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Multichrome Mom and Dad, 1966 Acrylic paint on canvas,
16 x 18 in. Collection of the artist.
Thomas
Sokolowski, Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, talks to multi-media artist
Adrian Piper
Pittsburgh
gets a rare opportunity to experience works by contemporary artist Adrian
Piper in a three-part exhibition from March 4, 2001 through May 13, 2001. The
public will see two exhibitions: Adrian Piper: A
Retrospective, 1965-2000 curated by Maurice Berger; and MEDI(t)Ations:
Adrian Piper�s Videos, Installations, Performances, and Soundworks 1968-1992
curated by Dara Meyers-Kingsley. Piper will also create a site-specific work
for The Andy Warhol Museum called Prayer Wheel I.
Adrian Margaret Smith Piper’s objects, installations,
performances, videos, and soundworks are distinguished by their direct, active
relations between artist and spectator. She has focused on racism, racial
stereotyping and xenophobia for three decades, and presenting her artwork at
venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the
Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She received her
Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University, and teaches Philosophy
at Wellesley College.
Museum director Thomas Sokolowski has previously exhibited
Piper’s work in New York City, and she has visited The Warhol before, at the
invitation of the director and associate curator Margery King.
Thomas Sokolowski:
You’re a peculiarity in many
ways.
Adrian Piper:�
Thanks, Tom!
No, I mean it. First of all because you are an artist, and
artists are peculiarities. And, as you remember when we did that project
together in New York, the notion that you are engaged in two equally powerful
and serious fields, working as a philosopher and as a visual artist. You have
been able to keep those distinct worlds quite distinct. Why did you choose
that path?
Well, to a certain extent it had to do with my desire not
to force any connections artificially, between the two fields. I have a set
of fairly well defined interests in art, and a set of well defined interests
in philosophy, and there are all sorts of ways in which the two might
interconnect.
But they do not necessarily interconnect, for me
personally. The way they do interconnect for me personally is something that I
always find out in retrospect. And it’s better that way. Because if I try to
find the connections consciously, and then try to develop the connections
consciously, it feels as if everything is going on in too much of an
intellectual level. It really has to come from a deeper place than just the
intellect.
And so I basically have just let things take their own
course. So that is part of the answer. But the other part has to do with the
nature of the two fields in question. There really is not very much overlap
between academic philosophy and the art world. There is some overlap, with
some individuals who do aesthetics. But for the most part they are pretty
distinct fields. When I am in an art context, for me to start spouting
philosophy is going to guarantee that I will put everyone to sleep.
On that, some people might say
that they don’t feel comfortable in the world of contemporary art, that the
same is true for visual art. Do you think that is true? For your art, your
work and the way you have related to visual arts audiences?
I do think that is true as well for visual art. If a
person is not knowledgeable about the world of contemporary art, or seeing
and talking and hearing about contemporary art, and has to juggle with the
concepts and the approaches to contemporary art that anyone in the art world
is totally familiar with, that can be a frightening, threatening and
disorienting experience. It definitely works both ways. There is no doubt
about it. The technical and evolved nature of each field, relative to the
other, effectively keeps them apart, naturally. The normal guy who does not
have an interest in following either field is a stranger in both lands,
because both are specialized disciplines. To simply walk into a contemporary
art gallery and expect to understand what is on the walls, and why, is to
some extent very na�ve. And that has not been true since probably the 17th
century.
That really brings us to your work, to someone like yourself,
who really is one of the pioneers, a rich practitioner from the beginning of
the Minimalist and Conceptual art movements. Where you sort of jump ship with
your formalist friends is your choice of subject matter, i.e. race and
xenophobia, and human interaction and identity politics. One might say if you
are talking about racial prejudice, doesn’t that perforce throw you into a
kind of populist view? Racism is a thing that stands or yells or smells in
your face, and shouldn’t those affective elements be obvious if your work is
about that. When you walk into a contemporary gallery and you see a work
about prejudice, shouldn’t that be obvious? And if it is not obvious, how can
it affect the change that ostensibly an artist is trying to make in that
arena?
