INTRODUCTION ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM
ADRIAN PIPER
INTRODUCTION
rhea anastas
Adrian Piper, who lives in Berlin, at the age of seventy, is one of America’s
best-known black artists. It so happens she is also one of America’s best-
known female artists, although she has spent much of her career earmark-
ing and then contesting ideas of her work limited to these identities. This
book focuses on an early performance called Some Reflective Surfaces
(1975–76). In it, as Piper dances under spotlights, staging multiple images
and sounds, the audience makes their own images in real time. Piper de-
scribes her 1960s work that led up to this one as “concerned with duration,
repetition, and meditative consciousness of the indexical present.”1 Some
Reflective Surfaces was first produced in New York at the Fine Arts Build-
ing, New York University, in 1975,2 and then at the Whitney Museum of
American Art in 1976. It was thereafter not seen for twenty-four years, and
is reissued as a series of documents spanning 1975–96 for the first time in
this publication.3 Writing about the performance the year it was made,
Piper went so far as to say:
Here is a thought that a certain variety of prude feminist would
prefer not to have: Voluntary self-objectification, of the kind that
occurs in dancing, in performance of any kind, in modeling, or in
permitting oneself to be looked at or done to sexually, can be an act
of political defiance, a gesture of brazen shamelessness, a celebra-
tion of self that absolutely crushes and makes ridiculous any at-
tempt at devaluation or disapproval, and exposes the cowardice
and hypocrisy of the disapprovers for what it is: an attempt to erad-
icate from consciousness their own uncontrollable outlaw impulses
(think of Bess before Porgy reformed her). Sure it’s dangerous. But
the danger is in the cost of the power it confers, not in the sources
of pleasure it exposes.4
With this Piper reminds us that her work is also about how despite our own
wishes to be free of history, our own agency is curtailed by our time and
circumstances.
Adrian Piper, “Artist’s Statement” (1999), in York.
Some Reflective Surfaces was shown in 1999 as a
Adrian Piper: A Retrospective, ed. Maurice Berg-
er and Dara Meyers-Kingsley (Baltimore: Fine 1 soundtrack and color film of Piper dancing in a
Arts Gallery, University of Maryland, Balti- group, so in that version it was conveyed from
more County, 1999), 174. This book, TK. two of the live piece’s multiple elements. The
The brochure to Lives: Artists Who Deal With same year, it was also presented in the traveling
People’s Lives (Including Their Own) as the Sub- exhibitions Adrian Piper: A Retrospective, Fine
ject and/or the Medium of Their Work, an exhi-
bition organized by Jeffrey Deitch, included a
Arts Gallery, University of Maryland, Balti-
more County, organized by Maurice Berger,
statement by Piper titled “Six Conditions on and MEDI(t)Ations: Adrian Piper’s Videos, In-
stallations, Performances, and Soundworks,
Art Production” (1975). The exhibition was
held November 29–December 20, 1975, at the 1968–1992, curated by Dara Meyers-Kingsley.
Fine Arts Building, 105 Hudson Street, New These exhibitions traveled to the New Muse-
WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE…
Turn in profile.
Observe your posture as you move.
Good.
Too tight in the shoulders.
Relax at the elbows.
Don’t look at your partner. You are behaving and not communi-
cating.
Watch your abdominal muscles.
Don’t anticipate the rhythm.
Yes.
Yes.
Good.
Loosen up in the lower spine.
Good, but watch the footwork.
No eye contact.
Yes. Keep that and relax into it.
Don’t bend your knees too deeply.
Trim the legwork.
Swing from the hips and thighs.
Be careful when you turn full face, your partner is looking for
signs for signals in your movements: give none, give gestures, give
motion. Yes. Give behaviour.
Sway from the hips; carry the torso in the same motion.
Right. Good.
Observe your upper arms; loosen.
Yes.
Relax your shoulders. Relax them.
Tilt your chin up.
Right.
Relax in the torso.
Full face when you turn, but recall that the music moves you and
not someone’s eyes on you.
The music, the music.
Relax in the spine and hips.
Relax the pelvis and lower back.
Right.
12
WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE…
that object, project thoughts and relationships onto me that transcend our
anonymity. Instead of hearing about me, they find out about ourselves, and
so do I. Discotheque dancing is a good medium for this in that you are nev-
er really intimate with the other person(s) watching you, but rather you are
dealing with an artificial, conventionalised system of gestures and move-
ments which have intimate psychological and sexual overtones, and which
your audience can take personally or impersonally.
‘Another reason for my androgynous image is that my work is as much
about as it is about women as objects; I think objectification and isolation is
something we do to ourselves and each other, and not only in sexual ways. I
did a piece in Rhode Island where I didn’t war any make-up or costume. It
was about a series of utterances, one half of a conversation that I had with
my father. The piece was very disturbing for me not only because I felt re-
ally vulnerable, but also because that conversation with my father had been
very moving. I identify very closely with him; we are very much alike –
both very shy people, basically. He almost became Jesuit priest before he
went into law, and I can really identify with that. I suppose that privateness
and the intense personal isolation we both feel is reflected in my reflected in
my work, and possibly it explains another reason for my semi-masculine
image, my hiding behind my shades …’
22
WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER
The soundtrack of Piper’s
first audience-oriented
Documents dry work up. What’s dehydrated? Nearly everything. Piper’s still dancing, moves in front of it. Piper speaks to these layers of the perfor- twenty-one, Piper “voluntarily withdrew from the market part of the art pects of the Liberal Dilemma (1978), making the transition from perfor- 7. Getting into yoga, age 16 on. Dissolving the subject-object distinction in me- portant, to be superseded by the mere IMAGE I projected. Quit the busi- performance, at the Whit- away some of that trade, or make her look less good. So, she wasn’t particu- we’d walk into the box, one at a time, very slowly, and we’d kind of go in
voice, her dancing, and the wealth of musicality found in Aretha Franklin’s mance in her write-up of the piece, writing that, “The real me was dancing world”).16 mance to more permanent objects. At the close of the 1970s and through- diation. Doing yogic exercises to training my body to be the instrument of my ness soon after that. SOME REFLECTIVE SURFACES ney Museum in 1976. larly well disposed to either of the other of us, right. Then, Maria had this with a kind of step-bump, step-bump, step-bump, step-bump rhythm. And
rendition of “Respect.” Franklin’s “Respect”—originally written and with my image on the film.”13 out the 1980s, Piper stretched out into space with mixed-media installations KINDS OF PERFORMING will, to overcome the resistances and physical inertia of my body in order to real- [Spoken text begins. The performer (Adrian Piper) tells a story about The soundtrack com- husband with a kind of roving eye. And every time he would come to pick when all of us were in the box we’d start our routine. And the routine – you
bines three voices: a
recorded by Otis Redding in 1965—was released on her album I Never
Loved a Man the Way I Love You and recorded at FAME studios in Muscle A man’s voice pipes in, issuing orders about her dancing and posture.
In 1980, Piper created another performance related to Some Reflective Sur-
faces, which she pointedly called It’s Just Art. For this work, Piper stands
incorporating photographic and video imagery with captions and per-
formed scripts that directly confront the viewer. Many of these pieces sam-
OBJECTS I HAVE BEEN: ize my plans and intentions. (7) doing yoga. Was and is very important. Feel ready for, if not welcom-
ing, the dissolution of my personal identity in death. Facilitates the physi-
working as a dancer in a Manhattan club. 00:02-07:39]
voice-over narrative of
her up, she would freak out because he would kind of pop into the dressing
room and start roving with his roving eye, right. And she kind of felt like it
know, obviously varied depending on what the record was, depending on
whether it was a kind of a slow type thing or a Twist-type record, or a
Shoals, Alabama, in 1967. It is her version, not Redding’s, that we remem- still and silent in her sunglasses and modified Mythic Being garb. In all- ple songs from Piper’s vast album and tape collection of soul, funk, rock, Notes for Rosemary Mayer’s “Performance and Experience” 8. Getting more involved in SECRETLY composing on the guitar. Total inabil- cal objectifications of my body and all its functions, and the ease with Um, there were, um, three of us working in this place and, um, there was Piper’s experience work- was enough for her to keep him under control without having us kind of Lindy or a cha-cha or more of a, you know, more of a kind of free-flowing
ber. Nearly a decade later, Piper danced to Franklin’s version on a stage be- As if the audience isn’t implicated enough in what has already transpired, black clothing she cuts a figure before a projection screen that is initially and R&B. ity to perform in front of anyone unless they are very close to me, especially when which I use it to carry out my actions. this glass cage where we all danced. And opposite the glass cage on the oth- ing as a discotheque standing there in our underwear or even less than that. So she was like very rhythm, depending on what it was – um, but we’d have this one basic step,
fore an audience at the Whitney as part of the live-work program Four Piper speaks interpersonally to the viewer: blank. Rufus and Chaka Khan’s up-tempo disco track “Do You Love What 1. Keeping a journal from age 11 on, in which I narrate my life and thoughts to is it my own composition. Ages 16 on. er side of the room was a bar with a mirror over it. And when we were dancer in New York night standoffish and didn’t really talk to the other two of us very much. And I which was front-back-front, front-back-front, front-back-front, front-
Evenings, Four Days.5 As was often the case for Piper during those years, You Feel?” bursts on, reverberating with all its good feelings. Piper moves This book’s scope is expanded by the inclusion of several pieces of Piper’s an imaginary listener. Myself as the star of that unfolding epic. The Diary of (8) composing secretly on the guitar. Although I hadn’t touched the piano dancing we could kind of see our reflection in the mirror. And when we clubs in the mid-1960s, think, you know, our relations were cool at the best, we really didn’t care, back-front. And at the same time we were kind of doing this we’d be sway-
she was the youngest artist, and only artist of color, in this show.6 Of course I know you’re out there. And I know that you’re aware and shakes. The song fades, as a recording of Piper reading aloud selec- writing that display continuities between the ideas and concerns of Piper’s Anne Frank was very influential at that time, both in my decision to begin keep- 9. Studying philosophy, age 19 on. (Aside from the major importance it has for in years, it wasn’t until I began writing my own pieces that I first realized first started dancing there, ah, it was like we were all kind of doing our own Aretha Franklin’s “Re- you know, we really didn’t care that much about each other. But after we ing back and forth in the hips and in the waist. And we’d be extending our
that I know this. You know very well that I’m doing this solely for tions from William Shawcross’s New York Review of Books article “The performances, scholarship, writing, and teaching. In “Porgy,” Piper speaks ing a journal and in the way I saw myself. my work.) Using the reflective philosophical method of making distinctions, that hang-ups and inhibitions that I had ALWAYS had about performing thing, right. We were all dancing as well as each of us knew how to dance spect,” and a male voice got this thing together and after we kind of did the routines, which we ini- arms and then folding them behind our heads, and then extending our arms
Piper walks out onto the Whitney stage dancing and stepping—without your benefit; it’s all for you. And I’m aware that you know this, it End of Cambodia?” comes on, with slides from journalistic coverage of frankly about being an artist who lives off her professor position and not considering alternative possibilities, using formal logic as a tool for regarding via the manipulation of an object external to myself. Compare dancing or and kind of playing up to our reflection in the mirror. Like we could correct barking orders on how to tially did for our own self-interest, right, because we just felt that we would and folding them behind our heads again, as this was going on. And it really
