APRA Logo

NEWS

May 2024

A New Foundation for APRA

The new foundation is called the Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation. It is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organization [SCIO], an independent and self-sufficient entity based in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Its mission is to advance the same charitable goals as those for which the APRA Foundation Berlin was originally established in 2009. That original foundation has applied to the German authorities for permission to advance these goals by donating its assets to further the mission of the Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation. More information about both foundations is available through the Gateway of this website, which has been updated accordingly. Take a look!

Adrian Piper, Race Traitor, 2018. 36” x 24” (91,44 cm x 60,96 cm). Digital print, signed and numbered edition of 7. Photograph photo credit: Fotofix. Rennie Collection, Vancouver. © Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) Foundation Berlin.

NEWS

March 2024

Adrian Piper

Race Traitor

Retrospective Exhibition
PAC Milan
Via Palestro 14,
Milan
19 March - 9 June 2024

Adrian Piper, The Mythic Being: Cruising White Women, 1975. Documentation of the performance. Three silver gelatin prints. 8" x 10" (20,3 cm x 25,4 cm). Documentation photo credit: James Guttmann. Collection of Eileen Harris Norton. © Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) Foundation Berlin.

NEWS

April 2023

Harvard Arts Medal

2023

Adrian Piper

PRESS RELEASE

Program: Harvard’s ARTS FIRST Festival

Recorded Award Ceremony:
President Bacow’s Address
Adrian Piper’s Response

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

Adrian Piper, Wahlkampagne, Entwurf: Bildungsrepublik Deutschland

NACHRICHTEN

27 Oktober 2021

WAHLKAMPAGNE:
Eine Kunstaktion zur Bildungspolitik.
Denkbare Möglichkeit:

BILDUNGSREPUBLIK
DEUTSCHLAND

News March 2021

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

NEWS

March 2021

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the selection of its Multi-Disciplinary Fellow
for 2021

Fotonachweis: © Stadt Goslar/Stefan Sobotta

PRESSEMITTEILUNG

NEWS

21 January 2021

Preisträgerin

Goslarer Kaiserring

2021

Adrian Piper

NACHRICHTEN

01 Januar 2021

Wahlkampagne

Ein dreiteiliges Kunstwerk, das spätestens am 1. Januar 2021 (also im Jahr der Bundestagswahl) eröffnet, und solange andauert, bis jede Klasse auf jeder Stufe, in jeder Schule und Universität, in jedem Fachbereich, in jedem Bundesland das 15:1 maximal wirksame Studierende/Lehrer*in Verhältnis erfüllt.

STELLUNGNAHME

The Multi-Purpose Model

News April 22 2020


Finally figured out what to do with
all that toilet paper I’ve been hoarding.

NEWS

22 April 2020

SCHUTZMASKE
PFLICHT

The new, stylish, Casper-The-Friendly-Ghost look

News April 2020


This is not the first time I have regretted rejecting my mother’s offer to teach me how to use a sewing machine.

I regret firms that price-gouge the protective masks they could produce gratis and en masse even more.

NEWS

07 April 2020

SCHUTZMASKE
EMPFEHLUNG

STICK ‘EM UP!!! Just like in the Wild West.

News March 2020

I understand that gun sales in the U.S. are skyrocketing.
Here in Europe, we don’t need guns.
We just need to take out our hankies and use them.

NEWS

23 March 2020

KONTAKTVERBOT

News October 2018

Patanjali
Compiler and editor of the Yoga Sutra

News March 2018

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

NEWS

March 2019

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the selection of its Multi-Disciplinary Fellow
for 2019
News October 2018

Digital image © 2018 The Museum of Modern Art, NY. Artwork © Adrian Piper Research Archive Berlin. Photographed by John Wronn, Martin Seck, Robert Gerhard and Jonathan Muzikar.

NEWS

January 2019

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce a new section of the APRA website offering a comprehensive scholarly resource for museum studies specialists and other interested researchers working on Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions 1965-2016. It offers in-depth information about key personnel and statistics, selected installation shots, a walk-through video of the installation, a detailed architectural floor plan, symposia video documentation, publications, and selected reviews.

News September 2018

Adrian Piper, Das Ding-an-sich bin ich, 2018. Eight mirror cubes, each 180 × 60 × 60 cm (70.86” × 23.62” × 23.62”), each housing concealed sound system; eight 8-minute audio files; floor-wide grid of 60 cells each 60 × 60 cm (23.62” × 23.62”). Room dimensions variable. Installation view Akademie der Künste. Photo credit: Constantin Schroeder. Collection and © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin.

