Artist Adrian Piper (American, born 1948)
Title My Calling (Card) #1
Date 1986
Medium Offset lithograph on paper
Dimensions Sheet: 2 x 3 1/2 in. (5.1 x 8.9 cm)
Credit Line Gift of John P. Bowles, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 2006.558
About this Work
Adrian Piper’s work can be disturbing, thought provoking, and heartbreaking. As a conceptual and performance artist, she uses a politically charged, in-your-face approach that makes many viewers feel uncomfortable, forcing them to confront their own prejudices and/or preconceptions. In the early 1970s, she gained widespread notoriety when she dressed up as an African American man—the “mythic being”—in order to expose racial, class, and gender stereotypes. A trained philosopher, she often uses language (written and spoken) as a means for exploring how people communicate their feelings.
Piper also explores issues of personal identity and social boundaries. Using the antiquated nineteenth-century social convention of calling cards, Piper adopts a passive-aggressive approach to showcase how racism and sexism are intrinsically harmful. One of two “calling cards” in the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art’s collection, this example uses misperception of her race (she is a light-skinned African American) to directly confront anyone who utters a racist remark in her presence. While not precious or valuable in the traditional sense, these bits of ephemera (available free in her installations) clearly represent her ideology. The focus in these mass-produced objects is not on craft, but on the ideas behind their production.
