A self-described “fisherman of social absurdity,”[1] Pope.L crafted a multidisciplinary practice exploring the social, racial, and economic conditions of contemporary culture. The artist is perhaps best known for his “crawls,” performances in which he dragged his prostrate body across public parks, sidewalks, and streets. This action visualized what the artist termed the “have-not-ness”[2] of those members of society who are least empowered. Across his 50-year career, Pope.L employed a variety of unique artistic approaches to question systems of social and artistic value, reclaiming the position of lack as a source of power.

Using materials associated with decay and transience, Pope.L’s paintings challenge the conventions of their medium, often incorporating items such as hair, peanut butter, baloney, and semen. Two Suns revisits the concerns of the Skin Set drawings (1997–2011), a series of text-based works that probe the absurdities of racial language. Two Suns employs this language across a grid of nonsensical declarations such as “PURPLE PEOPLE THE GRAVITY OF LAVENDER” and “BROWN PEOPLE ARE A THEORY ABOUT GREEN PEOPLE.” Brightly colored gestural marks interrupt the rational organization of the painted surface, contributing to the overall sense of a disordered system.

Equal parts humorist and provocateur, Pope.L frequently employed collage to exploit incongruous juxtapositions between images. Another work from the Fields Gift, The Hug, comes from a series titled Servants, in which Pope.L rephotographed 19th-century archival images of Black caregivers. While the original photograph shows a Black man holding a white child, Pope.L superimposed his own face onto the child, producing a disconcerting and defamiliarizing juxtaposition of age, race, and temporality.