Adrian Piper and Jen Davis

In chapter 5 of Jayne Wark’s book Radical Gestures, titled ‘Roles and Transformations,’ Wark describes Adrian Piper’s work as both subjective and objective, as defined by Piper herself. Piper indicates that her work is objective by “inhering in the reflective consciousness of an external audience or subject… and my own consciousness of me as an object, as the object of my self-consciousness.” (Wark 142). After attending Jen Davis’ presentation at the Milwaukee Art Museum and seeing her photographs for the first time, I was amazed at the similarities I found between Piper and Davis’ work, albeit the two artists approach what they represent in very different ways. I will examine the similarities between Piper and Davis and how the artists represent their work on both subjective and objective platforms.

In Piper’s first Catalysis performance she walked around a “hang-out” space for artists in New York wearing a blindfold, earplugs, nose plug and gloves. Wark notes that, “her self-objectification also turned her into a spectacle; yet, paradoxically, this enabled her to function as a subjective agency capable of affecting change in others.” (Wark 140). Davis, an overweight woman, addresses the normative ideal of beauty by turning the camera on herself and photographing her “non-normative” body, creating in herself both the spectacle and the agency capable of affecting change in others, by forcing the viewer to reflect on what the normative ideal of beauty actually means.

Wark notes that the merging of personal and social politics is central to Piper’s work, particularly to The Mythic Being, a piece about the antagonistic “other” who represents the “hostility and alienation… that represented the alien in all of us.” (Wark 144). Piper reflects on her work and the relationship between herself and the viewer, stating that, “My purpose is to transform the viewer psychologically, by presenting him or her with an unavoidable concrete reality that cuts through the defensive rationalizations by which we insulate ourselves against the facts of our political responsibility.” (Wark 144).

Davis is representing the “other” in her work as well. Her alienation as an overweight woman is portrayed in her single-subject self-portraits, forcing the viewer to look at her body and to break down their own preconceptions that the viewer might have about her weight. Davis makes her work socially political by challenging the viewer to deconstruct assumptions they make about normative beauty.

Piper and Davis both execute their work in very different ways. Piper, a conceptual performance artist, executes her work in sometimes aggressive, physically direct ways. Davis, a photographer, presents her work in a more physically indirect way by presenting her body through the still image. Although they both have different ways of presenting their work, the impact of their objective/subjective message is powerful.

*Adrian Piper photograph, Catalysis IV, taken from “The Postmodern Body” website on departments.risd.edu
*Jen Davis photograph, Untitled, taken from “Yale MFA Photographers” on flickr.com