Adrian Piper
Personal Chronology

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baby Adrian with parents
Photo credit: Larry Andrews
1948 Adrian Margaret Smith Piper born September 20 in Washington Heights, only child of Daniel Robert Piper and Olive Xavier Smith Piper.
1951 Piper is taught to draw by maternal grandmother Margaret Ann Norris Smith, a former high school teacher, who lives with family.

1952 Piper enters Riverside Church Nursery and Sunday School. Hears Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade.

1953 Piper writes and illustrates own stories. Spends summer at Camp Good News on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
small Adrian
Photo credit: Daniel R. Piper
1954 Piper enters first grade at New Lincoln School in Manhattan, on a scholarship. Spends summer (and every summer thereafter through 1962) at Camp Bass Lake Farm in Altmar, New York. Learns to swim. Takes violin lessons.
1955 Sees first film: Danny Kaye in The Court Jester.

1956 Piper begins ballet and piano lessons, takes tennis lessons from father. Reads Kipling's Jungle Books, Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar, complete Mary Poppins series (repeatedly), Albert Payson Terhune's Lad series. Watches Lassie, The Sandy Becker Show, Perry Mason, The Perry Como Show on television. Discovers MAD Magazine.

1957 Piper takes art classes at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) after school. Reads Lewis Carroll, becomes Alice in Wonderland (through 1979). Listens to Stravinsky's Les Noces. Fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Catherine Moore, brings Piper up to speed in math.
Adrian
Photo credit: Daniel R. Piper
1958 Piper’s fifth grade teacher, Miss Modiano, asks parents if she is aware that she is colored. Piper gets sick a lot. Listens to The FBI in Peace and War, Suspense, Amos 'n' Andy, Burns and Allen, The Shadow, Our Gal Sunday, Ma Perkins, One Man's Family, Helen Trent on radio. Sees The Horror of Dracula and wears garlic around neck for rest of summer. Gets pleuredema. Gives away superb comic book collection. Takes riding lessons at Van Courtland Park.

1959 Piper receives art lessons from paternal grandmother, Beatrix Downs Piper McCleary, a former grammar school teacher. Discovers Booth Tarkington, Laura Ingalls Wilder; Piper sells her complete Nancy Drew series for a pittance. Gets The Diary of Anne Frank from parents for birthday. Gets a journal book from parents for Christmas.

1960 Piper begins journals with New Year.
Adrian
Photo credit: Daniel R. Piper
1961 Piper abandons piano lessons after paralyzing stage fright before planned participation in Town Hall recital. Sells superb collection of 45 RPM rock music records, rediscovers Bach. Piper works as assistant Arts and Crafts counselor at Bass Lake Farm (through 1962). Does India Ink gouache illustrations of Hans Christian Anderson's "What the Moon Saw." Reads Charles Dickens, Mark Twain. Sees Arthur Miller’s The Misfits. Ceases riding lessons and never gets on a horse again.
1962 Piper joins local high school Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Family moves from Washington Heights to Riverside Drive, leaving bachelor maternal uncle, Martin Smith, who also lived with family, in Washington Heights apartment, where he becomes a recluse. Maternal grandmother, Margaret Ann Norris Smith, dies. Piper joins Puerto Rican gang. Teaches herself to play the guitar. Bikes weekly to Greenwich Village for Sunday breakfast at the Cafe Figaro. Participates in life drawing groups at various locations in Manhattan. Listens to Johnny Pacheco, Charlie Palmieri, Celia Cruz. Sees Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad for the first of many hundreds of times, Greta Garbo's complete oeuvre.
Adrian
Photo credit: Joseph Gresser
1963 Abandons ballet and modern dance lessons. Takes jazz dance lessons. Starts painting and drawing classes at the Art Students' League after school, summers, and weekends. Starts part-time free-lance fashion modeling (through 1965). Piper attends the March on Washington. Reads Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Franz Kafka. Listens to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, The Weavers.
1964 Hangs out at Steve Paul's The Scene; encounters Edie Sedgewick. Piper reads Freud, Edmund Wilson, Melville. Works through Russian phase (Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekhov, Dostoievsky, all in Constance Garnett translation), German phase (Hesse, Mann, Böll, Brecht, Musil, Grass), French phase (Sartre, Camus, Balzac, Zola, Stendhal, Proust, de Maupassant, Gide, Gautier), Scandinavian phase (Lagervist, Hamsun, Strindberg, Undset, Bergman, Sjöström). Multiple viewings of Bergman Trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence).
1965 Piper reads Beat poets (Ginsburg, Kerouac, Burroughs), discovers yoga, does psychedelic drawings and paintings, writes poetry. Reads Ginsberg's Howl, takes LSD, leaves home, works as a discotheque dancer at the Ginza and Entre Nous nightclubs, picked up by police, sent to Juvenile Court, pleads guilty to being a wayward minor, sent to Bellevue. Resumes artwork, finishes high school course work, meets Phillip Zohn at Hillside, resumes painting classes at the Art Students' League. Reads The Upanishads, The Bhagavad-Gita. Sees Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Discovers Busby Berkeley.
1966 Piper graduates from New Lincoln School. Enters the School of Visual Arts (SVA). Studies yoga at Swami Satchidananda's Integral Yoga Institute on West End Avenue (through 1971). Goes to NYC art galleries, subscribes to Art News and Artforum, attends films by Andy Warhol, the Kuchar brothers; happenings by Robert Rauschenberg, Simone Forti Whitman, and Marcel Duchamp at SVA. Reads Goethe, Dreiser, Kenneth Patchen.
Adrian
Photo credit: Daniel R. Piper
1967 Piper begins summer philosophy courses at the City College of New York. Meets Rosemary Mayer and Vito Acconci. Stops attending classes at SVA. Reads Robbe-Grillet, Beckett, Stein, Borges, Sarraute, Quineau, Duras, Butor, Pinget, Wittgenstein; listens to Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, LaMonte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich. Attends Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theatrical Company production, Conquest of the Universe or When Queens Collide. Sees Sol LeWitt's show at Dwan Gallery, 46 Variations on Three Different Kinds of Cubes. Begins to carve up objects spatiotemporally into infinite series, progressions, and variations. Goes on Bresson binge: Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette, The Diary of a Country Priest, The Trial of Joan of Arc, Pickpocket. Sees Delmer Daves' Dark Passage.
1968 Piper ‘s Conceptual art works published in Vito Acconci's 0 to 9 Magazine. Meets Sol LeWitt. Attends Yvonne Rainer's dance concert, The Mind is a Muscle three days in a row. Attends lectures by Borges at SVA and 92nd St. YMCA. Awarded First Prize in Drawing and Honorable Mention in Sculpture at School of Visual Arts Annual Student Exhibition. Sells sports magazines on the telephone. Moves to loft on Hester St. Listens to Bach's orchestral works. Hospitalized with dysentery and colitis; becomes a lactovegetarian. Produces Parallel Grid Proposal for Dugway Proving Grounds Headquarters and Concrete Space-Time-Infinity pieces. Performs Meat Into Meat in first incarnation as Five Unrelated Time Pieces. Meets Hans Haacke. Takes a crack at James Joyce, gives up. Attends multiple viewings of Jean-Marie Straub's The Notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach.
Adrian
Photo credit: Daniel R. Piper
1969 Piper works as receptionist and administrative assistant in Seth Siegelaub's January Show gallery. Her Three Untitled Projects mail art exhibition is published by 0 to 9 Press. Shows conceptual work at Dwan Gallery, Paula Cooper Gallery, Stadtisches Museum Leverkusen, Kunsthalle Bern, etc. group shows. Graduates from SVA with Associate Arts degree in Fine Arts. Reads Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Models for Raphael Soyer (through 1971). Executes drawings for Sol LeWitt. Types Ad Reinhardt manuscript for Lucy Lippard. Works as bookkeeper for Cameo Personnel Agency.
1970 Piper performs Catalysis series. Conducts a series of juice fasts. Begins CCNY full-time with plans to major in philosophy, musicology, physics, and history; eventually settles for a major in philosophy and minor in Medieval and Renaissance musicology. Clerk in CCNY music library (through 1971). Listens to Ockeghem. Exhibits Context #7 in Information show at the Museum of Modern Art. Withdraws Hypothesis from Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects show at the New York Cultural Center, in protest against Nixon's invasion of Cambodia and Kent State and Jackson State massacres. Joins Art Worker's Coalition. Attends open rehearsals held by Steve Reich and Phillip Glass.
Adrian
Photo credit: Unknown
1971 Piper hears about cancellation of Hans Haacke's Guggenheim show. Fasts, isolates self, does yoga while writing paper on Kant. Produces Food for the Spirit private loft performance. Starts women's consciousness-raising group with Rosemary Mayer, Donna Dennis, Randa Haines, Grace Murphy, Jane Weiss, others. Works as receptionist, clerk, and switchboard operator at the Animal Medical Center (through 1974). Reads Simenon, listens to Palestrina.
1972 Piper starts The Mythic Being/Village Voice performance series. Holds music listening evenings for small group of philosophy classmates. Reads Henry James. Followed home from CCNY by Diotima the cat, who settles in.
1973 Piper researches and writes musicology thesis on Johannes Okehem's Missa Prolationem, philosophy honors thesis on deception and self-deception.
Adrian
Photo credit: Wai Yip
1974 Piper graduates from CCNY summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, etc. Awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Medal for the Best Honors Thesis in the Social Sciences. Awarded Danforth and Ford Foundation graduate fellowships. Moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Begins doctoral program in philosophy at Harvard University. Reads George Eliot, Jane Austen, listens to Monteverdi.

