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WILLIAM POPE.L PHOTOGRAPHED BY GRANT DELIN IN
CHICAGO, NOVEMBER 2012.
ALL CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES: POPE.L'S OWN.
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Somewhere between formalism and the concrete
struggles of race and identity, artist William Pope.L makes works that
literally pull people together
TEXT | Ross Simonini
PHOTOGRAPHY | Grant Delin
Excerpt:
Beginning in the late '90s, William Pope.L famously crawled along 22 miles of sidewalk, from the beginning to the end of Broadway—Manhattan's longest street—wearing a capeless Superman outfit with a skateboard strapped to his back. In varying fits and starts, the performance, titled The Great White Way, 22 Miles, 9 Years, 1 Street, took nine years to complete, with each installment lasting as long as Pope.L could endure the knee and elbow pain (often about six blocks). It is among 30-plus "crawl" pieces that he has performed over more than three decades of work as an artist.
This spring, Pope.L will have an exhibition he describes as "an ambiloquy, a discourse on ambiguity," at the Renaissance Society in Chicago, his current home.
ROSS SIMONINI: Is your work a form of activism?
WILLIAM POPE.L: When people use the word activism today, it sounds like after-ism—something you do after, reactionary; or back-sterism—something you do backwards. The space I create in my work for others is more formalist, like, "change the world," or, "change the frame on that painting."
SIMONINI: Do you want to change the world?
POPE.L: I think that corporations and states have actually co-opted that phrase. I guess that phrase would be connected more to the '60s. And I think, initially when I was using it, maybe 20 to 25 years ago, that co-optation wasn't as clear or formidable as it is now. You have to respond to your times. But I think that phrase is connected to the idea of art transforming anything or the idea that radicality in small things is a revolution or the concept of being able to make a life less onerous by offering opportunities to that life.
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