Blacklips: Her Life and Her Many, Many Deaths

An expansive collection that introduces the short-lived and ruthlessly creative phenomenon that was Blacklips.

From 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.

About the Author:

ANOHNI is a visual artist, musician, and playwright who spent her twenties performing music and staging plays in late-night clubs and experimental theatres in New York City. She formed her music group Antony and the Johnsons - named in memory of trans activist Marsha P. Johnson - in 1998. After releasing the group’s self-titled first record in 2000 and touring around the world with Lou Reed as a backup singer, her second album, I Am a Bird Now (2005), was awarded the Mercury Prize in the UK. ANOHNI has since released The Crying Light (2008), Swanlights (2009), the live album Cut the World (2012), and HOPELESSNESS (2016), a collaboration with Hudson Mohawke and Daniel Lopatin. She curated the 2012 Meltdown Festival at the Southbank in London, and has performed her music with symphonies in venues including the Royal Opera House in London, Teatro Royale in Madrid, Sydney Opera House, the Olympia in Paris and Radio City Music Hall. ANOHNI’s visual installations, performances, and plays have been presented by institutions including Kunsthal Nikolaj in Copenhagen, Bielefeld Kunsthalle in Germany, MoMA, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen NYC, Aarhus 2017 Capital of Culture, and the Barbican. She scored Valentino’s Spring collection presentation “Anatomy of Couture” in Milan in February