1975 Piper performs later Mythic Being streetworks in Cambridge and Some Reflective Surfaces at Whitney Museum. Produces posters. Listens to funk, Mario Davidowsky, Josquin des Prés. Reads Anthony Trollope.

1976 Piper completes course work at Harvard. Works as teaching assistant for courses taught by John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. Reads Richard Brautigan.
1977 Piper awarded Harvard Sheldon Traveling Fellowship to spend the academic year in Berlin and Heidelberg working on Kant and Hegel. Passport and belongings stolen in Musee d'Art Moderne while constructing Art for the Art World Surface Pattern for the Paris Biennale. In Heidelberg, participates in student resistance to Altstadt Studentenheim Sanierung; studies and writes all day, drinks beer all evening, goes dancing most of the night. Reads Peter Handke, Karl Philipp Moritz. Rediscovers 1960s and '70s rock, also Nina Hagen, Ian Dury.
Adrian
Photo credit: David Auerbach
1978 Piper returns to U.S. Flies from Cambridge to Paris for four days to see Paris-Moscow, 1900-1930 exhibit at Centre Pompidou, Beaubourg. Premieres Aspects of the Liberal Dilemma at Artists Space in New York. First philosophy article published, "Utility, Publicity, and Manipulation." Listens to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, discovers The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
1979 Piper awarded her first full-grant Visual Artists’ Fellowship by National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Moves to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Begins tenure-track Assistant Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Michigan. Completes Three Political Self-Portraits.
1980 Piper premieres Four Intruders Plus Alarm Systems and It's Just Art in The Art of Conscience exhibition at Wright State University. Listens to Patti Smith, The Police, Talking Heads.
1981 Piper completes Ph.D. dissertation, "A New Model of Rationality," with John Rawls. Buys house. Piper ‘s maternal Uncle Martin dies. Piper gets really, really sick with "the yuppie disease" (an undiagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome-like illness). Performs It's Just Art at AND/OR in Seattle, Washington, where member of audience asks Piper why she is up on stage shaking her booty. Hears Ornette Coleman perform live. Reads Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker. Sees Steve Martin's Pennies From Heaven.
1982 Piper awarded senior status NEA Visual Artists' Fellowship. Also awarded two-year Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship to do research in Philosophy at Stanford University. Gets married. Travels to Jamaica on honeymoon, meets mother's family in Kingston, Portland, and Port Antonio. Moves to Menlo Park, California. Begins work on manuscript, Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Listens to Charlie Barnett, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Steely Dan, Heinrich Schütz, Guillaume de Machaut.
Adrian
Photo credit: Daniel R. Piper

1983 Piper premieres Funk Lessons at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Piper ‘s best friend Phillip Zohn dies of AIDS-related encephalitis. Begins design of poster, Think About It, commemorating 1963 March on Washington. Reads Toni Morrison. Goes dancing regularly and hears live funk bands from Oakland and Los Angeles at Little Orphan Annie's, Foster City, California. Watches Entertainment Tonight. Sees Brainstorm, The Hunger.

