Adrian Piper since 1965

foundation.generali.at
May 17 through August 18, 2002

fig.: Adrian Piper, Vanilla Nightmare#13, 1986, Kohlezeichnung auf Zeitungspapier
Courtesy Adrian Piper und Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

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This exhibition will be the first major retrospective of Adrian Piper's important œuvre to be presented in Austria: in fact, the largest ever to be shown in Europe. A broad spectrum of her works will be displayed, ranging from paintings and early conceptual works of the sixties and the performances of the seventies to recent works. Even as a relatively young artist, Adrian Piper, born in 1948 in Harlem/New York, USA, already had an impressive career as a conceptual artist. At the start of the seventies, performances in public began to take over from austere, text-based works appearing in publications.

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Since the eighties, Adrian Piper has been known for her interrogations of themes such as racism, xenophobia, and the nature of the self. Her works-photo/text collages, drawings, performances and (video) installations-are conceived as an act of political communication. The artist wants to provoke viewers into reacting directly to their own often deeply rooted impulses and answers regarding these topics. Because Piper is also an academically trained philosopher, she avoids using an elitist "artistic language." A series of early conceptual works and audio pieces produced by the artist in the sixties will be presented here for the first time in Europe.

An extensive publication will be accompanying the exhibition. This book, the first German-language publication about Adrian Piper, will deal with both aspects of this artist, author and philosopher: her artistic work and her writings on art and art criticism. Further European exhibitions are planned following this presentation at the Generali Foundation.

Curator: Sabine Breitwieser
Curatorial Assistance, Exhibition Production: Nadja Wiesener