Mitchell-Innes & Nash

William Pope.L

Biography

WILLIAM POPE.L

Born 1955, Newark, New Jersey

Education

1983-1985 Mabou Mines Re.Cher.Chez. Theater Intensive, New York, NY
1979-1981 Mason Gross School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, M.F.A.
1977-1978 Whitney Museum Independent Studio Program, New York, NY
1975-1978 Montclair State College, Montclair, NJ, B.A.
1973-1975 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY


Selected Solo Exhibitions

2010
landscapes + objects + animals, Mitchell-Innes & Nash (forthcoming)
color isn't matter, Samson Projects, Boston, MA
2009
The Black Factory, Art Projects Art Basel Miami Beach
Allan Kaprow Yard, Hauser & Wirth, NY
Corbu Pops, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts Harvard University
2008
October Projects , Mitchell-Innes & Nash, , NY
Animal Nationalism, Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO
Biting Through Innocence. Gallerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels, Belgium
2007
Art After White People: Time, Trees, & Celluloid… Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA
William Pope.L: snow, spraypaint, hair, sperm & baloney. Kenny Schachter ROVE, London, UK
William Pope.L: The Black Factory and Other Good Works. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
The Void Show. MC Kunst, Los Angeles, CA
2006
Trophy Room. Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Under All, Above Most. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
2005
some things you can do with blackness…. Kenny Schachter ROVE, London, UK
Props & Propositions. Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH
2004
Five Ways to Say the Same Sadness. University Art Museum, University at Albany, NY
eRacism: electronica. Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, St. Louis, MO
reFunkt. The Project, New York, NY
eRacism. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
eRacism. Artists Space, New York, NY
2003
Foddah. Drew University, Madison, NJ
Some: Of Place and Desire. ArtHouse, Austin, TX
eRacism. Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR
eRacism. DiverseWorks, Houston, TX
2002
What's Inside A Boy. The Project, Los Angeles, CA
eRacism. ICA at Maine College of Art, Portland, ME
Incontinent. Wood Street Gallery, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA
2001
Hole Theory. The Project, New York, NY
2000
Eracism: White Room. ThreadWaxing Space, New York, NY
The Hole Inside The Space Inside Yves Klein's Asshole. Concordia Univ, Montreal, Canada
Eating The Wall Street Journal And Other Current Consumptions. Mobius, Boston, MA
1998
Recent Work. The Project, New York, NY


Selected Group Exhibitions

2009
30 Seconds Off an Inch, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY
2008
30 Americans, The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL
Paul Thek: In the Contexts of Today's Contemporary Art (PART TWO). Sammlung Falkenburg, Hamburg, Germany
Black Is, Black Ain't. The Renaissance Society at University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Criminal: Art and Criminal Justice in America. The International Center for the Arts at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Informal Architectures (Pt.2). Winnepeg, CA
Retail Value. Dorsky Gallery, Long Island City, NY

2007
Port City: On Mobility and Exchange, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
Informal Architectures. The Banff Centre, Banff, AB, Canada
Get Lost. New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
Conceptual Paper. Arndt & Partner, Zurich, Switzerland
Plug, Sister Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Silicone Valley. PS-1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY
2006
South Bronx Contemporary: Longwood 25th Anniversary. Longwood Art Gallery, Bronx, NY
A Noir, E Blanc, I Rouge.... Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg, Germany
Shed Piece. Frieze Art Fair, London, England
7e Biennale de l'Art Africaine Contemporaire. Dakar, Senegal
Civil Restitutions. Thomas Dane Gallery, London, England
Newark Between Us. 744 Gallery/Newark Arts Council, Newark, NJ
Stories. Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM
Situation Comedy. Winnipeg Art Gallery, Canada; Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
Skowhegan at 60. Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
Humor Me. H & R Block Artspace, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO
Relics and Remnants. Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, New York, NY
Dreaming of a More Better Future. Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH
2005
Hero. Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM
Landmark. Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR
RAPSIDA. Gallery 138, New York, NY
Double Consciousness. Museum of Contemporary Arts Houston, Houston, TX
Situation Comedy. Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
Decarie. Saidye Bronfman Center for the Arts, Montreal, Canada
Defense. Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside, CA
2004
The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere. MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
Watch What We Say. Schroeder Romero, Brooklyn, NY
The Big Nothing. Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Brown v. Board of Education 1954-2004. Gallery 138, New York, NY
Moving Collection: Body-Con. Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan
Reverse Engineers. Herndon Gallery, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH
Only Skin Deep. International Center for Photography, New York, NY
2003 Moving Collection: Body-Con. Wanakio Festival, Naha, Okinawa, Japan
Motion Studies. Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY
White. Bill Maynes Gallery, New York, NY
Ameri©an Dre@m. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Gallery, New York, NY
2002
Art & Outrage. Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY
Whitney Biennial. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Reactions. Exit Art Gallery, New York, NY
Moving Collection: Body-Con. Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand
2001
Video Jam. Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Palm Bach, FL
2000
Pix. Lance Fung Gallery, New York, NY
1999
Out of Actions. Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; Museu d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona, Spain
1998
warming. The Project, New York, NY
Out of Actions. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; MAK, Vienna, Austria