1984 Piper visits William "Bootsy" Collins' manager, views Parliament / Funkadelic live performance videotapes. Reluctantly returns to the University of Michigan. Reads Joyce Carol Oates. Listens to Buxtehude. Sees Taxi zum Klo.
1985 Piper ‘s father dies of cancer of the pharynx, shunned by his sister Beatrix Hamburg and her family during his illness and death. Piper swims daily; views every episode of Dynasty made up to that point. Denied tenure at the University of Michigan. Begins continuing self-collection piece, What Will Become of Me. Premieres A Tale of Avarice and Poverty at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Adrian Piper
Photo credit: Jeffrey E. Evans
1986 Piper’s philosophy article, "Two Conceptions of the Self," voted one of the ten best papers of 1985 by editors of Philosophical Studies. Prepares My Calling (Card) #1 and #2. Begins Vanilla Nightmares drawings on newspaper. Reads Anita Brookner. Moves to Washington, D. C. Separates from husband. Begins permanent position at Georgetown University. Listens to Bach Cantatas.
1987 Piper celebrates Diotima the cat's fifteenth birthday and year together with Piper. Attends inaugural meeting of Women of African Descent in the Visual Arts (WADVA). Gets divorce. Starts teaching Nietzsche in introductory ethics course. Completes Think About It. At Jane Farver’s request, writes up first installment of Personal Chronology for catalogue of twenty-year retrospective, Adrian Piper: Reflections 1967-1987, which opens at the Alternative Museum and travels around the country (through 1991). Meets members of a "white" branch of the Piper family at opening of retrospective in Atlanta, Georgia. Awarded National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend to complete Kant chapter of Rationality and the Structure of the Self.
1988 Piper joins stable of John Weber Gallery. Completes video installations, Cornered and The Big Four-Oh. Injures knees, rereads journals. Accepts tenured Associate Professorship in Philosophy at the University of California at San Diego. Awarded Woodrow Wilson International Scholars Fellowship in Washington, D. C. to work on Rationality and the Structure of the Self.
1989 Piper awarded Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts. Produces Ur-Mutter series. Cornered premieres at John Weber Gallery.
Adrian Piper
Photo credit: David Auerbach
1990 Diotima the cat dies of brain hemorrhage. Piper produces Pretend series. Accepts tenured Full Professorship in Philosophy at Wellesley College and moves from Washington, D.C. to Wellesley, Mass. Publishes "Higher-Order Discrimination." Piper’s 1975 performance, Some Reflective Surfaces appears on the cover of Art in America. Exhibits new work at John Weber Gallery, Exit Art Gallery, and Whitney Museum Film and Video Gallery. Awarded grant from Awards in the Visual Arts. Dubbed "the artist of the fall season in New York" by Michael Brenson in the New York Times. Rationality and the Structure of the Self becomes two books.
1991 Piper publishes "Impartiality, Compassion and Modal Imagination." Exhibits What It's Like, What It Is #1 at the Washington Project for the Arts, What It's Like, What It Is #2 at the Hirshhorn Museum, and What It's Like, What It Is #3 at the Museum of Modern Art. Twenty-year retrospective travels in England and Germany. Art world rehabilitation continues. Publishes "Passing for White, Passing for Black." Collapses twice from physical exhaustion, ends spring semester on medical leave. Curtails speaking and writing commitments.
Adrian Piper
Photo credit: Maurice Berger
1992 Piper produces Decide Who You Are series for exhibition at John Weber, Paula Cooper, and NYU's Grey Art Galleries. Delivers philosophy paper, "Xenophobia and Kantian Rationalism," and art lecture, "Xenophobia and the Indexical Present," at day-long New York University conference: "What Does the Critique of Pure Reason Have to Do With the Pure Critique of Racism? A Look at the Work of Adrian Piper." Withdraws from Documenta. Collapses from physical exhaustion at end of spring and fall semesters. Wins Wellesley College Faculty Vacation Prize, spends it at Kripalu Yoga Center. Publishes "Two Kinds of Discrimination." Rationality and the Structure of the Self becomes three books. Listens to Hildegard von Bingen. Discovers Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
1993 Piper exhibits Hypothesis series at Paula Cooper Gallery. Moves to Cape Cod to take care of mother during her terminal decline from emphysema, while continuing to teach at Wellesley and lecture on art and philosophy. Collapses from physical exhaustion at end of spring and fall semesters. Further curtails speaking engagements.
1994 Piper collapses from physical exhaustion at end of spring and fall semesters. Mother dies from emphysema.
1995 Piper conducts two-week residency at the Kunstakademie München entirely in German. Begins two-year process of managing mother's estate. Discovers mother's journals. Collapses from physical exhaustion, ends spring semester on medical leave. Awarded Adrian Piper
Photo credit: Robert Rubin
Skowhegan Medal for Sculptural Installation. Withdraws early conceptual work from L.A. MOCA exhibition, "1965-1975: Reconsidering the Object of Art," upon discovering Philip Morris sponsorship. Ashes to Ashes produced, offered as a substitute to, and declined by L.A. MOCA. Begins teaching The Upanishads in introductory ethics course. Collapses from physical exhaustion at end of fall semester. Starts studying Iyengar yoga with Arthur Kilmurray.
1996 Piper collapses from physical exhaustion at end of spring and fall semesters. Delivers Inaugural Ian Burn Memorial Lecture at Monash University, Melbourne and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Exhibits Ashes to Ashes at John Weber Gallery. Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968-1992 and Volume II: Selected Writings in Art Criticism 1967-1992 published by MIT Press. Reads "the Johns" (Barth, Cheever, Updike), and Faust by Mann, Goethe, and Marlowe. Listens to The Anonymous Four.
1997 Piper publishes "Kant on the Objectivity of the Moral Law." Diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. Intensifies yoga practice to three-plus hours daily, becomes a vegan. Doesn't collapse from physical exhaustion at end of spring semester. Leaves John Weber Gallery to go solo, while continuing non-exclusive relationship with Paula Cooper Gallery. Exhibits at Galleria Emi Fontana (Milan), Thomas Erben Gallery (New York). Reads John Banville. Discovers Gavin Bryars, Stefan Wolpe, Discantus. Receives National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship. Elected as a Distinguished Scholar at the Getty Research Institute. Celebrates 49th birthday at Richard Freeman's Ashtanga yoga workshop. Embarks on two-year sabbatical from Wellesley and postpones production of new artwork to finish Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volumes I-III. Spends last seven months of 1997 disposing of paperwork backlog from 1993.
Adrian
Photo credit: Adrian Piper
