Performative Image by Grace Tarducci https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6 Fall 2020 en-us 2020-09-16 13:41:00 UTC 2025-04-20 15:04:27 UTC hello@padlet.com Mythic Being Gracetarducci https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761420451 “No matter how much I ask my mother to stop buying crackers, cookies, and things, she always does anyway and says it’s for her even if I always eat it. So, I’ve decided to fast,” the “Mythic Being” recites as he walks down the streets of New York City in 1973, an afro on his head, a mustache on his lip, and sunglasses to hide his eyes. The Mythic Being dons a macho façade but repeats feminine experiences, documented by a sixteen-year-old Adrian Piper in her teen diary, over and over again as people crowd around and stare curiously. The secret is that the Mythic Being is not a real person; he is Adrian Piper. Piper dressed in drag and performed as a man with all of her life experiences, she wanted to know what would happen if she filled a masculine figure with a feminine identity – specifically, a black feminine identity.
Adrian Piper used her work to challenge visual codes of gender
and race. “I embody everything you must hate and fear,” reads the speech bubble print of
a village voice ad for Mythic Being. Who embodies everything we must hate and fear? Is it
really the Mythic Being? Or is it Piper herself who is a woman of color? In the 1970s, liberation movements weren’t necessarily intersectional – that is to say movements like Women’s Lib and the Black Liberation Movement did not account for the intersections within social discrimination. Feminism was racially oppressive, while black activism was sexually oppressive. Black women would try to “blur the line between being a man and being a woman” (Bowles - jstor) in order to receive recognition, but would often be forced to choose one movement over the other. Because of this, activists came together to create Black Feminism. Adrian Piper’s work often tells a black feminist narrative, the group that started revolutionary dialogue. She is a black woman and therefore she embodies everything the United States hates and fears.


]]> 2020-09-20 00:35:57 UTC https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761420451 Gracetarducci https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761425694 2020-09-20 00:46:58 UTC https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761425694 https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.artic.edu%2Fartworks%2F200003%2Fthe-mythic-being-i-embody-everything-you-most-hate-and-fear&psig=AOvVaw1D_PrtaRr6ScwnbjSvl4q0&ust=1600648989540000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKDL_qXA9usCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAZ Gracetarducci https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761426089 2020-09-20 00:47:50 UTC https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761426089 Reflection Gracetarducci https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761427410 “No matter how much I ask my mother to stop buying crackers, cookies, and things, she always does anyway and says it’s for her even if I always eat it. So, I’ve decided to fast,” (Piper) the “Mythic Being” recites as he walks down the streets of New York City in 1973, an afro on his head, a moustache on his lip, and sunglasses to hide his eyes. The Mythic Being dons a macho façade but repeats feminine experiences, documented by a sixteen-year-old Adrian Piper in her teen diary, over and over again as people crowd around and stare curiously (Kennedy). The secret is that the Mythic Being is not a real person; he is Adrian Piper. Piper dressed in drag and performed as a man with all of her life experiences, she wanted to know what would happen if she filled a masculine figure with a feminine identity – specifically, a black feminine identity.
Adrian Piper uses her work to challenge visual codes of gender and race. “I embody everything you must hate and fear” (Piper), reads the speech bubble print of a village voice ad for Mythic Being. Who embodies everything we must hate and fear? Is it really the Mythic Being? Or is it Piper herself who is a woman of color? In the 1970s, liberation movements weren’t necessarily intersectional – that is to say movements like Women’s Lib and the Black Liberation Movement did not account for the intersections within social discrimination. Feminism was racially oppressive, while black activism was sexually oppressive.
Black women would try to “blur the line between being a man and being a woman” (Bowles - jstor) in order to receive recognition, but would often be forced to choose one movement over the other.
Because of this, activists came together to create Black Feminism. Adrian Piper’s work often tells a black feminist narrative, the group that started revolutionary dialogue. She is a black woman and therefore she embodies everything the United States hates and fears.]]> 2020-09-20 00:50:52 UTC https://padlet.com/gracetarducci/33hjk5biel1fy5m6/wish/761427410