Let's Have a Talk
Adrian Piper · 1992
Screenprint
From the portfolio 10: Artist as Catalyst
20½ × 14³⁄₁₆ in.
Screenprint
From the portfolio 10: Artist as Catalyst
20½ × 14³⁄₁₆ in.
Adrian Piper, 1992
You looked in Yoko Ono's mirror and saw yourself. Now what? You can't stay there forever. At some point, you have to turn around and face someone else. At some point, you have to speak.
A silhouette. A cigarette. A speech bubble glowing like a spotlight. And those four words: LET'S HAVE A TALK. Simple. Direct. But not exactly friendly, is it?
Adrian Piper made this in 1992, part of a series called "Artist as Catalyst." The whole project was about using art to force conversations that people didn't want to have — conversations about race, about assumptions, about the way we see each other and the way we refuse to see each other.
This isn't a polite "let's chat." This is a confrontation. The figure is in shadow — you can't see their face, can't read their expression. All you can see is that cigarette, that stance, that speech bubble hanging there like a demand. Not "I'd like to talk." Not "Can we talk?" But: Let's have a talk. Now.
Piper spent her career making work that put people in uncomfortable positions. She would hand out cards in restaurants that said things like "I am black. I am sure you did not realize this when you made/laughed at/agreed with that racist remark." She didn't let anyone off the hook. Not even herself.
After everything we've been through on this tour — the loneliness, the fusion, the ashes, the germination, the mirror — we arrive here. At the necessity of talking to another person. Not merging with them like Munch's kiss. Not standing silently apart like the figures on the shore. But actually speaking.
And it's hard. Because talking means being seen. It means being misunderstood. It means the possibility of conflict, of rejection, of discovering that the distance between you and another person is wider than you thought. Or narrower. Or different than you imagined.
But the alternative is staying in the mirror forever. And you can't live there.
"Let's have a talk."
Not an option.
An invitation you can't refuse.
— The work speaks
Think of someone you need to talk to. Someone you've been avoiding, or someone you've lost, or someone you see every day but never really speak to.
If you could say one true thing to them — not the polite thing, not the easy thing, but the true thing — what would it be? (You don't have to send it. This is just for you. But name it. Say it out loud, here, in the dark.)