1998 Piper takes first trip to India for "Frameworks for Art" conference, Parikh Centre for the Visual Arts, Bombay; delivers talk, "What the Indexical Present Really Is." Discovers M. S. Subbulakshmi, Pandit Jasraj, L. Subramaniam. Who Art You? Selected Works by Adrian Piper opens at Davis Museum of Wellesley College. Continues disposition of Wellesley committee paperwork backlog. Writes Racism at Wellesley: Causes and Containment for circulation exclusively within Wellesley College Community, where it receives College-wide sponsorship from all faculty anti-racism committees. Ginger the cat chooses Cape Cod house inherited from mother as birthing place for kittens. Decides to move permanently to Cape Cod and keep surviving kittens (Kali and Clive). Takes Don Peccerill's advanced Iyengar class. Under duress, becomes own contractor on large studio/library/art storage addition to house. Under duress, spends summer learning the construction industry (land surveys, deeds, permits, plans, stock lists, demolition, backfilling, excavation, foundations, forms, footing, floors, insulation, framing, roofing, siding, heating, plumbing, sheetrocking, plastering, painting, electrical wiring, landscaping, etc.). Moves to Los Angeles for Getty Scholarship residency. At Getty, embarks on rewriting ten- to fifteen-year-old "completed" portions of Volume I of Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Presents new material from Volume I, "The Problem of Moral Motivation" and "The Enterprise of Socratic Metaethics." Attends Yoga Journal conference, takes workshops with Richard Freeman, David Swenson, Patricia Walden, David Life, Erich Schiffmann, John Friend. Makes serious commitment to Ashtanga yoga; studies with Chuck Miller at Yoga Works. Attends kirtan, joins Yoga Works' Yoga Sutras study group, attends weekly lectures at the Vedanta Society. Breaks the bank at the Vedanta Bookstore. Creates new course for Wellesley, "Vedanta Ethics and Epistemology." Takes first baby steps into Sanskrit. Rationality and the Structure of the Self morphs back into two books plus Kant's Metaethics.
Adrian
Photo credit: Reinhart Meyer-Kalkus
1999 Piper almost finishes rewriting Volume I of Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Presents new material from Kant's Metaethics, "Kant's Two Standpoints on Action." Learns Gayatri mantra, Maha Mrtunjaya mantra, Ashtanga mantra invocation, Saraswati Ma bhajan. Shows Mythic Being series at Thomas Erben Gallery. Writes "The Meaning of Brahmacharya." Studies Ashtanga yoga with Tim Miller. Begins second series. Injures quadratus lumborum. Attends Paul Cabanis' advanced Iyengar class once a week, workshops with Richard Freeman, Erich Schiffmann, Gary Kraftsow, Patricia Walden. Applies for Persons of Indian Origin expatriate card citing Hindu maternal great-grandmother. Joins two more Yoga Sutras study groups hosted by Christopher Chapple and Paul Cabanis respectively. Creates new seminar for Wellesley, "The Philosophy of Yoga." MEDI(t)Ations retrospective of time-based media work opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Returns to full-time teaching at Wellesley, becomes Faculty Chair of Wellesley's Black Task Force, teaches new Guyer/Wood translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Attends Patricia Walden's Level IV and Aspiring Teachers classes. Adrian Piper: A Retrospective 1965-2000 opens at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Adrian
Photo credit: Julie Matthei
2000 Piper teaches "Vedanta Ethics and Epistemology" course for first time. Secures permanent existence of Wellesley's Black Task Force through College legislation. Attends Internationalen Kant-Kongress in Berlin and "Science and Consciousness" conference in New Mexico. Sends Personal Report: Fall 1990 – Spring 2000 to Wellesley President, who refuses to discuss it. Home burglarized twice in two weeks. Spends summer doing paperwork and fighting with security alarm company. Sues Wellesley College for fraud, breach of contract, loss of reputation, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Rushed to hospital with ruptured appendicitis one week after warning department chair of impending physical collapse. Undergoes emergency appendectomy. Develops peritonitis, intestinal adhesions. Undergoes lysis of adhesions. Released from hospital after one month. House vandalized. Goes on medical leave for rest of Fall semester. Completes The Color Wheel Series, First Adhyasa: Annomayakosha #2-24 in time for exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery. Concurrently exhibits related works at Thomas Erben, both retrospectives conjointly at the New Museum. Gradually resumes yoga practice with a few elementary asanas. Completes design for Prayer Wheel. Begins preparing to leave U. S in wake of “election” of George W. Bush as U.S. President.
Adrian
Photo credit: Adrian Piper
2001 Piper begins working with yoga therapist. Pace of recuperation retarded and complicated by post-operative intensification of ankylosing spondylitis symptoms. Medical leave extended through Spring 2002 semester. Completes Prayer Wheel I.1 for Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Slowly resumes redrafting of Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Revises "The Concept of a Genuine Preference" from Volume II, begins revisions to "The Utility Maximizing Model of Rationality" from Volume I. Completes Das Gebetsrad Quadriert: Ein Radiostück for Documenta 11, andColor Wheel Series page project for Art Journal. The College cuts off health and dental insurance retroactive to July 1, 2001, then reinstates it; supplies false information to MetLife, resulting in denial of disability benefits. American Association of University Professors (AAUP) refuses to investigate. Boston association of black women journalists informs Piper of decision not to report on lawsuit. Piper tries and fails to establish Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) in will.
2002 The College again cuts off health and dental benefits and again reinstates them. Piper reads Joe R. Feagin's Racist America. Delivers "Recognition and Responsibility" to Boston University Institute on Race and Social Division. Reads Ben Bagdikian's The Media Monopoly. Produces and mails postal artwork, PRESS BLACK-OUT. Expands "Recognition and Responsibility" into a book manuscript. Piper ‘s long-term disability benefits appeal denied. Piper produces soundwork, Shiva DANCES, for God's Sake. Black Task Force votes to refuse comment for Vanessa Jones' "Fallen Star" article, published in The Boston Globe. Piper Adrian
Photo credit: Hedwig Saxenhuber
‘s traveling European retrospective, Adrian Piper Since 1965, opens at the Generali Foundation in Vienna. Lawsuit against Wellesley College dismissed on statute of limitations technicalities. Fourteen prints from The Color Wheel Series, First Adhyasa: Annomayakosha exhibited at Documenta 11. Social Security disability benefits appeal denied. Liver biopsy reveals "significant liver damage, scarring, and chronic inflammation of unknown origin." Succeeds in establishing the Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA). Piper shoots You/Stop/Watch video for installation. Sues Wellesley College a second time through the Massachusette Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) for retaliation against first lawsuit. Delivers "Documente aus den Staaten" at Museum Ludwig, Köln. Finishes Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volumes I and II (of four). The College reduces salary by 25% due to medical limitations on teaching. AAUP again refuses to investigate.
2003 Piper notifies Wellesley of receipt of Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften (IFK) Fellowship. The College cancels spring semester Metaethics course 17 days before spring semester registration. Piper forced to decline IFK invitation on medical grounds due to College's refusal to pay benefits during period of IFK Fellowship; Piper amends MCAD lawsuit to include additional charges. Finishes Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume III. Condenses Volumes I-III into two and spins off Volume IV into separate project, Kant's Metaethics. Delivers "Funk Lessons Lessons" at the Art Institute of Chicago; "Now What? Adrian
Photo credit: David Campos

