My Calling (Card) #2, 1986 by Adrian Piper
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 the two “calling cards” in the Indiana University Art Museum’s collections (the brown one) uses misperception of her race (she is a light-skinned African American) to directly confront anyone who utters a racist remark in her presence. The white card thwarts the presumption of men that she is available simply because she is unaccompanied. She says she handed these cards out in the above situations and has since exhibited them for viewers to take and use. While not precious or valuable in the traditional sense, they clearly represent her ideology. The focus in these mass-produced objects is not on craft, but on the ideas behind their production.
