil and then spending a week moving around New Yorks subway and bookstores.[5][6] The Catalysis performances were meant to be a catalyst that challenged what constitutes the order of the social field, at the level of dress, sanity and the distinction between public and private acts.[5] Pipers Mythic Being series, started in 1973, saw the artist dress in an afro wig and moustache and perform publicly as a third world, working class, overly hostile male.[5] Piper was awarded visual arts fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1979 and 1982, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989.[1] Piper taught at Wellesley College, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Michigan, Georgetown University, and University of California, San Diego.[1] She became the first female African American philosophy professor to receive academic tenure in the United States in 1991.[7] In 2013, the Womens Caucus for Art announced that Piper will be a 2014 recipient of the organizations Lifetime Achievement Award.[8]
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 21:50:53 +0000