music. She wears sunglasses—our first “reflective surface.” Piper is shows in my behaviour; you can see by how I move that I know this. Vietnam entering Cambodia in 1978 and evidence of the Cambodian geno- her art. In “A Conversation with Kinshasha Conwill,” Piper shares the 2. As musical prodigy, ages 8–12. Took piano lessons 3x/week practically free; all my actions, myself, my environment objectively. My dawning awareness of singing (without accompaniment), which doesn’t faze me at all. I never feel ourselves by watching our reflection, and kind of do, you know, execute dance more gracefully. look more professional and more polished if we did this, it really changed looked very polished and very professional, and we kind of interspersed
dressed in all black, her long black hair let down and parted in the middle. Yes I really do know you’re out there. I really do know you’re out cide.17 Nine stills, newspaper photographs in black and white—soldiers, podium with Conwill, a curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, after a then chickened out on planned Town Hall recital. After a feeble attempt to re- the distinction between my own perception of myself and what I really am. The as well in control when performing with an instrument external to my own these motions more smoothly and stuff. And, um, we really didn’t have any our relationships with each other. It was like, instead of a competitive thing these with a step-bump, step-bump, step-bump, step-bump rhythm. And it
She has applied stage chalk to her face and drawn on a pencil-thin mous- there. But this time I don’t mind too much. No I really don’t mind Cambodian refugees, government officials, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge— screening of the artist’s Funk Lessons (1982–84). This document records sume lessons with a teacher at Julliard, never touched piano again. Always dis- formulation of my interest in solipsism. body. particular sense of how we looked as a group. But the more we worked it turned into more, I don’t know… it was like we were all versions of one was just amazing to kind of look at our reflections in the mirror over the bar
tache. Still no music is heard as Piper gyrates to Franklin playing in her too much this time.14 repeat in time with the rhythm of the song.18 Piper’s prodigious skill in managing an audience responding to her liked playing in front of any kind of audience. there, the more it kind of became clear that it looked very disorganized and person, and instead of kind of looking for our reflections individually in again and see this really nicely worked out routine – very well-executed be-
head. Then “Respect” blasts over a PA. works—including Funk Lessons, My Calling (Card) #1 (1986–90) and My 10. Always, my sexual development as a woman, which all women know about. very unprofessional to see three dancers dancing to the same record, danc- the mirror, we would kind of look at each other, and we’d see these reflec- cause we really worked hard on doing it. I mean, we spent a lot of time
With this Piper externalizes and internalizes her own awareness, and ours. Piper drew fifteen thought balloons for the audience to read, seen at the Calling (Card) #2 (1986–90), and Four Intruders Plus Alarm System (1980). 3. Fashion model, ages 13–15. Worked for fashion artists and photographers. 1. ing in the same space, doing completely unrelated things. Like one of us tions in each other. And it was really a trip because it was like we had three practicing it when we weren’t on the floor, and so on. And it just looked
Piper spoke of making herself appear androgynous7 in “a streamlined up- projection’s left. In Piper’s words, “their content addresses the self-con- Reached my all-time low flitting through the grass at 5 A.M. in Riverside Park While (2)–(5) are situations in which I am in some sense an object respond- Speaking of bodily objectification, here’s an interesting coincidence: The would be doing a lot of bumps and grinds, one of us would be doing very times as much power and three times as much professionalism, just by be- very professional, um, and I think what we had in mind was the kind of
date”8 of her Mythic Being male alter ego. When she performs Mythic Being By saying, “You can see by how I move that I know this,” Piper communi- scious reaction of the actual viewing audience to the political information In Piper’s “A Kantian Analysis of Xenophobia,” a talk at New York Uni- in freezing weather—in a slip, for a schlock photographer who didn’t have the ing to an external environment, (1) and (6)–(9) are generally more inter- building where I went last month for my abortion USED TO BE the hotel heavy footwork, you know a lot of Lindy and cha-cha and stuff. One per- ing all versions of the same image, right. And it was really nice, and I think thing that the chorus line at the Copacabana used to do, which was really
it is to look black, a response to the fact that Piper is often judged by her ap- cates all that she wants her dancing to embody. Immediately after perform- being disseminated, the performance as a whole, the dancer.”19 This mono- versity’s Institute for the Humanities, we immediately recognize the focus proper lens he needed to achieve that “misty effect” without going through the nalized states of consciousness, where I achieve some measure of self-con- in which the discotheque where I worked was located. Can’t remember the son would be doing a lot of arm gesturing. And it just didn’t look very pol- it really helped us, you know, helped our relationship; we became a lot nicely polished routines that they obviously worked on quite a lot. And the
pearance to be white in the US context of settler colonialism and slavery.9 ing Some Reflective Surfaces, while still at the Whitney, Piper told RoseLee logue addresses viewers (who may or may not be reading): on racism and racial stereotyping of Piper’s art. Piper would probably say real thing. sciousness of my objecthood. name of the hotel, but the club was called the “Entre Nous” and prospered ished or professional at all. And we began to kind of, you know, the more more friendly to each other and so on. So we got identical costumes, right, fact that all of us ultimately wanted to work at the Copacabana instead of
This theater of identity is another reflective surface. Goldberg, “I have really been thinking about . . . the ways of forcing a con- that the clarity with which this focus is achieved in her art reflects her philo- by picking up the dribblings of the Copacabana, which is right next door. we worked there the more we’d become very aware of this. So we kind of which really looked very, very nice. We had three-inch spike heels, patent this kind of third-rate bar-discotheque place where we were didn’t change
sciousness in the audience of their own social roles as spectator.”15 She con- 7. our confrontation is gentle and respectful of the distance be- sophical methods. Yet surely the analyses found in her talk are also honed 4. Hung out with transvestites, prostitutes, and assorted freaks while taking Points at Which I Was a Specifically Self-Conscious Object decided that we would work on our own routines. And, by the way, we did leather, and these black net stockings, and red leotards with black fringe that. The fact was that we really felt a lot more professional about what we
Piper dances on stage accompanied by a video monitor showing a close-up tinued, “I think objectification and isolation is something we do to our- tween us (you glance at the news photos of Cambodian refugees). by her art’s capacity for observation and self-expression, only gaining LSD, age 16. Advent of impromptu, costumed “street performances,” in which this without any kind of um support from the manager of the place, you sewed onto the pelvis and around the bust line, and sequins that we sewed were doing. And we were using our abilities as dancers much more. And I
of her face in real time. The song fades out and the audience hears Piper’s selves and each other, and not only in sexual ways.” This existence of power in their visceral nature. we would all deck ourselves out very strangely (but beautifully) and go walking (1), keeping a journal, which I have continued to do. This has taught me know. It was like all he wanted was a lot of tits and ass up there, so we did- onto it ourselves, and fringe around the wrist. And then we also made up think we all felt better about it. It made the place a better place for us to
voice. She tells a story about working as a discotheque dancer at a club in alienation despite our own wishes, and regardless of whatever freedoms 8. I am merely a significant physical object, exerting myself to hold on Broadway, Riverside Drive, the Lower East Side. more about objectivity and objecthood than almost anything else. Writing n’t, you know, even expect any help from him. And we worked on these exactly the same way, like we would all wear the same hairstyle. We’d kind work.
New York.10 Piper danced as one of three female go-go dancers doing indi- we’ve taken, seems to find a natural place in this performance. your attention (you wonder why you are being told Cambodia’s it has, among other functions, that of keeping me in my place; it keeps me routines together. And, we, and you know, we worked out these things of tease our hair into a kind of full pageboy flip with a part on the side, and
vidual routines inside glass cages. The bar at the club had a large mirror be- tragic story).20 5. Working as a discotheque dance, age 17. Once got $5 for dancing well from a reflecting on and trying to make sense of what is happening to me; it keeps where we were all executing the same kinds of movements and doing the a barrette on the other side, right. And we’d make up the same way facially, [Aretha Franklin’s Respect plays in the background with the below spoken
hind it. Piper talks about how they competed with each other over who had In this period Piper had been on hiatus from one life in the art community male customer. Danced suspended in a glass cage above the floor with spotlights me situated in THE world, rather than MY world. same things in unison. And it really, it really changed our relationships with like we all wore mink eyelashes, and eyeliner, and eye shadow, and eye pen- texts interspersed with segments of the song. There are pauses in between
the best individual routine and most perfected appearance, until they de- while immersed in another life in the doctoral program in philosophy at Piper performed as the Mythic Being for the last time in It’s Just Art. placed on it, in front of the bar.1 each other. Um, at first it was mostly about kind of competition. Um, there cil, and, you know, the whole thing; we’d tweeze our eyebrows the same the directives spoken in the man’s voice, during which Respect is heard.
cided to work out a single routine together. They began to dress identically, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Piper completed her (3), fashion modelling. Became very aware of my own physical presence as were three of us and we all had our particular stars to follow. Like one way. And we all put these little beauty marks on our right upper cheek in (The performer is ?). Song begins. 7:41–14:49. Spoken text begins. 7:53–
dance identically. “Each of us was a reflection of the other two; we were coursework in 1976, following Some Reflective Surfaces with another stint Some Reflective Surfaces is a little-known piece within a larger body of 6. Going to a psychiatrists, ages 18–19. Objectifying my experiences and feel- a force; of how people responded to the particular physical image I project- woman Gloria was doing a little hustling on the side. And, yeah, I think it exactly the same place. And it was just really quite amazing. We literally 13:20. Song ends. 14:49]
three versions of the same dancer,” she says.11 mostly away from the art world while on a Harvard Sheldon Traveling Fel- work for which Piper has long been acknowledged. ings by making them intelligible to an outsider. Having to project myself into ed. Also never felt more used—objectified in THAT sense—than that was because she needed the money and her career as an actress wasn’t go- looked so much alike that it was hard to tell the difference at a distance, al-
lowship in Berlin and Heidelberg for the academic year 1977–78, one of his position in order to do that. morning in Riverside Park, when I was nothing more than a performing ing that well. And there was a lot of, you know, potential trade in this club. though, obviously, we were built kind of differently. So we got these rou- Man’s voice:
A film of Piper and others dancing to “Respect”12 begins to play, and Piper, more than a few moments Piper would step away from art (for example, at A few years later Piper broke out with the enclosed audio installation As- object; when even my physical condition (freezing, shivering) was unim- And she was like really worried about the possibility that we would take tines together and, what we’d do is, as the music started, each one of us, Now begin.
um, 2000–2001; the Andy Warhol Museum,
2001; the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincin-
Other performers included in the Four American Art Library, New York.
