That the Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan has for some years been one of the Italian public institutions most attentive to the research of artists attentive to social contexts, as well as to performance, is fairly well known among insiders: the artistic direction of Diego Sileo has contributed conspicuously to defining this identity, who, with competence, curiosity and without disdain for provocation, devotes part of the programming to this medium, through exhibitions by both Italians and international figures, re-establishing paths that mark the history of the Milanese institution. What is perhaps less obvious to those who do not systematically frequent the PAC is that the building itself seems to favor lateral trends with respect to the visual arts tradition, “naturally” open to explorations that elude the “closed closet” of modernism: the large window overlooking the gardens of Villa Reale is an osmotic membrane with the green area behind it, its continuous chromatic and luminous mutability, its pleasant but intrusive presence. And equally, the balcony that runs parallel to the central space on the ground floor is easily transformed into the balcony from which to watch what unfolds below. An ideal gallery, a trope of a theatrical dimension concealed just beneath the skin of the museum space.
From March 19 through June 9, the PAC hosts the first Italian retrospective of Adrian Piper (New York 1948), a leading figure in U.S. postconceptual art, particularly representative for his constant engagement with aspects and issues related to racism, but with rare Italian appearances, including the timely Speaking to Myself. L’autobiografia progressiva di un oggetto d’arte, published in Italian by Marilena Bonomo in 1975, with the presumable mediation of Sol Lewitt; the prestigious Leone d’oro at the Venice Biennale in 2015, the one directed by Owki Enwezor; the translation of Meta-art (1973) for Castelvecchi in 2017 to which add a few inclusions of works in collective reviews. Although the performative dimension alluded to at the outset is entrusted this time only to the photographic and audiovisual documentation with which many of Piper’s interventions are accounted for, in particular the splendid Funk Lessons (1983-85) via Sam Samore’s film, the curator’s style is quite recognizable. In fact, except for a few early works, everything looks out into the world, beyond the conventional problems of visual
The visitor is greeted by a buzz of voices emanating from sound and video installations that punctuate the exhibition itinerary: a choral dimension highlighted from the earliest works, with Negative Self-Portrait (1966), a figurative work on paper, signed “Adrienne,” just before then the adoption of the more neutral – but with masculine overtones – Adrian. The artist thus presents herself with a multiple and multifaceted identity: although she often resorts to her own drawn, photographed, videotaped image, her connotations remain deliberately blurred as much with respect to belonging to a defined ethnic group – as the definition that stands out on promotional materials of the exhibition, Race Traitor, warns – as from the point of view of gender. If this second aspect is mobilized only indirectly in The Mythic Being (1973-1980), Race Traitor is the title of a 2018 work in which the artist reworks the reflection on his own identity formulated forty years earlier, with Political Self-Portraits (1978-1980), played on the association between the reproduction of the passport photograph-the quintessential instrument of bureaucratic identification of the citizen-and a series of biographical events in which Piper became aware of the racial group to which he belonged or to which others believed he belonged. The title of the exhibition, therefore, also alludes to the experience of passing, thematized by the artist in these and other interventions, evoking its ambiguities in the wake of both literary tradition and social pressures.
Through disorienting approaches, Piper works to erode the lines of social constructions that divide people into racial groups: from the repetition of clichés to their overturning, to the exploration of situations in which those present-including visitors-are disoriented. This is the direction taken by the famous installation Cornered (1988) in which the museum audience also becomes the recipient of Professor Adrian Piper’s monologue[1], broadcast from a television set installed between two birth certificates in which the same individual is referred to as “octoroon” in 1953 and “white” in 1965.
In the video, in fact, Piper explains – directly addressing the visitor in the room – precisely the theoretical impossibility of defining oneself as white or black in U.S. society, where contacts between the two groups are ancient and ramified. The feeling of being part of the problem, part of the problem, of being among the artist’s interlocutors never leaves us: from the repeated use of the pronoun “you” in the titles, to the adoption of the sociological inquiry that in the series “Close to Home” (1987) brings out-potentially in one’s biographies-omissions about one’s own unconfessed racism; lights that alternately turn on and off in Black Box /White Box (1992) transforming the observer into the observed to the use of mirrors in Das Ding-an-sich bin ich (2018).
While forgoing linear narrative with the intention of lowering the audience into the midst of the rehearsals of a choir, in which voices alternate and overlap, the exhibition unravels a conversation spanning a nearly six-decade-long career, punctuated by prestigious awards, as can be deduced from the collections from which the pieces in the exhibition come, consistent in semantic core but diverse in medium and style, from early works indebted to conceptual art, to recent digital animations, passing through installations, videos and variations around the use of photography and writing.
Among the most stylistically striking works are the Vanilla Nightmares (1986-1989, fig. 6) charcoal drawings executed on the pages of The New York Times. Made famous by Hal Foster’s reflections in The Return of the Real, the works insist on the fears that fuel racism: with exaggerated physiognomies and conspicuously eroticized bodies, the artist sketches black and white women and men who visually interact with the figures reproduced in advertisements or photographed for the news, and generally resonate with the news stories about South Africa published in the newspaper. But from life one appreciates how much the strokes, deliberately caricatured and simplified, do not shy away from the neo-expressionist atmospheres of those years, once again connecting personal and collective, public and private, and with an ante litteram intersectional approach.
[1] In addition to being a visual artist, Piper has taught theoretical philosophy in numerous US universities; Since 2005 he has been living in Berlin.
Adrian Piper, RACE TRAITOR, PAC- Padiglione Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 19.03 – 09.06.2024
images: (cover1) Adrian Piper, «Das Ding-an-sich bin ich», 2018, photo Nico Covre (2) Adrian Piper, «Race Traitor», 2018, digital print (3) Adrian Piper, «Cornered», 1988, video (4) Adrian Piper, «Close to Home, 1987, photographies, text, audiotape (5) Adrian Piper, RACE TRAITOR», PAC, Milano, ph Nico Covre – Vulcano Agency (6) Adrian Piper, «Vanilla Nightmares #11», 1986, charcoal on newspaper
