In October 2024, more than 400 people gathered at a two-day event at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts to celebrate the life and work of Pope.L (1955–2023), an acclaimed artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts (DoVA) from 2010.
The event included the reading of remembrances that had been submitted by his former students. Some of these submissions are excerpted below.
--
Pope.L taught me how to tirelessly critique my work and how to be true to my intentions.
During my two years at DoVA and the many times I met with Pope he was always warm and enthusiastic. He never took my work and my words at face value. And I never felt that he was critical of the work for the sake of being critical. He always had the simplest ways of helping me see my work differently.
He had a way of shifting my perspectives. Sometimes by physically manipulating the work, moving and bringing the work to a new location, sometimes by simply asking me to explain my thoughts in the simplest terms possible. No detail is too small for him. That opened up possibilities for me to break down and rebuild my understanding of my intentions.
He ingrained in me a way to dismantle my internal dogmas that I did not know existed. I carry that everywhere I go.
--
Pope.L, I send you the list of questions for our next play.
What kind of theater or performance endures over the life?
I know, you had read Hamlet, so tell me: Have you felt like Hamlet before?, prisoner between the plan and the action, does this feeling overcome after life?
Two hundred words are not enough to thank your kindness and charisma. I already used 12 words in that sentence, does death finally unattach us from language? Is there something important for you in this particular moment, that must be in the play? Have you thought about the wardrobe? How do you imagine the scenography?
--
One time during a long day of critiques I saw Pope.L writing in a little notebook quite often. I was kind of curious what he was writing but tried to avoid looking. At some point he turned, or I turned, and I happened to see what he had been writing. He was spelling out the words EVIL and VILLAGE so that the E in EVIL also functioned as the E in VILLAGE, or so that the V in EVIL was the V in VILLAGE, and so on with “I” and “L” also. He seemed to have page after page of these EVIL VILLAGE diagrams.
--
Watching, listening to Pope L. giving his artist talk, performance, at Northwestern (?) tossing papers into the air falling here and there like leaves.
Seeing Pope L.’s installation at Grand Arts in Kansas City: I spent a long time with the work letting it work on me. Squaring off standing at the end of a violently flapping oversized American flag. Even the industrial sized fan blades were considered: a gorgeous polished wood. It was without words yet loud: wind whipping fabric snaps and massive fan’s mechanical relentlessly whir. An endless loop. Threatening physics (to strike or envelop) directly at eye level but restrained just so. I was Immersed inside a gesture (a gesture of what? the tension of democracy? Of civics? Of politics?).
Thoughts as acts.
I was truly honored to have you as a guest in the classroom for teaching observation. To share a brief conversation about teaching and humor and the power of drawing—I wish this was just the beginning.
--
Pope.L taught us so much. His willingness to point to and name the obvious absurdities that surround us is what I hope to carry with me as an artist and human.
--
I feel incredibly lucky to have worked alongside Pope.L for ten years. I was always amazed by his commitment to teaching—He was always there. For someone with a career as meteoric as his, it would have been understandable for him to be away more … but he was always there. He seemed to lead with curiosity and openness. He didn’t push his own preferences or agenda.
He wanted to understand what students were doing and why. He was tough but he was open, and he obviously cared deeply about the students, which he demonstrated with his time. When he talked, everyone listened. When he was silent, everyone listened to that too.
--
A memory surfaced. This boy visiting the country, taken surprised to see his grandmother light out from her front porch, bounding over the land top-speed after a possum, swiftly killing the creature for that night’s table.
His telling was so vivid, I saw straight to it. We laughed our asses off—could barely breathe. Just the idea of her printed housecoat flapping in the wind. Spindly legs running over dust.
A painting of my own memory of my grandmother slaughtering turtles for soup was the catalyst.
I never got to learn with someone who obliterated boundaries. It felt charged–free–because there was an instant trust between us. Our talks were seldom directly about painting. We argued about behavior. […]
I go back to things he said. “Wrong and strong.”
“I’m glad you said fuck.”
“Why isn’t this painting finished?” Me: “I haven’t got … oh!”
Thanks Pope.L for fearlessness.