She is a first-generation Conceptual artist who has been exhibiting her artwork internationally since 1968 and earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard in 1981. She taught philosophy for 30 years. Her two-volume Rationality and the Structure of the Self (2013) integrates desire into reason and standard decision theory into classical predicate logic. In 2018 her seventh traveling retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art was its largest ever for a living artist. Her eighth at PAC Milan in 2024 is preparing to tour. Piper’s artwork is in many important collections and has won many awards. Most recently, her mixed media installation, The Probable Trust Registry, won the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 56th Venice Biennale. She has since won the Kaethe Kollwitz-Preis, the Goslarer Kaiserring and the Harvard Arts Medal.