MRPJ#2/Untitled: Excerpt from “On Adrian Piper” by Hilton Als

Piper says: This is my work here; she also says: this is my work here and what do you think about it and if you think about it, why so in that/this way? Who are you?

reprint of image from MRPJ #2

Generally, we do not look at things I order to learn anything about ourselves. Take photographs, for instance. They make us “sad”, but why? That is not the decisive moment they are meant to provoke, exactly. Mostly we are dumb to images. Really, we are. So if an artist puts one up to face your consciousness (as Adrian Piper does) then they are generally considered to be impolite (art, like literature, is a gentleman’s field, so called).