Passing Beyond Passing" at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign; "Talking Pictures" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona; and "Vergangenheitsverarbeitung and the Pursuit of Happiness: Regarding the Other in Germany and the US" at the Einstein-Forum, Berlin. Retrospective, Adrian Piper since 1965 opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona. Piper pre-emptively withdraws Vedanta Ethics and Epistemology course, creates and publicizes mid-level Philosophy of Yoga course for Wellesley's Spring 2004 semester.

2004 Piper teaches Philosophy of Yoga course. Blocks Philosophy Department's second attempt to cancel annual Kant seminar. Finishes The Color Wheel Series with video, Shiva Dances at the Art Institute of Chicago. Dean of The College discontinues medical disability accommodations against doctors' Adrian
Photo credit:
Reinhart Meyer-Kalkus
warnings, effective Spring 2005. House vandalized. Begins purchase of apartment building in Berlin-Mitte. Philosophy Department accidentally drops new Rawls & Habermas course description, repeatedly, from 2005 course catalogue. Piper’s second liver biopsy reveals persisting cryptogenic portal Stage 2 fibrosis. Piper discovers bhangra hip-hop. Shunned by Philosophy Department junior colleague; Department and Committee on Faculty Appointments decline to reprimand her. Piper teaches Kant's Metaethics seminar. Summarily relieved of committee responsibilities and involvement in promotion & hiring decisions by Philosophy Department. Develops chronic pleurisy. Again amends MCAD lawsuit to include additional charges. Attends London-Berlin premieres of Shiva Dances with the Art Institute of Chicago and gives talks: "Political Art and the Paradigm of Innovation" (Tate Modern and Humboldt University Art History Department), "Passing Beyond Passing" (Haus der Kulturen der Welt). At urging of European friends, sees Lars von Trier's Dogville; gets it. Invited to accept Research Fellowship at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/ Institute for Advanced Study for academic year 2005 - 2006. Produces and gives talk on soundwork, Construct Madrid, at Residencia de Estudiantes, Madrid, for citywide 2005 exhibition, Itineraries of Sound. Attends second opening of group show, "Funky Lessons", BAWAG Foundation, Vienna.
Adrian
Photo credit: Angela Bilski
2005 Piper ensures ability to continue teaching without disability accommodations, by correctly forecasting and scheduling periodic physical collapses into Spring 2005 syllabus, totaling a month of absence from classes (out of a three-month long semester). Nevertheless falls asleep at wheel on highway twice, has minor accident once, narrowly avoids major accident once. Repeatedly gets flat tires on return Wellesley-Cape Cod commute. Refuses Dean of The College’s pressure to forfeit Fall 2006 paid sabbatical. The College rejects application for paid sabbatical for Fall 2005-Spring 2006, rejects appeal, rejects Wissenschaftskolleg’s offer of junior faculty teaching compensation, attempts to force application for unpaid leave of absence. Piper refuses to apply for unpaid leave of absence. Files internal formal grievance against President and Dean for multiple violations of Wellesley’s by-laws and impairments of its interests. President and Dean both refuse to respond. Grievance Committee forbids speaking directly to its members, denies request for hearing, denies request to question President and Dean, denies request that President be recused as final court of appeal, denies request for additional time to submit evidence, dismisses grievance. AAUP again refuses to investigate. Scholars At Risk refuses to investigate. Philosophy colleague warns Piper not even to approach relevant APA committees. Piper again amends MCAD lawsuit to include additional charges. Piper regretfully declines invitation from Wissenschaftskolleg. Spends four-day retreat at Sarada Convent. The College requests conflict resolution. Piper proposes resolution. Sells house on Cape Cod. Sells car. Sells personal effects.
Adrian Piper, Berlin, 2005
Photo credit: Adrian Piper
Piper moves to East Berlin apartment with Ginger and Kali. Piper becomes first (and, as of this date, only known) recipient of German residency permit under new 2005 Ausländerrecht (Foreigners Law) Par. 71.3. AufenthG: Ausnahmefälle (Exceptional Cases). Chronic pleurisy disappears. Ankylosing spondylitis symptoms disappear. Liver fibrosis disappears. The College rejects conflict resolution proposal, refuses to propose alternative. Piper rejects Wellesley’s offer of “impartial” mediation in which both her lawyer and the mediator are paid by The College. Dean of The College cancels salary, health insurance, dental insurance, and pension contributions in second week of fall semester. Piper begins final revisions of Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Completes purchase of apartment building in Berlin-Mitte. Begins Visiting Professorship at Danish Royal Academy of Art’s School of Walls and Space.
2006 Dean of The College threatens to deduct health insurance premiums from future salary payments. President of The College resigns effective June 2007. The College’s Affirmative Action Officer resigns effective June 2006. Philosophy Department Adrian
Photo credit: Polly Braden
goes into administrative receivership under supervision of Associate Dean of The College. Dean of The College charges $9,000.00 worth of health insurance premiums retroactively to July 2005, demands immediate payment. Piper finishes Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Finishes Unite. Begins final revisions on Kant’s Metaethics: First Critique Foundations of His Theory of Action. Reads Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Reads Muhammad Yunus’ Banker to the Poor. Attends sixth Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie Kongreß at the Freie Universität Berlin. Notifies MCAD of decision not to return to continuing hostile environment at Wellesley. MCAD “resends” notification of September 2005 dismissal of charges. Requests Substantial Weight Review of case by U. S. Employment Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Delivers keynote address, “Criticizing the Critics” at Frieze Art Fair, London. On U.S. lecture tour, delivers “Passing Beyond Passing,” “The Ideal of Agent Integrity,” and “Why Shiva Dances” in Austin, Santa Fe, Minneapolis, and Bloomington, discovers name on U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s Suspicious Traveler (SSSS) Watch List. Returns to Berlin, notifies Wellesley College of SSSS List and requests indefinite leave of absence. College denies request, threatens termination of employment as tenured full professor.
Adrian
Photo credit: Heidi Träbert
2007 EEOC upholds MCAD’s dismissal of charges. Piper goes on retreat at Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math, tours Kolkata, West Bengal and Orissa with Royal Danish Academy of Art students. Medical tests confirm regenerated liver, remission of AS symptoms. Piper performs Adrian Moves to Berlin at Berlin Alexanderplatz. Sol LeWitt dies of cancer. Delivers Marie Jahoda Guest Professorship Lectures, “Das Ideal der Integrität des Akteurs” and “Dokumente aus den Staaten” at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Does Lynn Lukkas Interview for her Telling Time video project. Executes wall drawing, Hi Sol, for Cairn Gallery tribute exhibition to Sol LeWitt, Irrational Thoughts, in Pittenweem, Fife, Scotland. College offers Piper the choice of either taking early retirement and “releasing and discharging Wellesley College and all those connected with it from any and all rights and claims that [she] may have had in the past, now have or might now have as of this date in connection with [her] employment at the College,” or else being fired from tenured full professorship. Piper refuses to return to U.S. while on Suspicious Travelers’ Watch List, refuses early retirement offer, refuses to resign position. AAUP again refuses to investigate. Piper finds Barbie Doll Drawings (1967). Finishes The Spurious Life-Death Distinction. Obtains German private health and long-term care insurance. Delivers keynote address, “’On Wearing Three Hats’ ein Jahrzehnt später” at Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst Symposium, Multitasking: Synchronität als kulturelle Praxis. Posts time-based media clips at website.
2008 The College’s new President recommends termination of Piper’s tenured full professorship to Board of Trustees. Piper opens solo exhibition, Everything, at Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York in absentia. Scans close to 1,000 family photos from family archive. Cambridge University Press formally accepts both Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception and also Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception for publication. Piper goes on several retreats at Vedanta-Gesellschaft, Bindeweide. College Board of
Adrian
Photo credit: Albert Landau
