Description
Book SynopsisFrom June 1992 to March 1995, in the midst of the AIDS crisis in NYC, an extraordinary theatrical collective emerged from the queer underground. Blacklips Performance Cult, initiated by ANOHNI and joined by a cabal of fellow artists, drag queens, punks, nightlife veterans and students, performed a new play every Monday night at 1:00 a.m. at the Pyramid Club on 101 Avenue A. Blacklips never courted mainstream attention. However, the group left a sustaining impression within New York’s late night subculture by melding hysterical drag, surreal horror, and disconcerting tenderness.
In Blacklips: Her Life and Her Many, Many Deaths, ANOHNI and coeditor Marti Wilkerson lay bare the collective’s archives in photographs, scripts, and the assembled ephemera from more than one hundred and twenty original “plays.” Featuring images from newly digitized film and video recordings, texts from participants and audience members, and an introduction by Lia Gangitano, this expansive collection introduces to the twenty-first century the short-lived and ruthlessly creative phenomenon that was Blacklips.
Trade Review"On that night with no audience, Anohni and her collaborator The Psychotic Eve decided to deliver their performances all the same, setting the precedent for an event that pandered to no one, characterised by defiance and a dedication to beauty set on their own resolutely queer terms...Blacklips’ aesthetic was spitting and hissing with rage, but the night was also fuelled by an unusually serious dedication to original art."
- iD
“The book’s 472 pages of subcultural excavation are part punk zine, part queer avant-garde history, a testament to cross-generational solidarity as the AIDS crisis persisted. Long before she achieved international renown, Anohni and her cohort fortified themselves against a brutally inadequate world by creating their own.”
- New York Times T Magazine“[
Blacklips: Her Life and Her Many, Many Deaths] assemble scripts, photographs, lyrics, flyers, diary entries, video stills, and other ephemera—a full-color, full-bleed visual feast that recreates the visceral experience of a Blacklips play.”
- Artnet"The thousands of photographs [
Blacklips: Her Life and Her Many, Many Deaths] reprints vibrate with the performers’ deconstructive intelligence and destructive glee.”
- Surface
