Adrian Piper: Autobiography 1965-2025

I curated this online exhibition of my autobiographical works myself, over the last ten years, in order to clear up some misunderstandings. When we watch Gudrun Ritter playing a film role, we do not infer that her character is an autobiographical one, i.e. that the performance is about her. Similarly, when we see Eleanor Antin bearded, costumed and posed in her photograph Portrait of the King (1972), we do not infer that her appearance in the photograph is autobiographical, i.e. that the photograph is about her. We do not normally infer from the mere fact that an artist uses her person in her work that the work itself is therefore autobiographical.

So when I occasionally use my person in my artwork, the automatic assumption that the work in question is autobiographical, i.e. that it is about me, deserves attention. It is of particular interest that this assumption is always made about works that are typically interpreted as addressing the widespread social problems of racial stereotyping and xenophobia. These problems are not about me. They are about us.

A work in any medium is autobiographical if its subject matter is primarily and in particular the person who created it. The subject matter of the 32 works created over the last 60 years that constitute this exhibition is primarily and in particular my person. So these works are autobiographical.

Familiar works of mine that do not appear in the following series do not have primarily and in particular my person as their subject matter, even if they use my person primarily or in particular in the composition or execution of the work. So those works are not autobiographical.

-- Adrian Piper
02 August 2025