Trustees terminates Piper’s tenured full professorship in philosophy. AAUP again refuses to investigate. Cambridge University Press reneges on written agreement to demand no further cuts in Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Piper refuses to sign contract and instead publishes both volumes gratis at APRA website. The North American Kant Society quarterly newsletter announces its online publication. Piper advertises it in The Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, The Journal of Philosophy, The Philosophical Review, Mind, Ethics, Political Theory, The European Journal of Philosophy, Economics and Philosophy, and the Philosophy in Europe E-List. The United Kingdom Kant Society announces it at its website. Delivers “Zwei Ideale rationaler Motivation” at Leibniz-Universität Hannover. Does Visiting Residency at Paul Klee Sommerakademie in Bern, Switzerland. Attends Kant-Gesellschaft conference on Transcendental Illusion in Frankfurt, United Kingdom Kant Society conference on Space and Time at the University of Sussex. Produces Everything #19.3: New York Times Portrait of Megan Williams for Farimani magazine. Goes OUT TO LUNCH for entire month of September, begins memoir, makes it to 60th birthday, goes dancing at ACUD to celebrate. Ginger dies of kidney failure. Posts “Decision-Theoretic Legitimacy for Market Regulation” on Philosophy in Europe E-List, deals with fall-out. Delivers “Conceptual Art and Intellectual Intuition” at Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. Completes full draft of memoir, Escape to Berlin.
Adrian
Photo credit: Lynn Lukkas
2009 Piper successfully renews passport. Dawn Chan Artforum interview about Rationality and the Structure of the Self appears. Posts “Academic Rankings” on Philosophy in Europe E-List, deals with fall-out. Delivers “Kant’s Transcendental Analysis of Action” at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Transcendental Philosophy conference, Manchester, UK. Does Lynn Lukkas follow-up interview for Telling Time. Attends decision theory & logic workshops at London School of Economics, HEC Lausanne, Switzerland and University of Groningen, Netherlands. Exhibits artwork at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, Galeria Emi Fontana, and Galerie Christian Nagel booths at Art Basel. Premieres installation, Everything #5.2 (2004) at IN TRANSIT, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Chairs session at UK Kant Society Conference on Morality & Society, University of Lancaster, UK; attends Kant-Gesellschaft conference on the Regulative Ideas, in Frankfurt. Begins Vanishing Point drawing and installation series. Discovers Paolo Conte. Reads Toqueville. Finishes Bait-and-Switch, exhibits the complete PacMan Trilogy at Berlin Akademie der Künste ABC Art Contemporary and 11 Drawings About Paper, Writing About Words (1967) at Materialien exhibition at Münzsalon. Rereads Hermann Hesse’s Magister Ludi [das Glasperlenspiel]. First and only critical notice of Rationality and the Structure of the Self appears in December Artforum’s Best Books section. Launches APRA Foundation Berlin. Within three hours of posting Foundation page at website, receives phone call and e-mail messages from The College requesting meeting in Berlin.
2010 Piper reorganizes archive. Presents APRA Foundation Berlin at Berliner Senatskanzlei Empfang für Neustifter. Robert del Principe does Rationality and the Structure of the Self video interview. Discovers the ostdeutscher Schäferhund. Delivers “Practical Action: First Critique Foundations” at International Kant Congress 2010 in Pisa. Announces release of Rationality and the Structure of the Self as two single-file PDF documents. Taken to visit Dresden by neighbor. Chairs session at annual UK Kant Society Conference, Oxford. Publishes “Style and the Paradox of Minimalism” in Artforum. Applies for and is granted permanent residency permit in Germany. Exhibits historical work at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, and new work, Everything #21, at Cairn Gallery, Pittenweem, Fife, Scotland. Delivers “Kant’s Self-Legislation Procedure Reconsidered” at the University of Keele, UK.
Adrian
Photo credit: Mareike Dittmer
2011 Piper again receives e-mail message from The College, now requesting web access to "documented lawsuit" against The College and Personal Report. Delivers "Kant's Self-Legislation Procedure Reconsidered" to King's College London Philosophy Department. Announces first APRA Foundation Berlin Multi-Disciplinary Fellow. Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana (left side), Marichyasana D, Baddha Konasana, Baddha Padmasana, Urdhva Padmasana, Pindasana, self-invented Herniasana are taken away by torn left medial meniscus, then gradually restored, on loan from Shiva. Develops peer review publication web application that reconciles anti-plagiarism policy with blind submission/ double-blind review procedure, conceives and launches The Berlin Journal of Philosophy , announces both on Philosophy in Europe e-list and offers web application to other philosophy journals. None accept it. Sued by disgruntled former Director. Delivers "Kant's Two Replies to Hobbes" to first plenary session of the UK Kant Society Annual Conference. Piper discovers that entire Archive staff has been working at APRA under false pretenses with fraudulent contracts, endangering its legal and financial standing; all resign. Advised that this form of work fraud is usual and protected under German law. Closes Archive. Title of Professor Emeritus conferred by American Philosophical Association. Posts Contracts & Contempt at website. Hearing in right ear taken away, then gradually restored, on loan from Shiva.
Adrian
Photo credit: Adrian Piper
2012 Second APRA Foundation Berlin Multi-Disciplinary Fellow rejects funding and cancels awarded project. Piper reads Stellungnahme zu dem Beschluß des Landesgerichts Berlin aloud at second lawsuit court hearing; judge agrees not to apply statutes protecting work fraud. Wins College Art Association 2012 Artist Award for a Distinguished Body of Work, for having “since the late 1960s … profoundly influenced the language and form of Conceptual art.” Establishes the APRA Foundation Berlin Graduate Student Teaching Scholarship in Philosophy at the University of Keele, UK. Resolves to stop doing Kapotasana, Mukta Hasta Shirshana to protect neck vertebrae. Confronts habituation to Kapotasana, Mukta Hasta Shirshana, inability to stop doing them absentmindedly. Delivers three lectures, The Connection between Truth and Goodness: Explorations in Kant’s Metaethics to the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe. Discovers Falco. Delivers “On the Very Idea of Artistic Research” to the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University at the Art as a Mode of Inquiry conference. Reopens Archive. Article, “Kant’s Two Solutions to the Free Rider Problem,” published in The Kant Yearbook 4/2012: Kant and Contemporary Moral Philosophy. At third lawsuit hearing, interrogates plaintiff; court settles case favorably to APRA. Presents Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception, “Chapter III. The Concept of a Genuine Preference” at Workshop, Kant und Hegel über Logik und Ontologie, University of Potsdam. Discovers Max Raabe. For 64th birthday, decides to retire from being black. Creates Thwarted Projects, Dashed Hopes, A Moment of Embarrassment (2012) and announces new racial and nationality designations at website. Resumes studying Sanskrit in earnest. Learns Yoga Sutra I.1-12 by heart. Publishes “Kant’s Self-Legislation Procedure Reconsidered” in Kant Studies Online 2, 4 (October 2012). Attends first Sonnenwendefest.
Adrian
Photography by Jason Schmidt
2013 Piper publishes Philosophy Journal Paper Submission Policies at The Berlin Journal of Philosophy website. Publishes second edition of Rationality and the Structure of the Self at website. Creates The Probable Trust Registry. Reads Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade. Undergoes knee surgery for torn left meniscus and damaged cartilage. Gives up Herniasana for good. Starts twice weekly fitness training. Turns into a fitness jock. Delivers “On the Very Idea of Artistic Research” at (SIC) Brussels. Posts Adrian Piper Video Interview: Rationality and the Structure of the Self at website, YouTube and Vimeo; advertises 2nd Edition of Rationality and the Structure of the Self in The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement; sends it out for review to The Journal of Philosophy, The Philosophical Review, Ethics, The European Journal of Philosophy, Mind, Analysis, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Economics and Philosophy, The London Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The Economist, none acknowledge receipt. Composes Saraswati bhajan. Attends Annual UKKS Conference. Delivers the Empson Lecture, “The Real Thing Strange” to the British Society of Aesthetics at Cambridge University. “Practical Action: First Critique Foundations” published in Kant und die Philosophie in Weltbürgerlicher Absicht: Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongreßes 2010, Herausg. Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Claudio LaRocca, und Margit Ruffing (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013). Delivers the Rousseau Lecture, “Playing By the Rules I,” to the University of Keele and “Playing By the Rules II,” to the University of Keele Annual Philosophical Research Forum Conference, Playing By the Rules. Ned McClennen dies; invited to write memorial tribute for Critical Inquiry. Requests deletion of name from APA e-mail list soliciting donations for “Diversity and Inclusiveness Initiatives.” APA Executive Director “take[s] the liberty” of deleting Piper’s name from APA general e-mail list. Cancels APA membership. Attends second Sonnenwendefest. Learns Yoga Sutras I.13-35 by heart. Publicly announces New Year’s resolution to finish Kant’s Metaethics: First Critique Foundations on Philos-L listserv.

