Daniel Marzona 11 January 2006
Taschen America
6671 Sunset Boulevard
Suite 1508
Los Angeles, CA 90028
USA

Dear Daniel Marzona,

Thank you for including me in your book, Conceptual Art, and for sending me a copy. I think it is a very good book and I am enjoying reading it.

I would like to call your attention to some oddities and errors in the entry on me, as follows:

(1) There are three images of me or my face and no images of work that do not include my face. I find this odd because the vast majority of works I have done do not represent my physical presence in them at all.

(2) The text states, “After working for a short time as a painter, in 1967 she came into contact with the fringes of the New York Conceptual Art movement.” In 1967 I met Sol LeWitt and we became good friends. From 1968 to 1974 I was his upstairs neighbor and became part of his social circle, which included, in addition to his partners Mary Peacock and later Mimi Wheeler, Carl Andre, Bob Smithson, Joseph Kosuth and Christine Koslov, Dan Graham, Mel Bochner and Dorothea Rockburne, Hans Haacke, Hanne Darboven, Lawrence Weiner and Jan Dibbets. If these individuals were the “fringes,” where exactly was the center?

(3) The text states, “The artist, who was at that time only 21, had considerable success with her mostly self-referential works.” Actually I was not 21 but 20.

(4) My works at that time were not self-referential , i.e. they did not refer to me. They were self-reflexive, i.e. they referred to themselves.

(5) The text states, “In 1971 Piper decided to shift her artistic activities from the galleries and museums to the public space.” I made this decision with the performance work I did in 1970 and the work reproduced, Catalysis IV, was done in 1970, not “1970/71.”

(6) Catalysis IV should be credited as follows: © Adrian Piper Research Archive/ Collection Thomas Erben. He would be able to supply you with the dimensions of the photographs.