NEWS

September 2018

Käthe Kollwitz Prize
2018
Adrian Piper

Exhibition:

1 September - 14 October 2018
Akademie der Künste
Pariser Platz 4
10117 Berlin
Germany

With the kind support of the Cologne Kreissparkasse which funds the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne.

NEWS

27 March – 22 July 2018

“Expansive and invaluable … Piper has expanded the very definition of political art, making this retrospective feel superbly acute.”
The New Yorker

Adrian Piper:
A Synthesis of Intuitions
1965-2016

The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
Please enter at 18 West 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
USA

PRESS RELEASE

News March 2018

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

NEWS

March 2018

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the selection of its Multi-Disciplinary Fellow
for 2018
News January 2018

NEWS

January 2018


Escape To Berlin: A Travel Memoir ISBN #978-3-9813763-4-0
£25.00
Hardcover, 328 pages. 110 full-color reproductions.
Bilingual English/German edition.

"Takes on the urgency and and melodrama of a psychological thriller"
The New York Times

"Brilliant and harrowing" – Artforum

"Brilliantly lucid, entirely engaging, destined to become a classic
American memoir" -- Hyperallergic

In 2005 Adrian Piper secretly emigrated from the United States. Several months passed before anyone realized she had disappeared. She resurfaced in Berlin and has lived there ever since. Piper has consistently and firmly refused to return to the U.S. or explain why she left. Many assume it was because she discovered her name on the U.S. Department of Transportation Security’s Suspicious Travelers Watch List. Others point to Wellesley College’s forcible termination of her tenured Full Professorship. Yet others speculate that George W. Bush’s presidency, or American racism, or the invasion of Iraq compelled her to leave. All of these conjectures are groundless. ESCAPE TO BERLIN: A Travel Memoir is a gripping autobiographical narrative that provides a full account of the facts.

ORDER THE BOOK
News April 2017

Video still from Adrian Moves to Berlin (2007 [Performance]/ 2017 [Video Wall Projection]; 01:02:33)

NEWS

April 2017

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the availability for rental of a new video, Adrian Moves to Berlin (2007 [Performance]/ 2017 [Video Wall Projection]), through APRA’s Video Rental page at http://adrianpiper.co../berlin/vs/video.shtml
News March 2017

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

NEWS

March 2017

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the selection of its Multi-Disciplinary Fellow for 2017

Adrian Piper, The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1-3, 2013-2017. Installation + Group Performance. 3 grey walls reaching from floor to ceiling, 3 golden circular desks, golden embossed letters, 3 lecterns, 3 lean stools, computer system, 3 receptionists (one behind each desk). Detail: The Rules of the Game #2. Photo Credit: Anonymous. Collection Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin.

NEWS

February 2017




           THE
           PROBABLE
TRUST
           REGISTRY

THE RULES OF THE GAME #1-3

24 February – 3 September 2017

Hamburger Bahnhof
Museum für Gegenwart Berlin
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Invalidenstraße 50-51
10557 Berlin
News May 2015

NACHRICHTEN

Berlin, den 29. August 2015

Vor genau zehn Jahren kam ich heimlich und uneingeladen am Flughafen Berlin-Tegel an, während Orkan Katrina an der Golfküste der USA wütete. Im Flugzeug sahen wir sprachlos die Bilder an. Mit Katies Hilfe brachte ich die zwei Katzen Ginger und Kali in der Flugkabine mit, und sendete alles übrige in drei großen Containern per Schiff. Ich hinterließ nichts. Während der ersten acht Wochen in Berlin, hatte ich in meiner kleinen Dachwohnung buchstäblich nur ein Dach überm Kopf. Ich wollte bloß weg, aus der Schußlinie entkommen, mich in Sicherheit befinden und in Ruhe gelassen werden. Seitdem habe ich doch fast keine Ruhe gehabt, sondern das beste Jahrzehnt meines Lebens, das mit so vielen Momenten reiner Freude und Befriedigung erfüllt worden ist, wie ich es mir hätte nie vorstellen können. Zahlreicher Frust und Hindernisse sind mir auch begegnet, aber daraus habe ich eine Lektion gelernt: nämlich, Ihr Deutschen seid verrückt, ewig hin- und hergerissen zwischen eurer enormen nach vorne strebenden Naturenergie, und euren findigen Strategien, sie zu hemmen und zu kanalisieren. Es ist mir ein Privileg dabei zu sein, um bezeugen zu können, wie sich eine abgesonderte Gesellschaft ohne das Gift von Rassismus allmählich wieder vereinigt; und durch die Verarbeitung ihrer Vergangenheit ihrer Zukunft sichert. Ich bete, Ihr werdet die neulich in Deutschland angekommenen Flüchtlinge mindestens demgemäß behandeln. Denn ich war auch mal einer, und Ihr wart gütig zu mir. Dadurch habt Ihr mir vor allem viel beigebracht, von dem Land, das ich hinter mir ließ. Schade, daß es euch nicht auch gelungen ist, mir eure verfluchte Sprache beizubringen (bei diesem Text hat mir Robert geholfen), während ich mein Englisch allmählich verliere. Nun müßt Ihr dafür büßen, durch die Qual, meine nun zweiseitig furchtbaren Sprachkenntnisse erdulden zu müssen. Auch Schade. Hauptsache ist aber, Ihr habt es für mich möglich gemacht, derartiges Leben zu führen, das meinen tiefsten Werten entspricht. Das hätte ich nicht geschafft, wenn ich die Entscheidung nicht getroffen hätte, hierher permanent einzuwandern. Ich riskierte alles dafür, und es hat sich gelohnt. Ich habe heute also sehr viel zu feiern. Auf das nächste Jahrzehnt bei euch freue ich mich riesig.