Piper told RoseLee Goldberg in 1975 that,
ego—mustache, black clothing, a conjured at-
titude of extroverted exhibitionism and intro-
As cited in Begum Yasar and Aliza Shvarts,
“Alienation, Too as Its Uses,” in Adrian Piper
2018), 51.
In the mid-1960s Piper did stints as a dis-
Studio International 192, no. 982 (May–June
1976): 22. This book, TK.
Adrian Piper, “Porgy” (1988), in Out of Order, Adrian Piper, “Kinds of Selected Writings in Meta- Adrian Piper, “Some Reflective Surfaces,”
1975. Transcription of audio from performance
Evenings, Four Days program were Laura Out of Sight, vol. 1, Selected Writings in Meta-
nati, 2001; and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, 2 Dean, Robert Wilson, Lucinda Childs, “Another reason for my androgynous image is 3 verted immersion—were continued from (New York: Lévy Gorvy, 2017), 20–21. Piper’s 4 cotheque dancer at Ginza and Entre Nous in Piper is seen dancing to the song with a group 5 Art 1968–1992, 239. This book, TK. Performing Objects I 6 Art 1968–1992 (Cambridge, 7 8 (16:00 min.) at Whitney Museum of American 9 10 11
2001. Christopher Knowles, Robert Morgan, Stuart that my work is as much about men as it is about Piper’s earlier Mythic Being works of 1973–75. statement is found in “Xenophobia and the In- New York City. The cage dancing she describes of friends and graduate-student peers, filmed William Shawcross, “The End of Cambo- Art, New York, 1976. © Collection of the
Adrian Piper, “Some Reflective Surfaces I,” in Sherman, Nancy Lewis and Richard Peck, women as objects; I think objectification and In “Xenophobia and the Indexical Present II: dexical Present II: Lecture,” as reprinted in Out is loosely in the genre of the better known Co- on Super 8 color film in Cambridge, MA, 1976. dia?,” New York Review of Books, January 24, Have Been: Notes for MA: MIT Press, 1996), 89– Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) Foun-
Out of Order, Out of Sight, vol. 1, Selected Writ- isolation is something we do to ourselves and Lecture” (1992), Piper stated: “I was thinking a of Order, Out of Sight, vol. 1, Selected Writings pacabana club, next door to Entre Nous. See Piper, “Some Reflective Surfaces I,” 152. This
ings in Meta-Art 1968–1992 (Cambridge, MA:
Connie Beckley, Michael Smith, Mary Overlie,
Martha Wilson, Judy Padow Dance Company, each other, and not only in sexual ways.” “Pub- lot about specific alterations in physical subjec- in Meta-Art 1968–1992, 263. See also Cornelia Adrian Piper, “Kinds of Performing Objects I book, TK.
1980. See also Adrian Piper, “It’s Just Art,” in
Out of Order, Out of Sight, vol. 1, Selected Writ- Rosemary Mayer’s ‘Per- 90. dation Berlin.
MIT Press, 1996), 154. This book, TK.
Earlier, Piper had created a performance with
Jean Dupuy, Richard Foreman, Noa Aïn, Terry
Allen, Guy de Cointet, Laurie Anderson, Julia
lic Performance, Private Memory,” interview
by RoseLee Goldberg, Studio International 192,
tivity, particularly as a way of bringing out as-
pects of my own identity that are not readily
Butler’s essay section on Some Reflective Sur-
faces, “Wake Up and Get Down: Adrian Piper’s
Have Been: Notes for Rosemary Mayer’s ‘Per-
formance and Experience,’” in Out of Order,
Adrian Piper, “Some Reflective Surfaces”
(1975), soundtrack of performance. Collection
ings in Meta-Art 1968–1992, 177–78 and 180.
Piper, “It’s Just Art,” 178. This book, TK.
formance and Experi-
Franklin’s “Respect,” Aretha Franklin Catalysis
(1971–72), in which she danced to the song’s
Heyward, David Gordon, Jared Bark, Jana no. 982 (May–June 1976): 23. This book, TK.
Piper, “Some Reflective Surfaces I,” 154. This
available—not only the fact that I am black, be-
cause many people do not realize that, but also I
Direct Address,” in Adrian
Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965–2016, ed.
Out of Sight, vol. 1, Selected Writings in Meta-
Art 1968–1992, 89. This book, TK.
of the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA)
Foundation Berlin. This book, TK.
Piper, “It’s Just Art,” 178. This book, TK. ence,’” 1972, in Out of Or-
Haimsohn, and the Medicine Show Theatre
rhythms from memory. This work is part of Ensemble. Information courtesy of the Whit- book, TK. have a very strong masculine component to my Cornelia Butler, Christophe Cherix, and David Adrian Piper, “Public Performance, Private Piper, “Public Performance, Private Memo- der, Out of Sight, vol. 1,
Piper’s Catalysis series. See this book, TK. ney Museum Archives, Whitney Museum of Some aspects of Piper’s Mythic Being alter character. I wanted to be able to explore that.” Platzker (New York: Museum of Modern Art, Memory,” interview by RoseLee Goldberg, ry,” 23. This book, TK.
ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER
Yes. Adrian Piper: tural and political significance of popular dance forms. Some Reflective It seemed as though we had more power because each of us was a reflec- that the image I present to You be familiarly intimate. I know that You will ADRIAN PIPER Adrian continued dancing silently in the spotlight, facing the audience, her
Keep your abdomen tight. Mmm. SOME REFLECTIVE SURFACES Surfaces explored this phenomenon on a number of levels: tion of the other two: We were three versions of the same dancer, and our SOME REFLECTIVE SURFACES help make it so: For the more fully, raggedly, incoherently I confront You,
SOME REFLECTIVE SURFACES image picked up on a nearby video monitor. Suddenly a quiet woman’s
Yeah, that’s good, that’s nice. identical outfits somehow emphasized our individual characteristics the more completely You retreat. But I will no confront You, and You can- voice filled the room: ‘I know you’re out there… you can tell by my move-
[Barely audible.] I the mutual self-consciousness of audience and performer as to the even more. We became very close and put together a really tight, pol- II not retreat. ments that I’m aware of you… you know this is all for you… but this time I
Man’s voice: meanings of the gestures and figures of the dance; ished, professional routine that we were all very proud of. Later that afternoon in the darkened room, lit by a single spotlight on the don’t mind so much…’
Adrian Piper: Let the footwork carry you. This was the first performance I gave in front of an art audience, and one (Unlike many “happenings” and related projects of the 1950s and 1960s [“You” here is you] floor, a woman’s voice began to recount a story:
That’s right, that’s right. Mmm. that recognized what I was doing as art. Since 1972, when I had first per- the self-reflection of the dancer on the movements of her own body During the narration, I entered the stage space, doing the Aretha Franklin from which it evolves, Some Reflective Surfaces is both an art process and a ‘I think that much of my work is about kinds of alienation, personal, politi-
Adrian Piper: formed the Aretha Franklin Catalysis, I had been interested in popular “dis- and their meanings; Catalysis dance to the rhythms of that song that were playing in my head. declared investigation of itself as art. This piece for video, dance, cinema, With the help of the conventions that subject and subvert our mutual un- ‘We worked in this bar that had a large mirror over the counter. Right op- cal, emotional. I am normally very withdrawn and have an intense need for
Man’s voice: Yeah, ah. co” dance figures as a form of ritualized sexual and political confrontation. At the end of the narrative, the actual song, Respect, blasted thought the and voice was first performed by Adrian Piper and some twenty dancers derstanding we will create meanings in my behavior and a medium in posite the counter there was a glass cage suspended from the ceiling where privacy. But I still feel compelled to make art, but an art that is about con-
Good. Repeat that. I found that there were many gestures and movements that were so loaded the partial definition and appropriation of those meanings by oth- space on the P.A. system as I continued dancing, tailoring my own rhythms and technicians in December 1975 at the Fine Arts Building in New York, which to reflect out isolation and our intimacy. The more closely You read the three of us danced to rock music… when we started, we were really frontation of the distances that separate people. I have really been thinking
Man’s voice: with significance that it was actually possible to make or break a relation- ers in the environment; and to what were now the actual ones. At the same time, a film was projected be- and again at the Whitney Museum of American Art in February 1976. A my gestures, the more alien I become. I neutralize my appearance for Your into watching our images in the mirror, and using our reflected images to about that – the ways of forcing a consciousness in the audience of their
[Barely audible.] Let the music carry you. ship—both with men and women—by performing or not performing them hind me on the wall, depicting me and other people dancing to the same statement of intent, published here for the first time, documents some of sake I flatten and simplify my gestures for ease of comprehension. The correct our individual dance routines. We didn’t care so much about danc- own social role as spectators. This was harder to do in my previous street
under certain conditions while dancing. Also, this type of dance was capable the political unity that can be achieved through self-consciously song. They were imitating my gestures, I was imitating theirs, and the real the artist’s concerns in the piece.) signs I give You are elementary, impersonal, so that You can more easily re- ing together, so we didn’t look very professional... I think we were all com- performances, because it was impossible to distinguish between the per-
Adrian Piper: Adrian Piper: of expressing a whole spectrum of feelings people have about their own unifying one’s self-presentation as a dance object with other such me was dancing with my image on the film. At intervals, a sharp male voice veal to me their import by Your responses. They are both primitive and dull peting with each other for who had the most perfected individual image. former and the audience. People just thought I was Insane, or an elaborate-
That’s nice. That’s really nice, yeah. Mmm. Mmm. bodies—all the more eloquently because the rhythms of disco music objects who are equally self-conscious. The piece was anchored in barked out orders: Every nerve and muscle in Rosamund was adjusted to the conscious- of artifice; we understand each other all too well. Also, one of the women was hustling a lot in the bar and we didn’t get along ly-costumed “shopping bag lady”, while I registered and used their reac-
(which I define to include white disco, funk, soul, Motown, salsa, and disco- my own experience as a disco dance (the term in those days was Loosen up in the hips!... Easy on the legwork!... Too tight in the shoul- ness that she was being looked at. She was by nature an actress of well because she thought we were trying to take over some of the trade. But tions to strengthen my next performance. But the early street works were
Man’s voice: Man’s voice: jazz), while complex and densely textured, tend to be repetitive and to trans- “go-go girl”) in a New York nightclub. ders! parts that entered into her physique; she even acted her own charac- [“You” here is us] then we decided to work a routine together, so we practiced a lot, and got very important and even frightening experiences for me. I always felt
Watch your arm gestures. The music. Yes. form gradually, rather than being discontinuous and rhythmically simple ter, and so well that she did not know it to be precisely her own. identical costumes, makeup, hairstyles, and performed the same dance threatened, I mean a policeman could have arrested me for disturbing the
like much rock music. Thus disco both makes possible a continuing physical The performance utilized a streamlined update of the Mythic Being image: The film and sound cut off suddenly, leaving me dancing in the spotlight —George Eliot The image we construct is a private object that satisfies us, its outer surfaces steps in unison… It really changed everything. It seemed as though we had peace. At the same time, I felt my personality become more flexible,
[This voice now closer to the volume of the man’s voice.] Adrian Piper: empathy with the music and requires a fair amount of physical coordination I was dressed in black turtleneck, black jeans and boots, my face whitened with silently, facing the audience, my face picked up on a video monitor that had reflecting light, heat, anxiety, and out mutual awareness of what we are to more power because each of us was a reflection of the other two; we were stronger, because I altered my physical appearance in so many different
Yeah that’s nice. and rhythmic discrimination in order to achieve this; that is, you’re required stage chalk pancake, a sharp painted mustache, a silver-reflecting sunglasses, been trained on the spotlit area. Then my voice came back on the p.a. system: When I confront You, my only tools, my only weapons, are my appearance each other: what we are: what I am: three versions of the same dancer. We became very close and put together a ways.
