Portraying African-American Identity in Art: Hammons and Piper

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David Hammons and Adrian Piper: African-American Identity David Hammons and Adrian Piper are both American artists known for different reasons. Hammons is well known for his artwork around New York and his range of materials, as well as his support for the black power movement. Piper is a philosopher known for her conceptual artwork, such as her performance artworks, and artwork addressing “otherness”. In this paper, however; the two artworks I will be discussing are David Hammons’ American Costume and Adrian Piper’s Self Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features. Both artworks are self-portraits relating to identity and the portrayal of African-Americans during the late 1900s, following the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the United …show more content…

David Hammons, American Costume, 1970, print (The Art Institute of Chicago, 1999), p. 43. On the other hand, Piper’s artwork, Self Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features (see fig. 2) provides a different perspective and uses traditional media. Piper’s self-portrait is direct, it provides a frontal view in which her gaze confronts the viewer. Piper uses pencil on white paper, and shows a spectrum of tonal value with an emphasis on central vertical axis, drifting to a more sketch-like quality outward but still resulting in a balanced composition of black and white. Self Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features is not a realistic rendering, as told in the title, and this exaggeration is purposeful. Figure 2. Adrian Piper, Self Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features, 1981, pencil and paper, Eileen Harris Norton …show more content…

They are also both conceptual artists, who were influenced by postmodernism and performance art, as well as the Harlem Renaissance. Their exaggerated self-portraits reflect primitivism and questions viewers what being considered “black” entails. The media Hammons and Piper use are different, but the use of their body as the subject and object was an integral starting point because their artwork confronts the viewer, and is intended to cause intentional discomfort to challenge society’s

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