Selected Performances

2007
In the Cabin. House of World Cultures (Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Berlin, Germany
Holiday / Dovolená. Prague Quadrennial, Prague, Czech Republic
2006
Condoleezza Rice Day. Galleria Civica, Trento, Italy
In the Cabin! Mobius at Midway Theater, Boston, MA
The Black Factory. various venues, USA
Poor Piece. Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM
Singing the House. MIT, Boston, MA
Santa Fe Group Crawl. Santa Fe, NM
2005
White Room #4: Wittgenstein and My Brother Frank. Kenny Schachter ROVE, London, UK
Bringing the Decarie to the Mountain (group crawl). Montreal, Canada
The Black Factory. various venues, USA
The Yeti and the Case for Contemporary Photography. Cologne Art Fair, Cologne, Germany
Angel-Vision. Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead Quays, UK
2004
White Room #2: Moby Dick. Roosevelt Island lighthouse, New York, NY
White Room #3: Music Appreciation. PS-1, Queens, NY
Negarkuisse Part 2. House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany
Negarkuisse Part 1. House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany
The Black Factory. various venues, USA
2003
Anglo-Vision. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
Coon. Cinema Texas, University of Texas at Austin and Arthouse, Austin, TX
Candy Mountain. Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR
Freedman's Town to Enron City (Houston group crawl). DiverseWorks, Houston, TX
2002
The Great White Way: 22 Miles, 9 Years, 1 Street. New York, NY
Eracism, Portland Stage Company, Portland, ME
Portland, Maine Crawl. Portland, ME
2001
I Love Japan. Tokyo, Japan
Shopping Crawl. Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
Bringing the Homeless Back to Shinjuku. Shinjuku Station, Tokyo, Japan
2000
Eracism. ThreadWaxing Space, New York, NY
Eating the Wall Street Journal. The Sculpture Center, New York, NY
Selling My Grandmother. Yard Sale, New York City Lab School, New York, NY
Boston Commons Crawl. Boston School of Fine Art, Boston, MA
1999
The Black Body and Sport. Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; Budapest, Hungary; Madrid, Spain
The White Mountain (Wonder Bread). Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY
My Niagra #3 (Paint). Los Angeles, CA
Raymond (version 2). Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL
1998
My Niagra #2 (Bed). The Project, New York, NY
My Niagra #1 (Paint). Fells Point, Baltimore, MD
A Negro Sleeps Beneath the Susquehanna. Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA
Eracism (version 8). 7alld Festival, Toronto, Canada
1997
ATM Piece. 42nd Street, New York, NY
Sweet Desire. Maine Arts Festival, Brunswick, ME
Eracism. Mobius, Boston, MA
1996
Sweet Desire. Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
Member. Harlem, New York, NY