Photo credit: Kate Moran
2014 Piper publishes updated Philosophy Journal Paper Submission Policies at The Berlin Journal of Philosophy website. Awarded Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) Lifetime Achievement Award for “distinguished work as a philosopher and conceptual artist.” Delivers “Lessons from the Playbook of Second Wave Feminism” to the National Academy of Art, Oslo. Premieres video lecture/screening/discussion, Passing Beyond Passing (2004), at IHME Days Festival in Helsinki. Posts “The Money Pump is Necessarily Diachronic” at APRA Philosophy page and PhilPapers.org. Creates Everything #24 for 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale; makes first trip to China. Delivers “Playing by the Rules I: Two- or More-Person Games” at Shenzhen OCAT Library. Premieres The Probable Trust Registry at the Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York. Delivers “The Logic of Kant’s Categorical ‘Imperative’” at the St. Andrews University Workshop, Kant & Schopenhauer /Ethics & Aesthetics. Receives and accepts invitation from Museum of Modern Art, New York to do comprehensive travelling retrospective, to open in 2018. Learns Yoga Sutras I.36-51, II.1-12 by heart. Attends annual UK Kant Society Conference at Oxford. Delivers “Second-Wave Feminism: Unfinished Business,” at the University of Hull.

Photo credit: Adrian Piper
2015 Piper announces gratis availability of Imagine [Trayvon Martin] (2013) at ART page on E-ArtNow. Publishes updated Philosophy Journal Paper Submission Policies at The Berlin Journal of Philosophy website, deals with fallout. Delivers “Playing by the Rules I: Two- or More-Person Games,” at Bard College Berlin. Posts the Mad Dog Referee Reports Anonymous Survey at The Berlin Journal of Philosophy website. Exhibits The Probable Trust Registry and selection of Everything works at Venice Biennale; receives Golden Lion Award for Best Artist. Delivers Commencement Address, “Playing by the Rules II: One-Person Games” at Bard College Berlin, “Zwei Ideale Rationaler Motivation” at University of Potsdam Philosophy Department, and “The Logic of Kant’s Categorical ‘Imperative’” at the 11th Kant Congress 2015, University of Vienna. Kali dies of liver failure. Creates digital light projection, Self-Portrait with Shiva Ardhanarishvara. Learns Yoga Sutras 11.13-48 by heart.