Adrian Piper: to actually dance to disco music and not just behave. To succeed in dancing and long hair. The performance began with a dark room, lit only by a single and my movements. My appearance tells You who I am: My dress tells You really tight, polished, professional routine that we were all very proud
Yeah, that’s fun. Man’s voice: to disco music, and to perform the full spectrum of figures and gestures that spotlight on the floor. Over the P.A. system, my voice narrated the story: I know you’re out there…. You can tell by my movements that I’m what I am, my body tells You its history in its behavior, my face tells You of…’ ‘Doing a museum performance was a different way of being out of control
Loosen up. are part of that, is to express one’s sexuality, one’s separateness, one’s inner aware of you…. You know this is all for you…. but this time I don’t what I think of You in smiles and grimaces. My appearance tells You more I perform for You. I act natural for You. I do my dance for You. I – you depend on so many people to put the thing together, and the way the
Man’s voice: unity with one’s own body; and in a sexually repressive, WASP-dominated We worked in this bar that had a large mirror over the counter. Right op- mind so much. than I want You to know (but not enough): My efforts to conventionalize, practice my routines for You. I display myself for You. I do my show As the voice spoke, Adrian Piper, a small figure dressed in masculine black performances turns out is not entirely in the hands of the performer. It’s re-
Loosen up at the wrists. Adrian Piper culture, this is to express defiance. I think this explains why certain kinds of posite the counter there was a glass cage suspended from the ceiling to neutralize my gestures, to empty them of messages for You inevitably for You. I watch You. Occasionally, I applaud You. clothes, face whitened, silver-reflecting sun glasses, pencil-thin mous- ally about the relationship between audience and performer, viewer and
Nice, yeah nice. people become so uncomfortable around blacks and gays on the dance floor where the three of us danced to rock music…. When we started we were Here is a thought that a certain variety of prude feminist would prefer not to fail. Even if my behavior and my appearance mean nothing, You read them tache, and long hair, entered the room, dancing and gyrating to unheard object viewed. There is a subliminal conversation going on with the audi-
Adrian Piper: who can really strut their stuff. In fact, I think this explains the racist and ho- really watching our images in the mirror, using our reflected images to have: Voluntary self-objectification, of the kind that occurs in dancing, in nevertheless. You create a history for me which I am pleased to wear. [“I” here is you] discotheque music. Then the sound of Aretha Franklin singing ‘Respect’ ence, with every gesture, every movement having meaning. This kind of
Real nice, good, yeah. Man’s voice: mophobic reaction many people have to disco music generally. correct our individual dance routines. We didn’t care so much about performance of any kind, in modelling, or in permitting oneself to be looked throbbed through the room, as Adrian circled around and through the conversation makes one very vulnerable: if everything I do is significant,
Mmm. Looser. dancing together, so we didn’t look very professional…. I think we were at or done to sexually, can be an act of political defiance, a gesture of brazen [“You” here is me] spotlight in the centre of the floor. At the same time a film began to whirr, the audience can learn things about me even if I don’t want them to – but of
Adrian Piper: At the same time as you express defiance and self-containedness through all competing with each other for who had the most perfect individual shamelessness, a celebration of self that absolutely crushes and makes the images of her and other people dancing and imitating her actual move- course I do in some sense or I wouldn’t be there!
Man’s voice: Good, yeah, ugh. disco dancing, you also open yourself to a wide range of responses from image. Also, one of the women was hustling a lot in the bar and we didn’t ridiculous any attempt at devaluation or disapproval, and exposes the cow- But this is my defense. You infuse my appearance with meaning: my ges- ments reflected on her body and on the wall behind her. At intervals, a
Relax into it. others, most of which are misinterpretations: For example, you’re being get along well because she through we were trying to take over some of ardice and hypocrisy of the disapprovers for what it is: an attempt to eradi- tures are signals to You. So they become deliberate: I know that my choice sharp male voice barked out orders: ‘Loosen up in the hips!... Easy on the ‘That is one reason why I am interested in working with a neutralised, ob-
Good. Man’s voice: seductive, you want to be picked up, and so on. As though your own pride the trade. But then we decided to work out a routine together, so we prac- cate from consciousness their own uncontrollable outlaw impulses (think of is only between signals and not between signals and silence. My gestures, legwork!... Too tight in the shoulders?...’ jectified, de-personalised image: what’s interesting to me is not my own
Nice. Yes. Looser. and pleasure in your physical experiences weren’t enough. The more often ticed a lot, and got identical costumes, makeup, hairstyles, and per- Bess before Porgy reformed her). Sure it’s dangerous. But the danger is in appearance, expressions are all planned and polished by years of open re- personal history of art, but what my actual presence itself tells the audi-
I performed the Aretha Franklin piece, the more I began to think about ges- formed the same dance steps in unison…. It really changed everything. the cost of the power it confers, not in the sources of pleasure its exposes. hearsals. My only concern is that the message I convey to You be coherent, Suddenly the film stopped, the music stopped, the male voice stopped. But ence, independently of any background knowledge. People interact with
Adrian Piper, “Some Re- 1992 (Cambridge, MA: Adrian Piper, “Some Re- lected Writings in Meta-Art caption
13 14 flective Surfaces I,” per- 15 MIT Press, 1996), 151–54. 16 17 flective Surfaces II,” per- 18 1968–1992 (Cambridge, 19 20 21
formed and written in De- formed in 1975. First MA: MIT Press, 1996), 155–
cember 1975. First published in Sun and Moon 56. a
published in Out of Order, 2 (Spring 1976): 18–20. For
Out of Sight, vol. 1, Selected this version, see Out of Or-
Writings in Meta-Art 1968– der, Out of Sight, vol. 1, Se-
ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER ADRIAN PIPER
From an enclosed, mixed-
media installation, this
soundtrack ironically mim- It doesn’t matter who these people are. They’re parts of a piece of art, tween what you see and what you’re hearing? Are you being preached to?
ics tape-recorded docents’
ASPECTS lectures available to muse-
which is part of an art exhibit, in an art gallery, right here, right now.
This gallery is one of the best: progressive, daring, shows some of the
Again? What is the speaker trying to express? What do these images
mean? What’s the significance of all the people in the photo being black?
