While Pope.L is still best known for his crawl performances through the streets of New York, the late artist also left behind a vast, multidisciplinary studio practice that remained uncompromising until his death in 2023. As Melissa Smith writes, Pope.L “constantly questioned and challenged accepted wisdom, especially on the politics of race, gender, and class.” In this new essay for Independent Features, Smith explores Pope.L’s provocations involving figures like Barack Obama, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King Jr., through which he examined what he called “contraries” of their lives.