Photo credit: Fotofix
2016 Piper decides to forego participation in further philosophy conferences while working on MoMA retrospective. Premieres exhibition of The Barbie Doll Drawings in “Drawing Then: Innovation and Influence in American Drawing of the Sixties” at the Dominique Lévy Gallery. Exhibits Howdy and Everything #5.1 in 9th Berlin Biennale, Funk Lessons in Manifesta 11, and My Calling (Card) #3: Guerrilla Performance for Disputed Territorial Skirmishes at Museum der Moderne Salzburg Collections Show. Completes manuscript, Escape to Berlin: A Travel Memoir, begins publication production process. Streamlines asana practice. Immediately injures back, gives up Supta Kurmasana. Multiple intimations of her mortality cause in Piper an obsessive-compulsive addiction to genealogical research on her family that threatens to engulf her life and work. Tries to make peace with it by creating Never Forget. Reads all the slave narratives she has been stockpiling in her library for decades. Discovers Cat’s Claw herbal tea, back pain disappears, gradually recovers Supta Kurmasana. Places The Probable Trust Registry with the Nationalgalerie Berlin, begins work on its exhibition premiere at the Hamburger Bahnhof in 2017. Creates President Bandersnatch (with thanks to Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel) for Grey Room magazine to commemorate election of Donald Trump to U.S. Presidency. Learns of Bob Dylan’s refusal to attend the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Oslo to receive his Nobel Prize in Literature. Piper decides to make no further public appearances. Takes enforced holiday vacation: IT system crashes, loses computer and email access for a month. Simultaneously Piper also crashes: gets really bad flu virus, incapacitated for a month + rehab time. Reads history and sociology of American society, European history, ancient and medieval history while recovering from burnout. Finds and reads Great Aunt Ruby’s wonderful Hunter College undergraduate textbook, The History of Medieval Europe by Lynn Thorndike (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1917; second edition Houghton Mifflin 1928). Learns Yoga Sutras II.48-III.24 by heart.
2017 Piper exhibits The Probable Trust Registry at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Nationalgalerie Berlin. Completes legal restructuring of APRA Foundation Berlin. Finalizes will. Progressively neglects more and more of yoga practice as deadline pressures for MoMA retrospective increase. Convinces the Berlin city housing construction department to mention some experienced and competent architectural firms able to complete renovation of house. Receives honorary Doctor of Arts from NSCAD University. Honored by Artists Space, New York. Inivited to join National Academy of Art. Signs contract with Central Books Ltd. for distribution of APRA Foundation Berlin print publications. Grieves death at the age of 48, after twelve years of tenure in the Princeton Philosophy Department, of Delia Graff Fara. Grieves death at age 40, after nine years of tenure in the Stanford Mathematics Department, of Maryam Mirzakhani. Discontinues APRA Foundation Berlin Graduate Student Teaching Scholarship in Philosophy at Keele University. Discovers Christopher Dawson’s Medieval Essays in parents’ library. Exhibits It’s Just Art (1980) and Here (2008-2015) at Lévy Gorvy, New York. Writes up “Consistency as Non-Contradiction in Rational Choice Theory.” Establishes The Order of Celestial Laughter (2017). Begins work on final chapter of Kant’s Metaethics: First Critique Foundations of His Theory of Action. Discovers Johann Huizinga’s The Waning of the Middle Ages in parents’ library. Sacrifices yoga practice to preparations for MoMA retrospective and publication of Escape to Berlin. Reads Ian Mortimer’s The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England. Learns Yoga Sutras III.25-IV.1 by heart.
2018 Publishes Escape to Berlin: A Travel Memoir (Berlin: APRA Foundation Berlin, 2018). Awarded Germany’s Käthe-Kollwitz-Preis for 2018. Reads Christine de Pizan’s A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor, Hildegard von Bingen’s Weisheiten und Ratschläge für jeden Tag. Retrospective, Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions 1965-2016, opens at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gradually resumes yoga practice with a few elementary asanas. Publishes “Reality Check: Where is Enlightenment?” in Artforum. Premieres Das Ding-an-sich bin ich (2018) at the Akademie der Künste Käthe-Kollwitz-Preis exhibition. Buys several books about the late Roman empire and early Medieval period. Establishes the APRA Foundation Berlin Philosophy Dissertation Fellowship. CRITIQUE: Book discussions in the philosophy of Kant and German Idealism hosts Author-meets-Critics online symposium on Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Begins collecting materials for Plain Brown Paper Bag series. Escape to Berlin reviewed in Hyperallergic. Undergoes full-scale medical examination and laboratory tests to determine cause of physical exhaustion; findings indicate excessive stress but otherwise good health. Decides to take 2019 off. Creates and immediately places Race Traitor (2018) poster series. Posts Museum Studies section on the MoMA retrospective at the APRA website. Landlord forces APRA to vacate Archive space several months before renovation of APRA’s permanent home is complete, and to place all contents of Archive in temporary storage. Archive closed to visitors until after relocation into permanent home. Learns Yoga Sutras IV.2-IV.14 by heart.
2019 APRA forced to vacate Archive space several months before renovation of APRA’s permanent home is scheduled to be completed, and to place all contents of Archive in temporary storage. Archive closed to visitors until after relocation into permanent home. Takes the year off from public engagements. Okwui Enwezor dies of cancer. Views Rezo’s video, Die Zerstörung der CDU many times and regains hope for the future of the human race (briefly). Spends three weeks being treated for exhaustion at an Ayurvedic clinic in northern Bavaria. Embarks on cover-to-cover study of Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Selectively resumes giving interviews, in email form only. Turns down four philosophy lecture invitations in a row and draws the obvious conclusion. Coins and defines the term, racial essentialism. Conceptualizes Wahlkampagne. Learns Yoga Sutras IV.15-IV.34 by heart. Finds mantra in IV.25-26. Writes up "Philosophy En Route to Reality: A Bumpy Ride" by invitation from The Journal of World Philosophies . Formally submits construction application to city authorities for the renovation of APRA’s permanent home. Publishes letter to the editor, “Re.: ‘Special Report: Women’s Place in the Art World’,” in Artnet News. Jörg Heiser review of Escape to Berlin appears in E-Flux Journal. First meeting of APRA team with APRA’s future Board of Trustees.
2020 APRA takes over book distribution of Escape to Berlin from Central Books. Begins research for and production of Wahlkampagne. Discontinues The Berlin Journal of Philosophy, except for annual survey of philosophy journal paper submission policies. David Velasco performs “David Velasco teaches Adrian Piper’s Funk Lessons” at the Museum MMK für moderne Kunst Frankfurt, to rave reviews. 20 years of archived APRA website activity statistics mysteriously and irretrievably erased. Sees Jennifer Fox film, The Tale; embarks on extended journey of introspection and research. Corona Virus surfaces in European awareness. All commitments

Photo credit: Adrian Piper
on hold. Moves entire contents of apartment into a temporary apartment for six weeks while building is being renovated, then moves back. Then moves into a hotel for two weeks to escape poisonous fumes from renovation construction glue, then moves back. Kunsthal Trondheim commissions Everything #28. Does interview, “Adrian Piper in conversation with Lauren O’Neill-Butler,” for first issue of November. Nominated by CHD Artmaker for the public art commission for the Memorial in the Tuileries Gardens to the Victims of Slavery. Best friend Rob Rubin dies of complications from multiple myeloma.
2021 Wins the Goslarer Kaiserring 2021. Wahlkampagne interview by Agata Hofrichter published in Der Tagesspiegel. Invited to join American Academy of Arts & Letters. Shakes the Corona Virus in eight days by fasting on hot water and carrot juice, fights the symptoms of “long COVID” for the next several months, begins in-depth training of APRA Board of Trustees and team to run APRA by themselves. Gradually regains part of asana practice. Decides not to publish any more philosophy texts. Interrupts study of Gibbon Volume V to reread Günter Benser’s DDR – gedenkt ihrer mit Nachsicht. Publishes “On the Tuileries Slave Memorial Jury ‘Impasse’” in Artforum.