OF THE LIBERAL DILEMMA um goers. Here the voice- most interesting and aesthetically innovative work around. You expect, Of their looking angry or sullen? Of their shabbiness? Of your emotional
over focuses specifically on and hope, that when you leave this gallery, your c and political distance from them? Is it aesthetic? What’s the point of their
This was the second installation I did that attempted to have a directly cat- the elements of the installa- all seeming to stare at you? Of your seeming to stare back at them? At
alytic effect on the viewer’s perception of political issues, in this case, the tion that address racism, their expressions, their eyes, their clothes? Why do you always seem to
university of racism. Instead of trying to subvert the distancing, self-de- solipsism, the aesthetic sta- end up staring at your own reflection in the glass? At the expression on
fensive effect of the aestheticized art context, as in Art for the Art-World tus of photography, and so your face, in your eyes, around your mouth? Why do you feel embarrassed
Surface Pattern, I incorporated it into the presentation of content in the on, in language that begins if someone else in the room sees you staring at yourself like this? Why do
same didactic manner as in those cassette-tape museum docent lectures you with the conventions of you immediately pretend to be looking at people in the picture? You’re not
carry around with you as you walk through a museum, which tell you what Greenbergian formalism really looking at them. Why are you increasingly impatient with all these
to look for in the works of art you’re viewing and why they’re important, and ends with an interroga- questions? And with the lack of information you seem to be getting in re-
good, and valuable. The point was to convey not only the political experi- tion of the viewer’s percep- turn? Is this supposed to be part of the piece too? What exactly is the aes-
ence of confronting racism and its effects on distant others with whom one tions. thetic content of this work? What is it trying to tell you?
can connect only through one’s own political concerns but also the recogni-
tion that art can be just as effective a vehicle for political catalysis as for any Adrian Piper, Aspects of the
other kind; and that self-awareness is a necessary condition of both politi- Liberal Dilemma (1978).
cal awareness and, therefore, freedom from the brand of ideological delu- Mixed-media installation:
sion the aestheticizing stance embodies. empty wall; black-and-
white photograph framed
The installation consists of: a large square room, painted white. Centered under reflective Plexiglas,
on one wall at eye level, a large photograph, 18” square, of black South 18 18 in. (45.7 45.7 cm);
Africans descending the steps into a subway, confronting and looking di- audiotape; lighting. Collec-
rectly into the eye of the camera. The photograph is covered with shiny tion of the University of
glass. California Art Museum. ©
Adrian Piper Research
The room is lit by four spotlights in the four corners of the wall on which Archive (APRA) Founda-
the picture is hung. They face outward, illuminating a spot about three feet tion Berlin.
in front of the photograph. The effect is to illuminate fully the face of any-
one standing directly in front of the photograph, so that the person’s face is
clearly and sharply reflected in the glass.
From a concealed sound system, the following monologue is heard:
Adrian Piper, “Aspects of the Liberal
Dilemma,” 1978. Introduction accompanied a
23 24 transcription of the audio installation (05:34 25 27
min.) in 1980, first documented in a
publication for an untitled exhibition with
Christopher D’Arcangelo, Louise Lawler, and
Cindy Sherman at Artists Space, New York,
September 23–October 28, 1978. For this
version, see Out of Order, Out of Sight, vol.
1, Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968–1992
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 169–71.
 WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… LOUISE LAWLER: A MOVIE WILL BE SHOWN WITHOUT THE PICTURE

say that, um, at my retrospective, which is now travelling, I had these cards
printed up without my name on the one about racism and a sign next to the
cards saying, “Take one. Join the struggle.” And I was very gratified to
learn that the cards were all gone very quickly. So I like to think that there
are at least hundreds of white people out in the world now passing out these
cards, and simply deciding to join the struggle at that level. I really think
there is no easy way around this. My guess is that if you decide that you are
going to do something actively, ah, you are going to have to deal with a lot
of misunderstandings, a lot of self-searching, people asking you about
your motives, you know, liberal guilt, that sort of thing. And it is a very un-
pleasant process. I wish I knew some way around it, but I don’t.
audience member 6: But it seems like you do, because when you say one-on-one
I think that is how things are going to change. There is probably not a
woman in this room who couldn’t use those cards. I travel for work, and
people come over. I can’t eat a meal in a restaurant without the assumption
that I am in a restaurant alone because I am looking for someone for after
the meal. And, yeah, we could all use those cards.
adrian piper: Yeah, I think certainly the card about sexism is one that women
can use. But I think that the question that you were raising is, what can a
white person do in an entirely white environment in which this sort of
racism gets expressed, and there is no immediate personal link.
audience member 6: Well the personal link is that you are a person who finds it
wrong.
adrian piper: Yeah, well see, I think that’s what it has to be.
audience member 6: [I think it’s] uncomfortable for me, I don’t have to be black
for it to be uncomfortable for me because when people don’t know I am Jewish
and have made that kind of remark, I mean a card for myself could say…
adrian piper: Right.
audience member 6: Everybody is around something uncomfortable, the white
male response to the fact that you would love to be the white middle-class
male because it’s so easy…
adrian piper: It’s so easy. (Said jokingly, laughs)
audience member 6: …and the thing is much of it is not so easy.
adrian piper: I know, I know, I know, it’s rough.
(Said with emphasis and laughter)
audience member 6: I think it’s awareness… one at a time… somebody…
adrian piper: I think its awareness. And I guess I would also want to pick up on
something you said, which is that if you can make this a personal issue, then
it will be a personal issue. And I think you have more chance of changing
adrian piper: I agree, I think humor is very important but I think it has to be ac-
the behavior of the people around you if it’s a personal issue.
audience member 7: You commented this morning that men and women are ….
audience member 9: Coming from South America I was really, really surprised
two races. Where does that fit into the question of philosophy. Or how do
you come to terms with that. I tend to agree. It’s a dialectic that makes it
great but still there …
adrian piper: You know it’s just been something that I have been thinking
about in purely biological terms. The differences are greater, and I think
that between men and women, although obviously there is a lot of friction,
we tend not to recognize completely the degree of alienation because we
have hormones to keep us together. You know, there are these biological
forces of attraction that tend to at least partially compensate for the differ-
ences. And we don’t have anything comparable, we don’t have hormones
that work comparably for overcoming the differences between the races,
even though the differences are smaller than they are between men and
adrian piper: Ah okay, well let me just take that second question first. Okay. Let
women. And I guess my feeling is that if we don’t have sort of innate bio-
logical reactions, then we are just going to have to use our intelligence and
really just kind of think about this stuff and take it real, real seriously at a
personal level. Um.
audience member 8: [xxx]… I taught at Oakland College University in the ear-
ly ’70s and I did theatre, and I started working with a black companies [xxx]
… interesting a single white person amongst a completely black audience,
and you learn how to overcome that. I think one of the most interesting re-
actions was I was sitting at the rehearsals of one of the shows, I’m the only
white person in there, and that’s back when it was a very blatant struggle,
there was a lot of aggression, and several phrases were, “You white moth-
erfucker.” And I am the one that they are looking at in the audience, and it
was a technical rehearsal. Eventually as we learned to deal with ourselves
and deal with our relationships, one of the things that helped was we
learned to look at ourselves and laugh. And humor is a tremendous vehicle.
And I noticed the change from early black theatre through television, to the
new sitcom kind of thing, the more humor of looking at our own situa-
tions, not necessarily as aggression between two cultures, but that humor
of what our predicament is and it is very similar in some respects.
companied by serious self-awareness and self-honesty.
when I heard that you were black. And I said well there must be something
wrong with my perception. And um, I would like to ask you why do you con-
sider yourself that, perhaps you have answered that question before, but that
brings me to another question, do you think that when you put a label on a
group, saying this is a black artists’ group. Do you think that is creating or re-
producing isolation again? Because, let me give you an example, I’m attend-
ing a university in Chicago, I found that city, a really very segregated city.
As to the first question, “Why do I identify myself as black?” Well the convention
There was a meeting of black engineers [xxx] and I went to that meeting and
I was not allowed to enter that meeting. And I wanted to know their prob-
lems, and they said, “Well, you are not black.” And I said, “Well, you are iso-
lating yourselves. Why don’t you call yourselves engineers, just like that?”
me tell you about an analogous situation that I found recently to bring out
the point I want to make about why I think the engineers were right in this
case. I recently gave a paper at the University of Mississippi, at Oxford. Af-
ter the paper the two, the only two black students in the room came up to me
and wanted to talk. And we were having a kind of a cocktail party reception
right after the paper, and they would talk and then they would sort of go
away and look around, and then they would come back and say some more
things, and then they would go away and look around. And then we actual-
ly started talking quite intensely, so they stopped going away and we were
kinshasha conwill: I want to say something too about that, because I have
just talking. And the more intensely we were talking the more everyone
been asked similar questions in terms of why is there a Studio Museum in
else in the room was looking around at us, and wondering what we were Harlem? And why aren’t black artists just shown in other museums? And
talking about. And I learned from those students afterwards, that in order why do we segregate black artists by putting them in a black museum? I
to get through the University of Mississippi, they have to behave as though think one of the reasons that there is a Studio Museum in Harlem is because
they do not have any connections among themselves, because they are seen black artists are segregated by society and if we waited for Romare Bear-
as making trouble. If they start to compare notes on their situations and the den or Al Loving or Betye Saar or many, many other black artists to have
inequities that they have encountered as students at the University of Mis- their retrospective exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, or even some
sissippi, they could get flunked out of all their classes. They are seen as a wonderful contemporary museums around this country, we’d be waiting a
source of trouble because they come together, to define and articulate who long, long, long time. And many people at conferences ask me, “Well don’t
they are, what their problems are, and how to solve them. If there had been you perpetuate that?” As if to say that if we disbanded the Studio Museum
just one white person listening in on that conversation, everyone would in Harlem tomorrow racism would end and there would be this great open-
have felt fine, because that would have defused the situation. I just think ing of doors and black artists would be invited to come pouring in to the
that this is just as true with blacks as with women and indeed any other mainstream of American Art, when that just isn’t what’s happening. You
group, we have to get together to figure out what’s going on and what we also struck a number of chords with me with the thing about the University
want to do about it. Um, and then, at some later stage we can decide of Mississippi because I grew up in the South in Atlanta, Georgia, and my
whether integration is the right answer. I happen to think it is but that is af- whole life in the South—I left when I was twelve—everything was segre-
ter, you know, decades of thinking about this. And I think one has to go gated. Not the way Chicago is where it is actually segregated de facto, this
through that stage first. If you decide on separatism, later on perhaps that’s was de jure and de facto segregation, it was the whole nine yards. And is-
the option you choose. But there has to be an initial period of mutual self- sues of race, and issues of different kinds of black people, were things that
definition. Okay, so that’s the second question. we dealt with. I always find it interesting that whites see it as unusual that
Adrian Piper is black, because to a black person it doesn’t seem unusual at
all that she’s black, because we know that black people come in all kinds of
in this country is that if you have any black ancestry at all, then you are
colors. But what I do think is interesting to your question is that in other
black. And I am very proud of the ancestry I have. I happen to be three-six-
cultures it is true that race is divided into itsy-bitsy parts. And actually in
teenths African. And I am very proud of my family. I am very proud of what
parts of the South, like New Orleans, there are mulattos, and there are
they have done in this country. I am very proud of my African ancestry. And
quadroons and there are octoroons, and all of these things. And someone, a
for me not to identify myself as black, for me to say that I were a white per-
Hispanic friend of mine, showed me in Puerto Rico there is this, I mean
son would be by implication to deny my family, to deny my identity, and
down to one thirty-second you can describe whether someone is white or
most importantly to deny my experience in this culture. You know, before I
black. And one of the fascinating things about that, is that the link to be-
started thinking about these matters, society identified me as black. My par-
coming white is through a white man somewhere in your lineage. If you
ents identified themselves, and their family, and me as black. And my experi-
have a black person way, way, way up, you have to have somehow inter-
ences have taken a certain form because of it. And I am very proud of the ex-
married with and Indian or someone with very, very little black blood. But
periences that I have had because I think they have made me a better person,
if you can follow a black ancestry back you can never become a white per-
they literally do build character. (Laughs) Right? Right? And I would not do
son. I mean the definition is down to an infinitesimal amount of black
anything that would deny or reject any part of my heritage. So that’s why.
blood. But there are points where others can enter into the stream of some-
one’s family, and eventually with a lot of hard work become white.