Selected Awards

2007
Tiffany Foundation Award
Nancy Graves Foundation Award
2006
United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship
LEF Foundation
Bellagio
2004 Guggenheim Fellowship
2003 Rockefeller Foundation
2002 Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art
2001 Japan – U.S. Friendship Commission Fellowship
The Andy Warhol Foundation
Creative Capital Foundation
2000 Franklin Furnace/Jerome Foundation
Tanne Foundation Fellowship
1999 Maine Arts Commission Fellowship Grant
1995 National Endowment for the Arts
1994 National Endowment for the Arts
New England Regional Initiative Project
Maine Arts Commission Fellowship Grant
1993 National Endowment for the Arts
Art Matters


Selected Bibliography

Lepecki, Andre. Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement. Routledge, 2006.
Storey, Natalie. On Your Knees! Sunday, The New Mexican Magazine, Santa Fe, NM, March 12-18, 2006.
Van Cleve, Emily. Performer Makes an Art of Humiliation. The Journal Santa Fe, March 3, 2006
Sayer, Laura. Undies to See the Light. The New Record, Cincinnati, OH, January 5-8, 2006
Chase, Alisia. Learning to be Human. Afterimage, January-February, 2006.
Agans, Elizabeth. Think Again. Rutgers Magazine, Winter, 2006
Firstenberg, Lauri. Profile: Tapping the energy of Predicament. Contemporary Magazine, New York, NY, 2005.
McKanic, Arlene. JCAL's Relics and Remnants. The New York Amsterdam News. November 3-9, 2005
Pope.L, William. Letter to a Young Artist. Art on Paper, July/August, 2005.
Dischinger, Mark. The United Colors of America. RFT: Riverfront Times, St Louis, MO, June 15-21, 2005
Thorson, Alice. Highlighting 'Blackness'. Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO, June 12, 2005
Sedgewick, Augustine. Perspective: William Pope.L, The Possibilities of Difference. Sun Journal, June 12, 2005
Delgado, Jerome. Amener l'Autoroute a la Montagne. La Presse. Montreal, Canada, June 2, 2005
Harthill, Daniel. Shazam! Sun Journal, Lewiston, ME, May 30, 2005.
Lamarche, Bernard. Toucher Son But. Le Devoir, Montreal, Canada, May 15, 2005
Pope.L, William. The "Looking for Miss Black Factory" Contest. Art Journal, Spring, 2005.
Thompson, Chris. Afterbirth of a Nation. Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 2004.
Trainor, James. Walking the Walk: The Artist as Flâneur. Border Crossings, November 2003.
Tousignant, Isa. Crawl for Your Life. The Hour, Montreal, Canada, November 4, 2004
Cotter, Holland. Hometown of Utopia and Dissent. The New York Times, New York, NY, July 23, 2004
Trainor, James. Ain't No Such Thing As Superman. Frieze, London, England, May 2004.
Daily, Meghan. William Pope.L. ArtForum, April 2004.
Osei-Bonsu, Aufa. The Art of Contraries: William Pope.L. Afrique, Chicago, IL, April, 2004
Smith, Roberta. William Pope.L. The New York Times, January 30, 2004
Calo, Carole Gold. Public Art/Private Art. Public Art Review Crossroads, Fall-Winter 2003.
Owens, Clifford. Notes on Critical Black U.S. Performance Art. Fylkingen Net Journal, October 23, 2003
D.K. Row. Covered In Chocolate, An Artist Dances 'For Democracy'. The Oregonian, June 12, 2003
Pope.L, William. Sandwich Lecture 8. LIVE Culture, Tate Gallery, London, UK, Spring 2003.
Stillman, Nick. The Value of Not Knowing. New York Fine Arts Quarterly (NYFA), Vol. 19, No 2, Spring 2003
Pollack, Barbara. The Art of Public Disturbance. Art in America, May, 2003.
Bessire, Mark H. C., ed. William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America. MIT Press, 2002
Pope.L, William. Voices from the Field. The Visual Art Critic, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2002.
Cohen, Ted. Crawling to Learn. Maine Telegram Sunday, Portland, ME, October 6, 2002.
Cotter, Holland. Tombs, Pop Tarts, and Parties. The New York Times, August 23, 2002.
Connors, Philip. The Man Who Ate the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2002.
Pollack, Barbara. Superman Enters the Culture Wars. Village Voice, New York, NY, January 15, 2002
Cotter, Holland. Noted Performance Artist's Work Slows to a Crawl. International Herald Tribune, January 2002.
Pogrebin, Robin. Warhol Foundation Finances Work Rebuffed by N.E.A. New York Times, December 21, 2001
Associated Press. NEA Grant is Denied for Noted Maine Artist. Boston Globe, Boston, MA, December 20, 2001
Carr, C. Generation Gap: Three Performers and a Waterbed. Village Voice, New York, NY, July 18, 2000.
Rush, Michael. Performance Hops Back Into the Scene. The New York Times, New York, NY, July 2, 2000.
Robinson, Dash. Consumer Demand: William Pope.L. Cambridge Tab, Needham, MA, January 14, 2000.
Crawford, Cair. My Niagra #2 (Bed). Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, Issue 10, Summer, 1999.
Volk, Gregory. Rolo Castillo, William Pope.L, The Project. Flash Art, March-April, 1999
Carr, C. Some Kind of Protest. Village Voice, New York, NY, March 4, 1997
Weiss, Allen S., ed. Taste Nostalgia. Lusitania Press, New York, NY, 1997.
Wilson, Martha. William Pope.L. Bomb Magazine, New York, NY, Spring, 1996