News March 2015

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

NEWS

March 2015

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the selection of its Multi-Disciplinary Fellow for 2015
News February 2014

Adrian Piper, Second Wave Feminism: Unfinished Business (2014; Video lecture/ discussion, 01:49:41). Photo credit: National Academy of Art, Oslo.

NEWS

December 2014

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the availability of a new open access video, Second Wave Feminism: Unfinished Business, a talk delivered to the National Academy of Art, Oslo, to commemorate the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage in Norway. The second half of the video consists in a very interesting audience discussion inflected by continuing local debate about the meaning of the mass murders and bombings in Norway in 2011.

ADRIAN PIPER

THE
PROBABLE TRUST
REGISTRY

THE DESTINY AND INTERPRETATIONS OF THE WORK ARE PART OF THE WORK.

NEWS

May 2014

News May 2014

May 3-31

News February 2014

Video still from Passing Beyond Passing:
Imitation of Life (1934, USA). Director: John M. Stahl

NEWS

February 2014

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the premiere screening of a newly available video, Passing Beyond Passing (2004), at the IHME Contemporary Art Festival, Helsinki, Finland, on 6 April 2014 during the IHME Days. For more information on the Festival, please visit http://www.ihmefestival.fi/en/programme/films/. Passing Beyond Passing will be available for rental thereafter through APRA’s Video Rental page at http://adrianpiper.co../berlin/vs/video.shtml.
News May 2013

ADRIAN PIPER VIDEO INTERVIEW:
Rationality and the Structure of the Self

 by
 Robert Del Principe

60 Minutes
With German subtitles
Open Access

Viewed more than 2,000 times in the first year

NEWS

May 2013



RATIONALITY AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE SELF
A Two-Volume Study in Kantian Metaethics


First Edition: 2008
Second Edition: 2013


Open Access
With a new Preface to the Second Edition

RSSCover2ndEdV1Thumbnail.pngRSSCover2ndEdV2Thumbnail.png
News March 2013

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

NEWS

March 2013

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the selection of its Multi-Disciplinary Fellow for 2013
News January 2018

All proceeds from the sale, rental, exhibition, publication or production of work by Adrian Piper support the APRA Foundation Berlin (APRA), a research archive and website at adrianpiper.com established for the benefit of those students, scholars, curators, collectors, writers, and members of the general public who have a constructive curiosity or scholarly or professional interest in Piper's work in art, philosophy and yoga. APRA aims to promote a fuller and clearer understanding of the interconnections among these three areas in Piper's work; and to contribute over the long term to a more accurate, balanced, and complete comprehension of the conditions of production of Piper's entire body of work as a unified whole.

NEWS

November 2012


The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce a forthcoming series of print book and e-book editions of texts by Adrian Piper,

In the Margins Behind the Lines: Collected Writings

The volumes organize and present Piper’s writings in chronological order from 1967 to the present, with texts from all of the areas in which she has contributed – in art, philosophy, yoga and autobiography – placed side by side. This highlights lines of influence, correspondence, crosspollination and simultaneous development among these various fields, regardless of the institutional mores that often separate them. The volumes collect both previously published texts and illustrations, and also many that have never been published before. This definitive edition of Piper’s writings offers a new approach to her work, and to the large range of issues and themes with which it has been engaged for almost fifty years.