(Laughs)
adrian piper: I also wanted to mention, by the way, that there is a whole litera- than a race issue. I don’t think that I have ever been rejected as far as my audience member 14: You should have handed out one of her cards. audience member 15 [as before]: …music is such a personal thing, I don’t know adrian piper: Legitimation is the issue. few years I have been studying jazz and commercial arranging, and I have
ture in biology and the social sciences that indicate that most purportedly racial identity, but I like many other middle-class blacks regardless of ap- how do people react to it in different ways, there are people who do like, do learned those techniques that are used in funk music. And I think that one
kinshasha conwill: Yeah that would have been useful. For the people who audience member 15 [as before]: What I wanted to ask you about was not so
white Americans are between five and eighty percent black. It’s there if pearance, sometimes do get tagged, as you know, sort of middle-class peo- you yourself like all kinds of music, it’s a hard thing to choose as a… of the things that is so threatening to a white America is just what you were
don’t know, the reference was to Spike Lee’s movie called School Daze, much, it is there especially in the music industry, it’s very there, what has
people want to find it. ple, you know wannabes. And that is an issue in the black community. I speaking to, and that is that, we have learned, um, from that music to think
which is a movie by a young black filmmaker, which deals with among oth- adrian piper: Well okay look, there is one question about personal taste and I happened with her as an example that she didn’t get what she should have
think has more to do with educational level and class than it does to do with non-linearly and that’s very threatening.
audience member 10: I lived in Hawaii where there is not a large black commu- er things the issue of color and class in the black community through a col- agree that music is a very central expression of personal taste, and I don’t all along. She got little pieces of it, but never got the big push. But it is a
race per se. Would that be…?
nity, and the people who are described as those adjectives you were describ- lege campus and fraternity and sororities, and things like that. mean to suggest that everyone should like all kinds of music. Um, but I do hard subject to use, is what I am trying to say. adrian piper: Ah yeah it is. It really does, it really does demand, a different au-
ing—lazy, unreliable—they are the Indigenous Hawaiian people. I though kinshasha conwill: Yeah, I think. I want to know how many people in the au- think that it is very interesting to look at the difference in attitudes that we ral a-u-r-a-l picture.
audience member 11: I’ll have the second part of my question, can you… adrian piper: Well you know, it is a hard subject, period.
it interesting enough, Hawaiian music and dance is almost revered. It is dience understand what your allusion was just now? take to towards different kinds of music. Um, Indian music now, for example,
audience member 16: That’s not Western.
very well respected. There are festivals given and so forth. It’s really adrian piper: It was, can you … even if one does not chose to listen to that music as a matter of personal taste, kinshasha conwill: I think it is a great subject. The reason I think it’s so great
adrian piper: Oh…
strange, it’s interesting. Also there is the phenomenon is, if you are white we have a respectful attitude towards it. We understand that it is the result of is because music is incredibly accessible. And popular music is one of the adrian piper: Yeah.
audience member 11: … experiences that is a good black friend not inviting me
here on the mainland, you could be Italian-American or Spanish-American kinshasha conwill: A wannabe. Oh right, the mass media at work. long centuries of evolution, that it has a very complex structure. Ah, similar- most accessible things in this culture. I mean, for me to try to market Adri-
into his social group. Do you think it’s totally interpersonal or is there’s audience member 16: The other question that I was thinking of, is in the other
or Portuguese or French, but when you are in Hawaii it doesn’t matter, you ly with other kinds of music that are sort of outside the mainstream culture. an Piper at the Studio Museum was much more difficult than me say to mar-
adrian piper: Oh great. (Laughs) anything more profound to that? room you mentioned in passing the controversy over what textbooks
are just white, there is no distinction like that. But when it comes to black working-class music, it’s vulgar, it’s boring… ket Cecil Taylor and the World Saxophone Quartet. I mean avant-garde
should be used. And given your practically unique background and educa-
audience member 12: [xxx] important point because that kind of movie, which adrian piper: I would have to know much more about the nature of the rela- jazz, even though it is avant-garde, is much more marketable than a perfor-
kinshasha conwill: …If, or your know, their work is amateurish, or you tion, and living two cultures so easily, I wonder what you think about it?
adrian piper: Right. has just started to get seen. I mean, [xxx] a reason that people bought Elvis tionship. I simply couldn’t pass judgment. mance artist, than a conceptual artist. But black music, popular music, I
know, but somehow it’s not good enough. So just how in music there is an
Presley was because the money was in the companies that wrote and sell mean you just turn on the radio and there it is. You don’t have to go to a mu- adrian piper: Oh, I just don’t see why there is an issue. It seems to me that there
kinshasha conwill: This gentleman. audience member 11: Okay. excuse, there is an excuse with black artists. There are black artists that do
[sold] white singers, and nobody knew this South African black music un- seum, you don’t have to deal with your problems with visual imagery. You is plenty of room for both. I mean, you know, I revere the classics of West-
incredible things that I see appropriated by white artists, but because black
til… adrian piper: Sorry. just turn on the radio, it’s there. So if it exists there, I think as those circles ern literature, just as much as anyone else, and I also think there are some
audience member 11: Two questions. One getting more to the interpersonal, artists are not in the scene you never see their work. One of the differences
go out into the rest of the culture you see where the issues are just magnified really splendid as yet unknown works of literature that come from the
have you in your work been rejected by black people in any way, either be- audience member 13: Which one? audience member 15:(45.30min) maybe the same voice as audience member with music is that The Beatles will say, “I listen to Chuck Berry.” John
when you are dealing with something like art. Third World. And it is inconceivable to me that someone could actually
cause of your white appearance or because of your extraordinary educa- 7:(30min): I wanted to ask you something, you were just talking about music Lennon was very generous with saying what his sources were, and many
audience member 12: Paul Simon. mount the argument that it is administratively impossible to assign or to,
tional background and success? The reason why I ask that question is that I and this particular song that The Beatles [xxx]… that another person had people will do that. And I like The Beatles too. I mean you know, I am an adrian piper: Yeah I also want to add to that. I that there is a reason why music
you know, teach all of this literature to a student over a four-year period. I
perceive one of my closest friends being a black fellow from Chicago, it’s kinshasha conwill: Well that’s actually not true that no one knew, Miriam recorded first. It is interesting for me for you to take music and use music as American, right? (Audience laughs) The issue of appropriation I think is is a hard issue. It is precisely because music represents a kind of, you know
just think it is a false issue.
interesting because he will always respond to any social invitation I extend Makeba has been very, very well-known. But I think what you are say- an example, because music is so much a part of personal aesthetics and per- quite a different one. And the issue of saying, Ladysmith Black Mambazo is it is a cultural artifact that is very intimately appropriated into people’s
but he never invites me to join his black friends. ing… sonal taste. You are taking music that I think is my music, the exact music that wonderful because Paul Simon found them. Well to me it’s a tragedy that lives. And it is precisely around intimately appropriated artifacts that the audience member 16: Why is it so, why does it exist then?
you’re showing is my music. That is the music that I listen to all the time. It is Miriam Makeba, after all that she has dealt with and been in exile all these deep roots of racism get seen. It is precisely because people have this sort
adrian piper: Hmm, well okay let’s see if I can answer your question. No I can’t audience member 12: Not well distributed, not well marketed… adrian piper: I think, I think it’s just one more example of what we are talking
just as much a part of me as I believe it is of you as a person. I believe we are years, is discovered because she went on the Graceland tour with Paul Si- of wincing response when they hear Bootsy [Collins] or Funkadelic that
say that I have had my work rejected by the black community as a whole. about. It is more xenophobia. Well, let me talk about this at a different kind
kinshasha conwill: Yeah well, but I think not well accepted is just as much a probably around the same age, listen to the same things all our life. Um, but it mon, I find that sickening. And not that Paul Simon is sickening, I think one can see how xenophobia is working in that situation at a very deep lev-
That is not to say that individual black people have not found much to dis- of level, which is the kind of level that I am working with now in my work.
part as not well marketed, because when, it is interesting to me that once a seems like in some ways claiming that music as something to use, is claiming also, I like his music, I think he’s a great guy, and I think it has probably el. And no matter what you say about, you know, “Oh, my best friend is
agree with in what I do. Um, you know, there is no kind of blanket re- Um, I think that biologically we are programmed to accept and understand
certain person or group of people embraces something it becomes valid. it as a cultural item whereas perhaps I would be expected to claim The Grate- helped her have a renaissance of her music. But she has been around thirty black. And yes I will let my daughter marry one” and all of that. No matter
sponse. We are dealing with individuals. In general my work has found ac- the familiar and to reject the alien. It doesn’t matter whether we are dealing
And, I had a very, when I was young, I had a very, very good friend, one of ful Dead, um you know. It gets into a thing where it is a matter of personal years at least, minimally, and people didn’t hear about it, and it wasn’t just how much you say about that, that gut level response, is I think what really
ceptance within the black community. with race or sex or different cultures. It doesn’t matter whether we are deal-
my closest friends was white, and she said to me after hearing The Beatles taste too, because I find that to me, like a song that I listen to, I always loved marketing, it was an issue of what this culture values and when something has to be addressed. This gentleman’s been waiting for hours.
ing, for example, with a scientific theory that everyone accepts versus one
audience member 11: I am not just focusing on your work I am also focusing on sing one of their many songs that they had sung after a black performer, Al Green’s “Take Me To The River,” while I equally do love the Talking is given its due. So I don’t think for me, I am not looking at the issue of
audience member 16: I would like to just speak to what you said first, but in rela- that suggests that there are psychic phenomena. In all of these cases, what-
you as a human being. that you know, “Didn’t it sound so much better now that The Beatles did Heads’ version of it. Aesthetically those songs both please me. Um… taste, I am looking at an issue of placing value where it belongs and giving
tion to another question I was thinking about. Um, I’m a composer, and I ever looks odd, whatever threatens the categories by which we deal with
it.” And this was a friend of mine, and I found that, you know, it was a re- people their due.
adrian piper: Well there I think my sense is the issue is more of a class issue adrian piper: I think… learned the techniques of, I started right in classical music and in the last the world is going to be something that we reject, just implicitly. And that is
mark I never, never forgot.