Artist Exhibitions

Summer Exhibition -
William Pope.L - October Projects - September 18 - October 24, 2008
William Pope.L - landscapes + objects + animals - May - June, 2010

Artist Images

Black People are That Movie You Wanted to See but You Got There Too Ate and the Tickets Were Sold Out, 2008
Graph paper, bic pen, marker, white-out, and acrylic
11 by 8 1/2 in. 27.9 by 21.6 cm.


Black People are Slick
2001-2
Graph paper, bic pen, marker, white-out, and acrylic
11 by 8 1/2 in. 27.9 by 21.6 cm.


Blue People are the Niggers of the Atmosphere
2008
Graph paper, bic pen, marker, white-out, and acrylic
11 by 8 1/2 in. 27.9 by 21.6 cm.


Purple People are the Rhyme in the Skyout Exactly Against the Red Against the Blue Against the Black Against the Glass Against the Sun
2006-7
Graph paper, bic pen, marker, white-out, and acrylic
11 by 8 1/2 in. 27.9 by 21.6 cm.


White People are a Desalination Plant in Puerto Rico
2001
Graph paper, bic pen, marker, white-out, and acrylic
11 by 8 1/2 in. 27.9 by 21.6 cm.


Failure Drawing #33 Red Clouds
2004-06
Ink, black marker, ballpoint pen, acrylic, stains and newspaper collage on joined brown paper
4 3/4 by 9 7/8 in. 12.1 by 25.1 cm.


Failure Drawing #252 Green Sky Red Mountain
2005-06
Ink and colored marker on hotel stationery
5 1/2 by 4 1/4 in. 14 by 10.8 cm.


Failure Drawing #386 Worm in Class
Circa 2003-08
Ballpoint pen and watercolor on newspaper over card
4 1/2 by 6 5/16 in. 11.4 by 16 cm.


Failure Drawing #361 Rocket Fall, the Night Receives, Pittsburgh
2004
Ballpoint pen on napkin
5 by 5 1/4 in. 12.7 by 13.3 cm.


Failure Drawing #807 Rocket Water, Greyhound Schedule
2004
Ballpoint pen, ink color marker and acrylic on printed paper
4 3/4 by 4 in. 12.1 by 10.2 cm.


Coffin (Flag Box)
2008
Wood construction with printed tape, CD player, speakers, metal handles, casters, vinyl grills, electrical cord and book and wood stack
54 7/8 by 72 1/4 by 44 1/4 in. 139.4 by 183.5 by 112.4 cm.


Keepsake
2008
Printed and torn paper, sweater, thumb tacks and mixed media
diptych, overall: 55 1/2 by 185 1/2 in. 141 by 471.2 cm.


Performance Table (with Corbu Popsicle/ Hatchets dipped in black liquid and vaseline)
2009
Photo credit: Shiloh Cinquemani


The Space Between One Mask and Another and Another...
2006
Photo montage
40 by 48 in. 101.6 by 121.9 cm.