News September 2012

Thwarted Projects, Dashed Hopes, A Moment of Embarrassment,
digital projection

NEWS

September 2012


← Adrian Piper has decided to retire from being black.
In the future, for professional utility, you may wish to refer to her as The Artist Formerly Known as African-American.

News February 2012

NEWS

February 2012


I am not in jail yet.

http://adrianpiper.com/berlin/contracts-contempt.shtml

News February 2012

Installation view of Adrian Piperʼs Past Time: Selected Works 1973–1995, Dia New York

NEWS

February 2012

College Art Association

Adrian Piper, Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work

"Since the late 1960s, the provocative and often challenging work of Adrian Piper has profoundly influenced the language and form of Conceptual art. Her 2010 exhibition Past Time: Selected Works 1973–1995, presented at Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York, showcased several bodies of work that dealt with dissent in varying forms and represented a period of time widely considered as her most influential. Piper’s artistic practice flirts with the syntax of Minimalism and infuses it with explicitly political content, addressing issues of race, gender, and identity politics. Additionally, her work has been shaped by studies in philosophy, a subject on which she has lectured since earning a doctorate in the discipline thirty years ago. A keen interlocutor of mass culture, Piper has produced art and writing that make us question our constantly shifting contemporary social landscape.”

News July 2011

NEWS

July 2011

I did not read or discuss with John Bowles any part of his manuscript in advance of its publication. So I am relieved to be able to offer a qualified recommendation of his monograph. His knowledge of the historical period of the 1960s surpasses mine. His thorough factual research on my work of that period lends the book its authority. He situates my work of the late 1960s in the context of political and art - historical events that were going on in the art world at that time, thus drawing the reader’s attention to the broader significance of those works and relating them in interesting ways to the work of my peers, both local and international. The scholarship demonstrates a scrupulous fidelity to the historical documents, and is very mindful of the primary sources on which his theoretical interpretation is based.

I regret that I cannot endorse that theoretical interpretation. As the discussion moves forward in time, it shifts away from the public meaning of the work itself, toward unfounded psychoanalytic speculation about my possible motives in producing it; and is increasingly removed from the complex social, cultural and intellectual circumstances under which I actually produced that work. The politically incorrect reality is that I was socialized and accepted into a segregated “white” professional environment, because I failed to publicly announce my racial identity; and that my aesthetic values and preoccupations continued to reflect this socialization. So his dogged location of the work within the contemporaneous “black” art, poetry and popular culture communities is fictive.

The reproductions and design of the book are of very high quality. It is a useful secondary source on my work of the 1960s.

-- Adrian Piper

News April 2011

Socrates (copy of a bust by Lysippos)

NEWS

April 2011

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the establishment of

The Berlin Journal of Philosophy

a blind-submission, double-blind, peer-reviewed, open-access journal that will publish articles on all topics in the four traditional major areas of philosophical specialization, namely

epistemology & metaphysics
logic
value theory
history of philosophy

and their established subspecialties.

The Journal innovates in adhering strictly to simultaneous policies of blind submissions, double-blind review, and anti-plagiarism. For more information,
please visit

http://www.adrianpiper.com/berlin/berlinjphil/index.shtml.


The Berlin Journal of Philosophy is ©, administered and published by
the APRA Foundation Berlin,
an independent research organization
unaffiliated with any department, institute, school, college, university, or other academic institution.

News March 2011

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyses and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.

NEWS

March 2011

The APRA Foundation Berlin is pleased to announce the selection of its Multi-Disciplinary Fellow for 2011
News April 2010 Earlier

Adrian Piper, Past Time: Selected Works 1973-1995 (installation shot)

NEWS

October 2010

Two Concurrent Solo Exhibitions:

Earlier Work:

Elizabeth Dee Gallery, 548 W. 22 St., NYC; 23 Oct-11 Dec 2010

News October 2010 Recent

Adrian Piper, Everything #21 (2010; Installation: 4 blackboard walls, white chalk cursive handwritten text)

Recent Work:

Cairn Gallery, Pittenweem, Scotland; 23 Oct 2010-9 Jan 2011

News June 2010

NEWS

June 2010

In response to requests and some complaints (sorry), and to mark its second anniversary of publication, both volumes of

RATIONALITY
AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE SELF

are now available as two rather large singlefile PDF documents, with covers designed by the author.