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IF I CAN’T DANCE, I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION LOUISE LAWLER: A MOVIE WILL BE SHOWN WITHOUT THE PICTURE IF I CAN’T DANCE, I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE… ADRIAN PIPER WHAT YOU KNOW FROM HOW I MOVE…

probably a survival skill. Right? We make sense of the world, by categoriz-
ing and explaining in terms of these categories, and then something comes
along and just breaks through the categories and we can’t explain anything
anymore. And I tend to think that that’s the source of this reaction to the in-
troduction of Third World literature into college courses. It seems to me
that it represents a kind of threat to an established way of explaining and
looking at the world. And the fear is, that if we don’t hang on to that way of
looking at the world, it is all going to be chaos. But in fact it is not all going
to be chaos, we will get used to it. We will integrate.
audience member 17: Don’t you think that college is too late for a multicultural
approach to the world? That…
adrian piper: Well college is real slow. It would be nice…
audience member 17: I feel that it should be little children that learn about
things that are different…
adrian piper: Oh yeah, I couldn’t agree more. See one of my personal platforms,
is I don’t think that any individual in this culture should graduate from eighth
grade without a course in women’s studies and a course in black studies.
audience member 17: What about third grade?
adrian piper: Third grade, even better. It is just inconceivable to me that one
could have what one purports to be a solid education in this country, with-
out having that information.
audience member 18: In my book kindergarten was too late.
(laughter)
adrian piper: Yeah.
audience member 18: I have a friend who teaches in the humanities department
at KU where I teach, it’s Kansas. And he asked me to talk to his class in
ekphrasis. And I said, “I would be glad to if you could tell me what the hell
that word means.” And I couldn’t find it in my dictionary… but it was a
Greek word meaning, combining two art forms and turning it into a third.
And I think that is really what you are doing, and you are doing it with a
message. And I think it is really wonderful.
adrian piper: Thank you, thank you very much. In back, um, first her, and then
him.
audience member 19: I just wanted to say something… an experience I had in
junior high school. I sort of grew up in sort of an urban environment and
one day I was sort of knocked down by someone and a knife was held to my
face, and it was explained to me by the young man that it was because I was
white. And he sort of wanted me to say something, you know, wanted me
to provoke him in some way, and I didn’t. And that wasn’t an extraordinary
event at all where I grew up, but what was extraordinary is that a few
months later we became friends.
adrian piper: God.
audience member 19: And really what had happened was that he realized that
when that happened, that I sort of looked at him, and he understood that I
really had no idea why he was doing what he was doing. And we talked
about that later, that it just seemed to come down to basic fear. And I
thought it was really extraordinary that although I was completely un-
armed and smaller than him, and I was more on his turf than him on mine,
although we went to the same school, that he still feared me enough to
knock me down and hold this knife to my face. And I just thought that
overcoming that fear, which we did fortunately, was what we all have to do
is some smaller way in things like art and that. You know not to fear looking
at something for yourself, instead of saying Paul Simon has to look at it for
me first because I am afraid to look, and that sort of thing.
adrian piper: Yeah, I think that is right. And just to connect that up to what I
was saying a minute ago. It seems to me that what happened there was that
both of you saw through the stereotype categories. You actually saw the re-
ality of each other. And I think that that’s really the only way around this.
It’s very, very hard and everyone is going to feel bad and threatened while it
is going on, but there is just no other way, except to get through those
stereotyped categories.
audience member 19: Exactly, for the gentleman, my black and Latino friends
do invite me to their house. And I don’t know.
adrian piper: Yeah. listen to pop music. I listen to jazz and country and baseball. But I, I have to go through that process. And the thing that I don’t understand is, kinshasha conwill: I always find this question fascinating, and I always get it. like white American artists, or like European art. But it’s not, no. Each one chl is, I should know, who Picasso is. But the assumption doesn’t go that the
couldn’t tell a white group from a black group in this country, but some- how this man was able to write hundreds of dollars’ worth of checks with Um, there are as many different kinds of black artists I think as there are is like each person, is like their own. And there are yes some links to tribal director of the Museum of Modern Art should know who someone else is.
audience member 20: I came here because I really enjoyed the way in your tape,
thing about in Kinshasa Zaire, for instance, the jazz that you dance to there, my checkbook. I just say that for what it’s worth. It’s not really a question. white artists. I mean I don’t, black artists are not monolithic, they are even traditions. There are some links to Europe. There probably are more links
the way you… I do performance and theatre work also, and just participat- audience member 12 (1.12.50): What you’re saying, aren’t we really trying to
you don’t have to think about anything, your body just dances for you… if say Mel Edwards names his piece after, um, a poet Léopold Senghor, who to Europe, for instance, than there are to America, since these are often for-
ed, I do a lot of cross-cultural stuff. And I just participated in something adrian piper: I think in a way that experience really answers the question of get out of a white male-dominated culture, I mean don’t all of us do that all
is a poet in the Negritude tradition. You could still look at his piece, and if mer colonies of European countries, and that’s where people went to train.
that I think was pretty successful. A dance performance here, and I worked adrian piper: Oh excuse me, sure, sure. why disliking The Grateful Dead is not the same thing as insulting Bootsy of the time?
you didn’t know Mel Edwards you wouldn’t necessarily know that he was a But I think that it’s again, it is a comment on how kind of bad things are that
on getting a Nigerian crowd for a piece on white dancers, a really white one, Collins or George Clinton. The presumption is always in favor of the
audience member 21: It exists for me in a way, ah that is tremendously exciting. black artist. So I think that there is no way to say that all black artists have these are so mysterious, you know, these questions. And that the issue of kinshasha conwill: I would say that there is an essential difference when race
black one… in performance. In fact it is going to be again this weekend dominant culture and representatives of the dominant culture. Yeah.
It is the most exciting music I know. But I don’t relate it to anything to do kind of one vision or one view or one approach in common. Though I the classics has to be raised this way that Secretary Bennett can become so enters it. Though I do agree with Adrian, that some of the differences be-
again [at the Rockefeller, if you happen to be here]. But um, and it was inter-
with a racial experience. audience member 23: (105.32) is maybe A9 (33.30): Isn’t the difference here in think again, what becomes interesting, is what black artists tend to have in incensed, and an become so um, hysterical at the idea that someone would tween men and women are much more severe. It is not just, race is a real is-
esting… those decisions and my discussion with the group why I thought
this country between black artists and white artists… common, is what black people tend to have in common, which is that they dare study, ah God knows, Morrison or Baldwin or Wright or, someone… sue in this country.
we should use this instead of a sort of a jazz piece that was based kind of out adrian piper: Yeah, I didn’t mean to suggest that while you are actually dancing
are kind of lumped together, and are kind of excluded together, and are
of the Bob Fosse jazz style dancing that is very nutty, but anyway. And I was that you have to be sort of, you know. No I definitely don’t go along with adrian piper: Kinshasha? adrian piper: Hurston. audience member 12: [xxx] there is also that other issue, the racial issue, but
kind of looked as a group together, and have equal opportunity exclusion.
really on edge and the audience ended up really liking it, which was like that. All I am saying is that you have to understand in some sense what it is there is…
audience member 23 [as before]: …I mean you can tell, in terms of confidence? And if you’re black you all get to be excluded whether you are Adrian or kinshasha conwill: …Hurston, at the same time that they study the gods of
such icing on the cake. But I have been working in this vein also for a long you are doing. Now it sounds to me if you travel in Africa two months a
Mel or Betye Saar or whoever. Western literature. And again it is a self-perpetuating circular kind of kinshasha conwill: And there is class.
time, and I think one of the fears is that dance could then become nothing year, then you pick up a lot about what that music means in its cultural envi- kinshasha conwill: Not necessarily, no. What I think is fascinating is though you
thing. Just like people say, “If there are any good black artists, why don’t I
for either group. You know what I am saying? I mean that the Nigerian per- ronment and what it means for you as an outsider to that culture to be par- can’t necessarily look at a sculpture and say, that is, I mean unless you know audience member 24: The reason I ask is that, um, the “black experience”, audience member 12: (1.13.30): I think that what you were talking about, you
know about them?” Saul Bellow said something like, “If there is a great
son could have said, and I have seen this happen before, “Well they don’t ticipating in it through the dance. I mean that has a very, very rich system the artist, and say, “This is Melvin Edwards” and this is, I don’t know, “This is quote unquote, can be readily seen to a white person in a book, fiction or could almost switch into something else.
band tooth poet out there, I’ve missed it.” And again, it becomes a way to
really do it like we do. And they don’t understand the meaning of the dance of associations. But that too involves thought. Yeah. David Smith.” What’s very curious is that somehow people find a way to find non-fiction. And in the dance, that I am sorry that I missed that you de-
write off whole cultures of people, and to just write off the incredible con- adrian piper: Can I just kind of follow up on this particular issue about what
and therefore it is no longer Nigerian.” And then the other people could say, out that somebody is a black artist, because when it comes down to it, you scribed, but it is not so obvious or simple to express in a painting or in a
A22: I just feel provoked to tell a personal story in response to the story that you tributions that they have made, even though Toni Morrison has won the cultures we need to know about that maybe our own cultures or maybe oth-
“I don’t understand what this is, I don’t want to a Nigerian neither. It don’t see those artists represented. And I think it would be fascinating actually piece of sculpture, but the feeling must be there.
just told. And I am not quite sure why I am telling this story, but I want to Pulitzer Prize. I mean Gwendolyn Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize thirty or er cultures... I am not a great Hegel fan, but there is this great part in Hegel’s
doesn’t talk to me either.” Do you know what I am saying? So I think that if there were a lot of blind, really truly blind, competitions where art, where
just tell it anyway. I had my checkbook stolen by a white friend of mine. kinshasha conwill: I think it is also not so simple in literature. I mean again, forty years ago. This still happens. I think it really shows that the kind of philosophy of spirit in which he talks about the master slave relationship.
yes it is creating a third art form, but also, sort of, I think there needs to be a you didn’t know who an artist was. And artists were really, really chosen.
