Pope.L

Pope.L (William Pope.L, 1955–2023) was an American artist known for provocative performances and public works about race, language and power. Born in Newark, New Jersey, he studied at Pratt Institute and Montclair State College (BA 1978), took part in the Whitney Independent Study Program, and earned an MFA from Rutgers University in 1981. He began performing on the street in the 1970s with pieces such as Times Square Crawl (1978), and later made works including Eating the Wall Street Journal (2000) and The Great White Way (2001–2002). His work appeared in the 2002 and 2017 Whitney Biennials and documenta 14, with major shows at the Museum of Modern Art (2019) and the South London Gallery (2023–24). He taught in the University of Chicago's Department of Visual Arts and died at his home in Chicago in December 2023.