Volume I: The Humean Conception
(9.7 MB) ISBN #978-3-9813763-0-2

can be downloaded here:

Volume II: A Kantian Conception
(8.5 MB) ISBN #978-3-9813763-1-9

can be downloaded here:

In lieu of an index (sorry again), each volume can be comprehensively searched using command-F or the search function at the APRA Foundation, Berlin website, here.

A hard-copy print version now in preparation will contain a detailed index of subjects and names.

The original chapter-by-chapter download version remains available for those who prefer (relatively) small sips.

Thanks very much for your feedback.

News April 2010
News April 2010

NEWS

February 2010

Sol LeWitt/Adrian Piper

Selected Infi
nite Extensio
ns Arbitraril
y Constrained

Duet Exhibition curated by John Sims
19 March – 3 May 2010
Opening 19 March, 5 – 7:30 PM
Reading: Mark Strand

Opening Performance by Adrian Piper:
One 16 Minute Long, Thickly Textured Straight Line
Running Parallel with the Bowery Poetry Club Floor

Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
New York, NY

Performance: 1 May 2010, 2 – 3:30 PM
Bob Holman, Edwin Torres, Monica de la Torre

News February 2010

NEWS

December 2009

The Adrian Piper Research Archive is pleased to announce the establishment of the

News December 2009

APRA
Foundation,
Berlin

The APRA Foundation Berlin supports research
that exemplifies, models, analyzes and/or theorizes
the divergent multi-disciplinary expressions of the self
encouraged by globalization and cross-cultural journeying.
Please visit http://www.adrianpiper.com/berlin/index.shtml


Mark well: one can be a strict logician or grammarian and yet be full of fantasy and music. One can be a musician or a beadplayer, and yet be devoted to law and order. The person whom we take as our ideal and try to emulate should be able at all times to exchange his art or science for any other, should allow the most crystal clear logic to radiate from his Bead Game and display the most creative fantasy in grammar. That is how we should be, and we should be prepared at any moment to be transferred to another post without opposition or allowing ourselves to become confused.

-- Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi [Das Glasperlenspiel]

NEWS

3 October 2008

Decision-Theoretic Legitimacy for Market Regulation

The United States Republican Party has finally capitulated to the need for more stringent government controls on free market activity in the American investment and commercial banking industry. They now acknowledge this as the ONLY solution to the global financial crisis engendered by the industry’s subprime mortgage lending practices.

But we know that this is only the most recent in an accelerating series of financial crises that began with the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, was braked temporarily by Roosevelt’s New Deal, and picked up steam with the post-war Reagan era’s Savings and Loan debacle of the late 1980s. Since then we have seen such debacles proliferate increasingly with each passing decade: the junk bond scam, the Mexican peso crisis, the IMF crisis, the IT bubble, Enron, and WorldCom are only a few examples.

The now-most prominent spokesman of the “permanent Republican majority,” Henry Paulson, has been quoted as advising Bush II that these debacles are part of normal market adjustment cycles that are to be expected “every 6, 8, 10 years” (Newsweek CLII, 13 (29 September 2008), page 29). I suggest that when these “normal market adjustments” accelerate to one such debacle per year, we should regard ourselves as having officially returned to Hobbes’ state of nature.

Many commentators have noticed the remarkable failures of memory that seem to prevent each new generation of financiers from learning the lessons of past crises that would enable them to avoid future ones, and that motivate each new generation of free-market enthusiasts in the U.S. Republican Party to roll

back regulatory legislation previously achieved. Bush II’s attempt to disembowel Social Security pensions for retirees is only one of the most shameful.

My online, open-access book Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception (formally accepted for publication by Cambridge University Press) explains why these failures of memory are structurally endemic to the utility-maximization model of rationality so beloved by neo-classical economists. You can read the analysis here (see particularly Sections 2.3 and 3).

And my online, open-access book Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception (formally accepted for publication by Cambridge University Press) demonstrates what every intelligent person already knows: that utility-maximization MUST meet the cross-temporal consistency requirements of ordinary logic – and therefore, by implication, the constraints of nimble and judicious government regulation – in order to be rational. You can read the analysis here.

Comments welcome. Because of philosophy’s longstanding historical influence on political events and ideologies of all stripes (for example, of Rousseau on the French Revolution, Locke on the American Revolution, Marx on Communism, Nietzsche on the Second World War, Rawls' Difference Principle on Reaganomics), I think we need to conduct this discussion at a more thorough, sustained and systematic, non-ideological level if we are finally to break out of these “normal market adjustment cycles.”