Richard Wright is the black experience, yeah, and Toni Morrison is the thing that I struggle with every day, and the kinds of things Adrian does in And he talks about how the master really needs the slave, because after all
lot of gentleness in replacing that thing that we need for identity. (laughter)
audience member 23: Aren’t there a lot of those? I mean my wife is a local black experience, or Alice Walker is the black experience. But my goodness her very personal performances, are very much with us at this late hour, the slave provides all the conditions of comfort and makes the master feel
adrian piper: Well I think also there is a question of how one is educated kinshasha conwill: Before or after he was [xxx]? painter in the northwest and her shows are virtually all blind. how different those are. Again, though I think your question is very, you and it is kind of unfortunate, I think. the master, which the master needs in order to remain a master. The slave
around the meaning of that art form itself. That is, you know, it can’t sim- know, asked in a way that I know is not meant to be in any way negative, I on the other hand is the one who has to really know everything, in particu-
(laughter continues) kinshasha conwill: Actually what happens is that when you get to getting into audience member 12: But Saul Bellow witnessed it even… ’80s and’ 90s culture
ply be repeating the movements. There has to be some understanding of think it is again a comment on where things are that black artists are this lar in order to be a good slave, and in order to eventually transcend slavery,
a museum show there is no such thing. I mean they better know who you [xxx] because is not his culture, I mean…
what they mean to the person in whom they originated and what they audience member 22: Before. [xx] my white friends stole my checkbook [xxxx]. kind of mystery. Are they all alike? Are they all different? Are they short? the slave has to study and understand the culture of the master. In order to
are, they want to know, all your bona fides, and you know, everything and
might mean to oneself and one’s system of associations. And of course But the reason I wanted to tell this story is that this guy was able to write Are they tall? Is Adrian, you know, really black? All of these issues have to kinshasha conwill: I mean Saul Bellow isn’t my culture, I mean I’ve read Saul survive, a black person has to know what white America is like, what it’s
every show you have ever had, and blah blah blah. So they are bound to find
that’s going to be different in different cases. But it seems to me that it is a hundreds of dollars’ worth of checks, and I didn’t lose my wallet, so I do with the fact, and you know it is so late in the day, and I mean this day, Bellow. I am not, you know, a white man, but I have read. The assumption thinking, what it’s thinking about black people. Now that knowledge, I
out, you know, who you are.
mistake to think of any art form, including funk music, as being completely didn’t lose any identification. But even if you take my wallet with my driv- though it is getting late in this day too, but it is so late in our history that is, one of the reasons that Adrian is so fascinating to people is that this is a think, is a source of strength and a source of strategy when it comes time to
non-intellectual, as though one does not have to think about it at all. I don’t er’s license he wouldn’t be able to use it because it, ’cause it has my picture audience member 24: I think the question that is being asked in the rear is, and it black artists are so unknown, that these questions seem so obvious to me. I black woman with a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard. My God, how the changing the situation. As long as white America thinks that it is not worth
think there is any such thing as an artwork that one does not have to think on it. Ah, but the thing that I don’t understand about this society is that, is my question too and I don’t know, is there a difference in content for a was at a dinner the other night—I am looking at someone who was there— hell did a black person born in Harlem get through Harvard? It happens all their time to learn what black culture is, or to learn, say, what women are
about and understand intellectually in some way. Yeah. um, I work for a living, I am relatively successful, ah, and when I go to the black artist that is different from a white artist content? Do contemporary where people were asking me about African artists. And I was saying that the time. [W.E.B.]. Du Bois did it sixty or seventy years ago. The assump- like, white male culture, there is going to be this sense of sort of oblivious-
bank to write a check for cash for twenty dollars, I am going to have to pro- black artists seek to express themselves, and this in the medium of painting we were having a show of contemporary black artists at the Studio Muse- tion is that we will know, the assumption of any black curator or that muse- ness. This kind of solipsism that says, “Well if I don’t know about it, it
audience member 21: Well, my dancing experience apart from being in Africa, I
duce so much identification and so much information about me—and [xxx] and sculpture for example, not other mediums, differently than white um in 1989. And I was asked, “Well, what’s their work like, is it primitive? um director is that we will know who the white artists are. I should know doesn’t exist. And don’t tell me about it, I am busy turn over and go to
travel about two months a year there, I don’t dance in this country. I don’t
excuse me, no, this was a few years ago—which sort of destroys me when I artists? Is it a conscious attempt? Is it like black American artists?” Interestingly, no one asked me if it was who is, I should know who [David] Salle is, I should know who [Eric] Fis- sleep.” All I can say is, that I really do believe that knowledge is power. And

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LOUISE LAWLER: A MOVIE WILL BE SHOWN WITHOUT THE PICTURE IF I CAN’T DANCE, I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION LOUISE LAWLER: A MOVIE WILL BE SHOWN WITHOUT THE PICTURE IF I CAN’T DANCE, I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION ADRIAN PIPER ADRIAN PIPER

the more we need to know in order to survive, the stronger we become. kind of environment I think my work would have a different character, so. audience member 27: That’s part of the problem.
And at some point it will become worth the while of the dominant culture
kinshasha conwill: Just real briefly, the museum is an institution whose pur- adrian piper: Yeah, yeah.
to study our culture. I think it is inevitable, it is just part of the dialectic. So.
pose is to educate the public. The great big public, whoever that is. And we
audience member 28: I taught in a public high school too as a student teacher,
kinshasha conwill: We have about five minutes I think, so just a few more are in Harlem so that starts with our own community, but it is within the
and I found that I was a lot better accepted once the other black teachers
questions. Yes. whole city, national, international, so our audience is quite broad.
made it clear that I was their friend too. That helped a lot. Just starting out
audience member 26: One thing I have really been exploring is ways you can use audience member 27: I have a lot of experience in an urban setting, like an all- was really difficult, but becoming friends and getting rides and going places
art and design to transform and educate society. One reason I am really in- black elementary school teaching art, and I think it’s probably a class prob- with the other teachers helped the kids accept me more. Maybe that helps in
terested in both of you, is it seems that, one thing that I have been looking at lem too, because it is a very lower class area and the school just doesn’t have your situation.
is going from within our without and they are complimentary and they are a lot of money and the children there… and I was wondering if your par-
kinshasha conwill: This will be the last question.
not in opposition. But it seems that you have chosen to educate the white ents taught you things so that so that you would be accepted, or so that you
population about the black experience, I mean both of you have, but you would fit in in the middle class, so that you could survive, as you put it. I was audience member 18: I think that kind of thing depends on where you are com-
have gone within by creating a studio school, and to me it seems that you are wondering, is that something that only parents can do? Because it seems ing from, and love communicates, if you are coming from love and then
going without. And I wanted to know if I was reading that correctly, or when that the children are so unreceptive to a white person going in there trying everything else will work out from that. The other thing I wanted to say
you made it your decision that your mission was to educate the white popula- to teach them something. It would give me a lot of gratification if I could was the black-white situation has come a long way. When I first went to
tion about the black experience, or when you chose to really explore the get through to them. And I feel that it’s probably, there might be something New York thirty-seven years ago, I couldn’t find a black graphic designer
black experience in art through the museum, or just exposing people to that. that I am not doing right, or maybe I am not understanding them, or where or illustrator. Now there are quite a few, and we just hired a young black
they are coming from. But I was wondering if there is something that a man who just graduated from Yale with a master’s degree to teach at
adrian piper: Well, okay, I guess. I am not sure that I can really answer your
white person can do that is not related, and it is a pretty early stage from Kansas. That wouldn’t have been heard of thirty years ago. What I am
question. And certainly I will let Kinshasha speak for herself. I never made
kindergarten up, but if you don’t have them right there when they are born, wondering is, will there ever be a black director of the Museum of Modern
the decision that my mission was to educate the white public. It is simply
and you’re not, you know, nurturing all the right things, or all the, you Art? You know wouldn’t that be a thing to aim for?
that, because my parents made an effort to acculturate me into the dominant
know. I was just wondering if there is something I can do, or a person can
culture, so that I would survive, that’s the culture I find myself in, that is the adrian piper: [xxx]
do for someone or does it have to come from the family or does it have to
culture I have to deal with, and that is the culture that without the informa-
come from someone within their own culture. audience member 29: Will Jesse Jackson be president?
tion I think they should have, presents obstacles to my ability to move
freely through the culture. For example, when I am in some inter-social sit- adrian piper: That is a very large question, and I don’t want to presume to an- kinshasha conwill: Yes, that will tell a lot. I want to thank Adrian Piper and I
uation, I am interacting say at a party or a dinner or something, and we are swer it. I think in my own case it is complicated because my family from want to thank all of you very much.
say mutually operating according to shared conventions of etiquette, and many generations back has been middle class. And so those conventions
(Applause)
all of a sudden the person violates those conventions by making a racist or just get transmitted from generation to generation. I guess my sense is that
sexist remark; as far as I am concerned the evening is over. It is ruined. And probably a necessary condition of making a difference is to not simply
I don’t want my evening ruined. (Laughs) I would like to be able to go stand in the role of teacher but to actually befriend someone, that is, make
through social situations with anybody and everyone and have at least some these conventions available to them, not simply as a role model but as a
shared understanding about what sorts of things are supposed to take place. friend and as someone with whom you have personal contact.
And if I don’t have that understanding I will do my best to make sure that
audience member 27: [xxx] accep
eventually it comes about. And I think that that is why it comes out in my
work. It’s a means of personal empowerment for me. If I were in a different

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