member: Pope.L, 1978–2001

member: Pope.L, 1978–2001
October 21, 2019–January 2020 (the exact period is not yet known) The Museum of Modern Art

Pope.L (b. 1955) is a consummate provocateur whose practice across multiple mediums—including performance, painting, drawing, installation, theater, and video—uses abjection, humor, endurance, and absurdity to undermine rigid systems of belief. member: Pope.L, 1978–2001 features a selection of career-defining works spanning from 1978 to 2001.

These performances range across those rooted in experiment, such as Egg Eating Contest (1990), Aunt Jenny Chronicles (1991), and Eracism (2000), as well as street interventions, such as Thunderbird Immolation a.k.a. Meditation Square Piece (1978), Times Square Crawl a.k.a. Meditation Square Piece (1978), Tompkins Square Crawl a.k.a. How Much Is That Nigger in the Window (1991), ATM Piece (1996), and The Great White Way: 22 miles, 9 years, 1 street (2001–09), among others. Together, these works form a snapshot of the profound social, cultural, and economic shifts in New York City throughout the 1980s and ’90s.

Organized by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance, with Danielle A. Jackson, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance.

MoMA’s presentation is part of Pope.L: Instigation, Aspiration, Perspiration, a trio of complementary exhibitions organized by MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Public Art Fund.