Anybody interested in Adrian Piper?

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I'm researching her work for an art history presentation, and her site has a link that she suggests you click on "for a laugh." Upon following the link, you go to a site called askART.com (or something like that), and their bio of her says something like, "Piper is a white woman who pretended to be black and then acted angry that people assumed she was white." !?

Umm, isn't she black? I mean, I didn't think there was any question about it (although I know she's of mixed race). I wonder if this askART place is some kind of wiki site and someone with an axe to grind just changed the entry, or is the site itself run by someone just being a jerk? Do any of you know anything about this, like whether this site is known to be kind of disreputable, or is there actually a camp that feels that she "made up" being black to stir up controversy?? (That seems awfully far out there...)

It sounded to me like the person writing the bio just doesn't like her; and I also noticed while reading her autobiographical info on her site that she has had quite the long-drawn out dispute with Wellesley; these things and some other bits made me wonder if she is perhaps somewhat disliked? Do any of you know if she's thought of as a difficult person, or what the general feeling about her is in the art world? I really like her work, and she seems just brilliant as far as her knowledge of philosophy too; just a very interesting person all around, to me.

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Huh, I'm bumping myself up here because I just got another little tidbit to add to my puzzlement...I emailed a complaint to the askart site and asked them to correct their facts, as all the information I could find agrees that Piper is African-American; shockingly, someone responded to me practically instantly. He feels that he hasn't been able to establish her race one way or the other.

Here's what he says: "the St. James Guide, p. 422, says she was raised in Harlem, 'lived in a world willing to accept her as white . . .she chose to
claim herself as black.' "

Weird! That to me just says that she could've passed as white and chose not to. Duh, she says that herself; that's a big part of her identity, that she is proud of her black heritage and wouldn't want to pass as white. But the askart entry says that she IS white and pretended to be black. The guy who contacted me ignored that aspect completely and offers nothing to back that up...

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I had never heard of her but your initial post intrigued me and I looked her up. From what little I found your latter interpretation sounds about right, that she maybe could've passed but didn't. Far different from what the askart guy seems to be saying.

This seems to be a photo of her, (and the content plus the title, "Self Portrait of a Nice White Lady" seems to directly address this whole thing):

http://www.artfacts.net/exhibpics/13098.jpg

It seems clear to me that she's saying that maybe she could pass but she has no interest in doing so.

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Here we go, this essay seems to go into it pretty thoroughly:

http://www.adrianpiper.com/docs/passing.pdf

Excerpt:

Quote:

The most famous and highly respected member of the faculty observed me for awhile from a distance and then came forward. Without introduction or preamble he said to me with a triumphant smirk, "Miss Piper, you're about as black as I am."

-snip-

The accusation was one I had heard before, but more typically from other blacks. My family was one of the very last middle-class, light-skinned black families left in our Harlem neighborhood after most had fled to the suburbs; visibly black working-class kids my age yanked my braids and called me "Paleface." Many of them thought I was white, and treated me accordingly. As an undergraduate in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I attended an urban university to which I walked daily through a primarily black working-class neighborhood. Once a black teenaged youth called to me, "Hey, white girl! Give me a quarter!" I was feeling strong that day, so I retorted, "I'm not white and I don't have a quarter!" He answered skeptically, "You sure look white! You sure act white!" And I have sometimes met blacks socially who, as a condition of social acceptance of me, require me to prove my blackness by passing the Suffering Test: They recount at length their recent experiences of racism and then wait expectantly, skeptically, for me to match theirs with mine. Mistaking these situations for a different one in which an exchange of shared experiences is part of the bonding process, I instinctively used to comply. But I stopped when I realized that I was in fact being put through a third degree. I would share some equally nightmarish experience along similar lines, and would then have it explained to me why that wasn't really so bad, why it wasn't the same thing at all, or why I was stupid for allowing it to happen to me. So the aim of these conversations clearly was not mutual support or commiseration.

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Have only skimmed the posts here, but I think askART.com is one of the bigger websites - not on my own go to list, so I don't know much about it.

Well, bigger, what am I saying, I don't know. Even I, websit dodo, recognize the name.

I think. Or am I mixing it up with Ask.com? I don't think so, it comes up sometimes when I look up various artists' names.

Back after further consideration.

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Not looking at the site just yet, but commenting on your experience, cypher, that is just one guy. I've started to follow comments on various websites, and the comments vary all over the place. I read about politics and style and blogs mentioned in news sites...
I think that is just one guy's opinion. And.. good for just that.

I have another interest here, in that my niece's mother was from Liberia, and her dad a white american. At least the last bunch of times we talked at length, I understood that she navigates the world as 'mixed', her word - pleased to have both heritages. She tends to get crushes on guys with mixed ethnicity, mixed in different ways - they're more 'interesting'.

