It's Just Art

Description:

Adrian Piper’s performance It’s Just Art (1980) examined the relationship between artists and viewers to the political realities assumed to stand outside of art contexts. 

The thirty-minute performance in the Grand Luxe Hall involved two projectors. One played a looping video showing Piper wearing sunglasses and a pencil mustache layered with a slideshow of news images from the Cambodian genocide. These images were synchronized with a reading of William Shawcross’s essay “The End of Cambodia?” (1980). The second projector contained fifteen thought balloons with first-person statements that offered running commentary on the process of viewing the performance. 

For the duration of the slideshow, Piper, dressed as she appears in the video, danced continuously to disco hits, including “Do You Love What You Feel?” (1979) by Rufus & Chaka Khan.

It’s Just Art was presented with assistance from Ralph Neri.

Presented in partnership with and/or, Seattle and Emily Carr College of Art and Design (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design).