Adrian Piper's, Context #7 (1970) @ PS1, Talent Show

Adrian Piper’s, Context #7 (1970), part of the “Talent Show” currently up at PS.1 Moma until April 4th, reinforces the exhibition’s theme of the constructed and ever-changing spheres of public and private space, as well as the notoriety or obscurity we prescribe ourselves in those spaces.

Originally, Piper presented “the work”, or, as it was in 1970, a binder full of blank pages, in the MoMA exhibition Information, with the instruction “You the viewer are requested to draw or otherwise indicate any response suggested by this situation (this statement, the blank notebook and pen, the museum context, your immediate state of mind, etc.) is the pages of the notebook beneath this sign. The information entered in the notebook will not be altered or utilized in any way.” Today, at PS.1, photocopied pages from that original presentation are behind glass, lining the walls of a small white room. This new context pushes the original presentation of the work’s intent even further, but perhaps in the opposite direction. The once democratic space of the notebook is now closed off and made private, thus destroying its idealistic aims opening an area for free-expression. It is a brilliant example of how our attempt to hold onto a historical artwork has instead degraded its integrity and even identity.

Originally the work attempted to break down the discourse on the spectator, inviting them to participate in the creation process, giving them the possibility for anonymity or infamy. But what I think was even more powerful and poetic about this piece in the 70’s was its implication of the infinite. The blank page is a site for any mark a pen could make, ink or indent, tear or fold, addition or edit, but most importantly, it is a place that can easily grow. In its unbound state, one can simply add more pages, add more opinions, and be forever in flux. The opportunity for change and amendment is what made this work a truly democratic space. While the MoMA limited who was able and likely to participate, the implication that the gesture could continue anywhere, allowed the work to surpass that simple audience. Instead, that implication has been destroyed. The pages are hermetically sealed off and instantaneously stripped of their freedom in hopes of preserving the work as a symbol of freedom, rather than a site for actual freedom to continue to exist. Why let people participate in their own free will when they can pay to see how that liberty might have existed for a moment in the 70’s? By not being provided a space for the work to continue, we are instead left what feels like a failed utopian dream turned to an example of a historical exercise in theory—or perhaps for the even more pessimistic, an act of freedom turned commodity.