Yes. I think you’re right, and I think that is the way in
which my work operates on many different levels. The reason my work tends to
draw audiences that often do not find themselves in a museum context is that
there is an aspect of it that can speak to anyone. I like to think that is
the truly universal aspect of it, because those issues and the approaches I
take to the issues are in fact very widely accessible, and I think
there is something there that anyone can appreciate. They just have to
basically be awake.
And then there are deeper levels only accessible to people
who know the history of minimalism and conceptualism, and have an interest in
formal issues of structure and balance and proportion, and that kind of
thing. And then there is a deeper level that has to do with the relation of
the work to philosophical and spiritual issues. There is something in the
work that can draw a person if they are just minimally receptive, regardless
of where they’re coming from. That’s what I like to hope.
Self-Portrait
as a Nice White Lady, 1995 Photograph altered with oil crayon, 10 x 8 inches.
Collection of the artist
Very often, the hidden assumption when you hear that
all-art-is-for-everyone message, is that all art is going to be soothing. And
when that doesn’t happen, those expectations are violated. And having one’s
expectations violated can be a very distressing experience. I think very
often in the kind of work I do, the problem is very often, not that the work
is accessible, but that it is too direct. It’s almost the opposite problem.
People do not wanted to be confronted with a clear and unambiguous position
on something. They don’t want things to come in too quickly, without any kind
of mediation. That can be very upsetting. That ‘s not what they are
expecting.
For most people, museums are the world of culture and the world
of academia, the sublime venues for mediation. But the notion of the street,
or the real world, is the place for non-mediated direction. So in a sense
what you and many artists are saying is that “This is the street.”
I think this goes against that particularly American notion that museums are
zones of tranquillity. That’s where the shock comes.
Do you find, in a weird kind of way, that because there is that
kind of shock, one can be more effective in the galleries than on the
street?
You know, I’m worried about drawing any too specific
comparisons. I have had some experience doing direct political organizing–as
opposed to the ways that I try to communicate with people through my
artwork.
I think it is a real toss-up as to which is more
effective. The benefits of sustained political organizing are pretty obvious.
I think maybe we are just starting to explore the ways in which art can be
socially effective as well. In the case of art, the potential is there for
really internal psychological and emotional change. Because you are dealing
with viewers one-on-one, in a very personal and direct way, rather than as
part of a group. When someone is standing in front of a work of art, they are
in direct relation to that work of art. They are experiencing the work of art
without any intermediary between them. I think, again, it depends a great
deal upon what the viewer brings to the work of art, what set of assumptions,
how open the person is, how mentally and psychologically flexible they are.
There are all sorts of factors there. But the fact that a work of art can
address a viewer directly and in a one-on-one relationship, is a very
important catalytic function of art, that can’t be replicated by political
organizing or other kinds of political activities.
Well, I would like to think that only art is uniquely
placed to do just that–to catalyze those very deep changes in a person that
come from seeing something, and registering it on many levels, not all of
which are accessible to consciousness. So the first time around the person
thinks, “Oh, that’s very pretty.” The second time around they
think, “Oh, hmmm, why are all the people Black?” And then the third
time around, they think, “So here I am a white person looking at a
picture of all Black people�what does that mean?”
It just goes deeper and deeper, and there are more and
more questions that can be asked. If the person is subject to questioning and
self-analysis.
I think one of the most potent works that you have made, and one
of the more potent works on identity politics and introspection, is your
“Cornered” piece.” The viewer comes around the corner and
there you are�this calm , mild-mannered “librarianish” woman
wearing pearls (the artist herself seen on a t.v. screen), sitting there, and
you say, “This person has something to say to me, she’s someone I can
trust…” And you speak in this moderated tone, and all of a sudden what
you don’t expect starts pouring over you. You’re stuck. You’re sort of like
Sister Wendy in a sense (but not unattractively). This goes back to the
street discussion we were having–aggressive and in-your-face. I remember you
said to me one time, “I grew up as a middle-class person, and even if
someone is a disgusting pig at a party, my notion is not to slap him and
throw a drink in his face. That kind of upfrontness is just
unpleasant.”