Back later.

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Just read Sozobe's clip...
she sounds sharp to me. Tough place, bias encircling.

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OK, I followed your tracks, or I think I did, Cypher, and I see what you mean. I'm not clear if that comment is by askArt, or some fool posting on it. Quite a puzzlement. But it may be part of the askArt format - whoever posts, posts. I do recognize the site, my doubt is gone, but I'm not all that familiar with it.

My hunch is that that is not an official site description of her, indeed I very much doubt it.

Y'know, I once was crazy about a person's work that I saw in NY, and signed my name to a sign in sheet with an email address and a scrawled lengthy comment, and I heard from the artist, who I still think of as wonderful - the woman who did those monoprint collage things.

Piper might have a website, you might be able to just 'talk' with her.

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Soooo, following the look at the site, and then her indication to look at it for a laugh.... we have irony...

Might be fun if some of us posted on the site.
I might get around to posting a qualm.

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If you were totally hip, you could link this thread to your report..

though I suppose you'd be 'exposed'.

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Just noticed this... I got the essay from this page:

http://www.adrianpiper.com/autobiography.shtml

Click on the words " Here's a link you'll enjoy. Get ready for a good laugh." at the bottom of that page.

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I'm partway through reading that essay you posted a snippet from, Soz; it's interesting reading. I really like her, good writing, interesting artwork, and good sense of humor too. Glad you looked her up!

Osso, re the question of whether that bio of her was just some post from Joe Blow Poster and not actually written by a staff member of AskART, I think it was definitely their "official" info. And it does seem to be a fairly big site, so you'd hope it'd be more than just one guy's opinion, but I think that may be what it is. Confused

Weird. But the guy who responded to me did say he was looking into it more, so I hope it'll be corrected...I think she deserves more respect than that info gave her, for the racial issues she's dealt with.

Oh, and I like your idea of linking to all of this in my presentation, I think I just may do that! It'd be interesting to show that her racial background is still cropping up as far as how people respond to her and her work.

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Yeah, that's how I found it too, Soz! Isn't that interesting that she (or the curator of her site, dunno which) linked to it with that comment! After browsing around her site more, I'm really glad I picked her for my project. Cool lady.

Oh, and I was thinking I might use that "Nice White Lady" work as one of my examples in the presentation. I get a kick out of the title and her thought balloon... Laughing

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or at least commentary about the commentary about it - I assume you follow that - is still cropping up.

The denouement for me, at least this evening, is that I've gained someone to be interested in.

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I haven't seen her performances/installations. All I've seen is your question and the askART - or someone's - comment which had to do with whiteness.

Now I'm interested in why this is a choice in your class - I am apt to like the teacher...

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ossobuco wrote:

or at least commentary about the commentary about it - I assume you follow that - is still cropping up.

Yes, I follow you-- what I was thinking I'd like to add in is just that little quote from the site: "she's a white woman pretending to be black and then acting angry." I think that's kind of a telling little glimpse into some of the attitudes she must've encountered...

Quote:

The denouement for me, at least this evening, is that I've gained someone to be interested in.

That's good! Smile

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It would be nice - though not necessary, I don't think, as both you and I were perplexed, and maybe soz was, about whether that was a site explanation - if you could nab whether that is a site description or not. Well, never mind, it is mysterious to a person new to the site.

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I'm glad you dropped the breadcrumbs, I'm interested too.

The "Nice White Lady" picture reminds me a lot of Zora Neale Hurston's "I love myself when I am laughing... and then again when I'm looking mean and impressive" pair of pics. (Well, the mean and impressive one.) (Adore the quote, too.)

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Well, I'm trying to find pictures of some of her installations and not coming up with much. We've talked about a couple of them in class that were interesting, wish I could come up with some pictures or links.

It's a class focusing on women and feminisim in art, so she's included for how her work deals with sexism, racism, otherness, that kind of thing.

I bet you would like the teacher; I'm really liking her. Very intelligent, lots of experience in the art world, and very passionate about art (and women's issues). I've often wished she had time to come on a2k, actually! She'd be a good addition to the bunch here.

I'm trying to find some links to info about her right now, and a quick Googling came up with lots of hits, but I'm sorting through them right now to see which are really her...might be back in a bit with links to her works or sumpfing interesting like that...

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Okey dokey, here's a link to my teacher's webpage, although it says it's under construction, you can see a half dozen or so of her works...This is the first I've seen of her work; I'm intrigued...

http://www.angelfire.com/art2/artword/works.html

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Anybody interested in Adrian Piper?

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