Pope.L (b. 1955, Newark, NJ; d. 2023, Chicago, IL) began creating works in the 1970s that were inspired by personal travail, reading philosophy, and performance and theatre training with Geoffrey Hendricks and Mabou Mines. His first performances occurred on the street, and later at major and historic venues, such as Anthology Film Archives, Franklin Furnace, Just Above Midtown, Museum of Modern Art, New Museum, Performa, The Sculpture Center, and the 2002 Whitney Biennial in New York; MIT and Mobius in Boston; MOCA Los Angeles; Shinjuku Station in Tokyo; Diverse Works in Houston; Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead Quays, UK; Prospect.2 in New Orleans; Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and CAM Houston, among others. Some of his major performances include The Escape (2018); Whispering Campaign (2017); Baile (2016); The Problem (2016); Pull (2013); The Black Factory national tour (2002–2009); The Great White Way (2001–2002); Community Crawls (2000–2005); Eating the Wall Street Journal (2000); Roach Motel Black a.k.a. Black Domestic (1994); How Much is that Nigger in the Window (1990-1992); Times Square Crawl (1978); and* Thunderbird Immolation* (1978).

Pope.L’s work has been the subject of important solo and group shows throughout the span of his nearly 50-year career. Especially in the final years of his life, he received broad recognition, with major exhibitions at institutions including the South London Gallery (2023-24), Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2022), the Museum of Modern Art (2019), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2019). Other recent exhibitions, performances, and projects include Impossible Failures at 52 Walker, New York (2023); The Ritual Is For All of us at Vielmetter Los Angeles (2022); Ghostscript, at Modern Art, London (2022); Misconceptions at Portikus, Frankfurt (2021); Notation, Holes and Humour at Modern Art (2021); Four Panels at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York (2021); My Kingdom for a Title at The Neubauer Collegium (2021); Singles at Regards, Chicago (2020); One thing after another, La Panacée (2018); Flint Water Project at What Pipeline, Detroit (2017); Whispering Campaign at documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017); Claim (Whitney Version) at the Whitney Biennial (2017); PLAMA (The Spot), a commercial commissioned for On the Tip of the Tongue at Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2016); Baile at the 32nd Biennal de São Paulo (2016); The Freedom Principle at ICA Philadelphia (2016) and MCA Chicago (2015); The Public Body at Artspace, Sydney (2016); Less than One at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2016); Trinket at The Geffen Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2015); Black Pulp! at Yale School of Art, New Haven and IPCNY in New York (2016); Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, CAM Houston, and Studio Museum in New York (2014); Claim at Littman Gallery, Portland State University, Portland, OR (2014); Cage Unrequited at Performa, New York (2013); Forlesen at The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago (2013); and A Long White Cloud, Te Tuhi, Auckland, New Zealand (2013).

Pope.L studied at Pratt Institute and later received his BA from Montclair State College in 1978. He also attended the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art before earning his MFA from Rutgers University in 1981. He received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Bucksbaum Award, Joyce Foundation Award, the Tiffany Foundation Award, the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, the Bellagio Center Residency, Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship, Andy Warhol Foundation grant, Creative Capital Foundation grant, Franklin Furnace/Jerome Foundation grant, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Artists Space grant, and more.