Whereas if you come in and you inveigle someone, then you say,
“Oh, this is not what I thought.” There is a comfort level, that
that piece has. And then you are seduced, trapped.
But a piece like “Cornered” has a wonderful narrative
that just holds you there. That is a rare occasion. Over and above that the
fact that that piece speaks so articulately about race, it just holds you.
“What is she going to say next? What thing is she going to reveal
now?”
I have to say, I am of course flattered. But I am also
delighted to hear you say that. I remember when I was producing that piece.
The script went through so many different changes, and so many experiments
with ways of presenting this material. There was an early point at which I
was very worried about whether a long shot like this, with no edits
whatsoever–twenty minutes with no edits–could hold people’s attention. There
was one version that had lots of editing, cutaway shots, lots of jokes. It
was much messier than the final version. I felt that I needed to do that, to
keep people’s attention. In the end, I decided, “Well, to hell with
this. I’m a minimalist. It’s about clarity and simplicity. That’s just the
way it’s going to have to be. ”
Don�t you think that we’re really all artists, always telling
the same story, in subtle ways and different ways, and sometimes you hit a
plateau�but it’s always the same story.
I think that’s true. You tell the story, and each time you
tell it you go more deeply into it. And you draw out more implications, and
add more detail, and it acquires richness and resonance and depth because
each time you transcend the familiar and you take it one level deeper and you
move towards the unfamiliar.
On a different note�when you came here a year and a half ago,
Margery King, John Smith and I talked about the Warhol Archives,and how the
archives work in terms of your personal life and in terms of your family. Do
you remember?
Do I ever remember! Absolutely. It was because of my visit
to The Andy Warhol Museum and what I saw in the archives, and how the matter
of personal work, as well as artistic work, had been handled there, that I
decided not to destroy my own artwork. The documentation of my work was
actually a project that I had been working on for some time–getting all my
work documented, getting slides of everything, and getting everything
inventoried. So that I could then absolutely destroy most of the work that I
have been carrying around with me.
Why would you do that? Aside from asking who wants to store all
this, and and how much does it cost to store?
Those things are burden enough. I don’t want to
underestimate them. I was feeling oppressed by having to carry around all of
this stuff. But it is also a matter of the kind of artist that I now
recognize myself to be. I am someone who does pretty well in terms of getting
attention from the press, and discussions by critics about my work. I take
pride in knowing that my work generates discussion among thinking people, and
that they want to write about it, and kind of puzzle through it, and come to
conclusions about it.
That seems to be the way my work functions, as opposed to
being the kind of work which is a hot-market property. If you just wait
around two or three hundred years, I think my work will be a hot-market
property, precisely because of its place in art history, and the amount of
writing it is generating. It’s pretty secure.
But at the moment, I don’t sell a lot of work. And that’s
the price I pay for doing the kind of work I do, and I’m at peace with that.
And I have a day job which I don’t intend to quit, so there is no problem
there.
But given that, it just seemed to me to be really
pointless to have to deal with the physical realities and demands, of the
work itself.
The Warhol visit really changed my life, Tom. You have no
idea. Here’s what I did. I had been living in Wellesley faculty housing in a three-bedroom
apartment. I moved down to my mom’s cottage on Cape Cod, and I built a very
large addition onto that cottage. I contracted all of the work myself, for an
art storage basement, a library and a studio. I now have an archive of my
own. It’s very small–not even close to the scale of the Warhol Museum. But I
have a respectable place to store all of my artwork and archive all of my
papers. I basically have my artistic affairs in order. If I hadn’t spent that
time at the museum, I would basically have taken it to the dump.
O my God. If the Andy Warhol Museum does nothing else, except
have a major American artist say that, I can now go to heaven!
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