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Week 8 Notes: Image and Identity

Adrian Piper: "Passing for White, Passing For Black"

• Passing
  • vexed relationship between identity and visuality
  • there is a complex discourse on passing that is part of American literature.
  • shame is central to Piper's discussion of race and passing
    • shame is a motivation for passing or not passing
    • groundless shame (the oppressive treatment of African-Americans) creates passing as a cognitive fact (86) based in the sharp distinction between self perception and the perception of others
  • Piper recounts the need of individuals "to situate me in their conceptual mapping of the world, not only by naming or indicating the niche into which they felt I belonged, but by seeking my verbal confirmation of it."
  • appearance and essence
  • individual and group identity
• Racial identity and miscegenation (the "one-drop rule")
  • fear of "invisible blackness"
  • Piper suggests that outing is proscribed in black culture
• Whiteness: the unmarked racial identity
• "I believe our energy would be better spent on creating structured, personalized community forums for naming, confronting, owning, and resolving these feelings rather than trying to evade, deny, or suppress them." (107)
• "There is on right way of managing [my] racial identity." (109)
• Piper suggests that "Once we get clear about the subtleties of who in fact we are, we may be better able to see just what our ancestral entitlements actually are...(140).

Some examples of relevaent artists' works:

Adrian Piper:

• My Calling (Card) #1 (1986)
• Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features (1981) and Adrian Piper's 1977 U. S. Passport photo
• THE MYTHIC BEING: I / YOU / US #1-5, 1975 (part of THE MYTHIC BEING, 1972 - 1975 series)
• Vanilla Nightmares #3 (1986) E^
• Vanilla Nightmares #16 (1987)
• How to Handle Black People: A Beginner's Manual (1992)
• Piper's home page

 

Ngozi Onwurah (film maker): "Coffee Colored Children" (1988, Film) Body Beautiful (1991)

Nancy Burson: http://www.nancyburson.com/ (The Human Race Machine and other works).

David Wajnaroicz

• America: Heads of Family, Heads of State 1989-90
• One Day this Kid 1990
• Installation

Daniel Martinez

• Museum Tags 1993

Frida Kahlo

• self portrait with cropped hair, 1940
• self-portrait with bed 1937
• Self Portrait Between the Borderline of Mexico and the United States 1932

Kara Walker:

• editioned prints
• Keys to the Coop 1997
• The Means to an End . . . A Shadow Drama in Five Acts, 1995

Robert Colescott

• George Washington Carver Crossing the Deleware 1975
• Homage to Delcroix 1976
• Grandma and the Frenchman (identity crisis) 1990
• La Luna (that old Devil Moon) 1992
• Frankly Dear, I don't Give a Damn

Pepon Osario

• La Cama (The Bed) 1987
• El Chandelier 1988
• Badge of Honor (image one, image two)1995
• Scene of the Crime, 1993
• A mis adorables hijas (to my darling daughters) 1990

David Avolos (and the Boarder Arts collective)

• Welcome to America's Finest Tourist Plantation, 1988, San Diego

Edgar Hachevi Heap of Birds

• Natural
• Hosts Series

Lorna Simpson:

• A selection of works (unfortunately in poor resolution)
• Stereo Styles 1988
• Your Fine 1988
• Easy for Who to Say 1989

Faith Ringgold

• Die 1967
• Flag 1967
• United States of Attica
• Tar Beach
• Racial Questions

Martin Wong

• Sweet Oblivion exhibit

Alan Berliner

• Gathering Stones

Christian Boltanski

• GYMNASIUM CHASES, 1991
• Jewish School of Grosse Hamburgerstrasse in Berlin in 1939, 1994
• L'angeD'alliance
• Assorted works

 

Pat Ward Williams

• Accused /blowtorch/paddlock, 1986

Byron Kim

• Synecdoche 1991-3

Andres Serrano

• exhibition
• piss christ
• history of sex

 

Laura Aguilar

• In Sandy's Room photograph, 14" x 18", 1989

Lyle Ashton Harris

Ken Chu

Rene Cox