Photo by Richard Kern, courtesy of Kembra Pfahler

On February 15, Marc Almond, the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Sateen, Hercules & Love Affair, and DJs Matthew Pernicano and Danny Lethal will perform at the Globe Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. This absolutely mental, once-in-a-lifetime bill will celebrate the second anniversary of Sex Cells, the LA club run by Danny Fuentes of Lethal Amounts.

Because I am so eager to see this show, and because the life of a Dangerous Minds contributor is high adventure, last Sunday I found myself speaking with Karen Black’s leader, the formidable interdisciplinary artist Kembra Pfahler, by phone, after she got out of band rehearsal in NYC. My condensed and edited take on our wide-ranging conversation follows. If I’d noted every time Kembra made me laugh with a deadpan line, the transcript would be twice as long.

Kembra Pfahler: My guitarist is Samoa, he founded the band with me; he’s the original Karen Black guitarist, Samoa from Hiroshima, Japan. And then Michael Wildwood is our drummer, and he played with D Generation and Chrome Locust, and Gyda Gash is our bass player, she plays with Judas Priestess and Sabbathwitch. I just came from band practice, and I am one of those folks that really enjoys going to band practice. Doing artwork and music isn’t like work, and being busy is just such a luxury. It’s been very pleasant preparing for this show we get to honorably do with Marc Almond. We’re so excited!

We played with Marc Almond at the Meltdown Festival that was curated by Ahnoni in 2011. That was a great show with Marc Almond and a lot of other incredible artists. And I have an art gallery that represents me in London now, which is called Emalin, and I had an art exhibit there, and Marc Almond, thankfully, came to it. He’s friends with one of my collaborators called Scott Ewalt.

I’m not a religious person, but I did think I had died and gone to heaven. When artists that you have loved your whole life come to, for some strange reason, see the work that you’re doing, it’s one of the truly best things about doing artwork. I’m very much looking forward to this concert.

Can you tell me what you have planned for the show? I’m sure you want to keep some stuff a surprise, but is the disco dick in the pictures going to be part of the set?

You know, the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black has always made a lot of props and costumes, and I never really just buy things. I’m not much of a consumer. I’m an availabilist, so I usually make the best use of what’s available, and we are going to have a lot of props and costumes in this show that I make myself, and I have art partners in Los Angeles, collaborators. We’re going to have a big grand finale sculpture that’s going to be my Black Statue of Liberty holding the pentagram. That’s a huge pentagram sculpture. I made that with a friend of mine called Brandon Micah Rowe.

That sculpture lives on the West Coast, and it comes out when I go to the beach and go surfing. I usually take the Black Statue of Liberty with me, ‘cause it’s a great photo opportunity on the beach. And the last time I was photographing the Black Statue of Liberty—‘cause of course I have several—I took this Black Statue of Liberty in a truck and drove down to Sunset Beach, right at the end of Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, and I just have a great memory of almost drowning with the Black Statue of Liberty. It was very much like reenacting Planet of the Apes. That was the impetus for the Statue of Liberty; I’ve always loved the last scene in Planet of the Apes where Charlton Heston realizes that the future is just a disastrous, anti-utopian, dead planet. Kind of similar to what’s happening to us now.
 

Photo by Brandon Micah Rowe
 
[laughs] Yeah, it’s uncomfortably close to the present situation.

To me, it’s very close. I mean, film has always been very prophetic, to me. Orson Welles always talks about magic, and historical revisionism, and truth, and the ways that film can actually inform you of the truth in politics, mythological truth, cultural truths. And I’ve always learned the most just by watching films. That’s why I named the band Karen Black, because I was so educated by the films of Karen Black. I know that sounds sort of wonky, but what I’m getting at is I love listening to Orson Welles speak about magic and truth and film as a way to articulate that truth.

Are you thinking about F for Fake?

I’m thinking about the little tricks and happy accidents that occur in film that are what Orson Welles spoke to. I mean, Kenneth Anger talked about magic and film constantly, and light, and Orson Welles just had a different articulation of the same side of the coin.

I grew up in Santa Monica, so I always loved Kenneth Anger; I was always happy that I lived near the Camera Obscura on Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. I thought, I don’t fit in with any of these other Californians, but Kenneth Anger was here at the Camera Obscura. I can’t be doing everything wrong.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and my family was in the film business, and I left for New York because I wasn’t accepted by my family and the community, because I was interested in music, and it wasn’t fashionable to be a goth or be into punk when I was in high school. So I moved to New York. But no one was going to New York when I first moved there. I really just moved to New York to be as contrary as possible, and I knew no one would follow me at the time.

You moved to New York in ‘79 or thereabouts, right?

Yeah, I did.

I think the LA, probably, that you were leaving was more, I don’t know, provincial. . . I can imagine the appeal that New York would have had in 1979.

Well, also, the thing was that I really wanted to be an artist, and I got accepted to School of Visual Arts when I was in 11th grade at Santa Monica High School. That’s why, really. The Los Angeles that I was familiar with wasn’t provincial at all. I mean, there’s been generations and generations of weird Los Angeles. My grandparents met on the baseball field: my grandmother was playing softball, my grandfather played baseball, and my father ended up being a surfer, and I’ve always had exposure to a really incredible kind of lifestyle that I think people mostly just dream about. Like, Beach Boys songs at Hollywood Park race track in the morning and surfing in the afternoon. If you think about being born into this time when the Beach Boys and the Stones and the Beatles are playing, and then Parliament-Funkadelic’s playing, and then. . . just the most incredible exposure to music and art and nature, surfing even, surf culture. I mean, when most people are born in countries where they can’t even eat dirt for breakfast, I was born in the most incredible place, that I’ll never forget.

It’s such a huge part of my work, I named my interdisciplinary music and art class at Columbia University “The Queen’s Necklace.” Because when I was a child, I used to meditate on all the beach cities. Starting from Zuma Beach, I would meditate on the cities by saying: [chants] “Zuma, Malibu, Topanga, Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Venice, Torrance, Palos Verdes”. . . I’d say all of the cities that represented the Santa Monica Bay area. That was in my field of vision, that was what I saw every day. All those piers, all those waves, and all of the mythology that I grew up with was all about beach culture.

So Los Angeles, I feel closer to writers like John Fante than anyone else. Do you have books in your library that you’ve had your entire adult life that you would say represent your thinking, more so than any other books? Do you have your favorite, favorite books? One or two books that always are with you.

Oh my God, I’d have to think about it. 

I do. I mention that because one of them is Ask the Dust. Another one is David J. Skal’s Cultural History of Horror.

What’s that?

It’s a great book that talks about the horror film genre being quite prophetic, and it’s kind of what I was trying to speak about, as far as how film and horror kind of teach us about the future. That’s one book, and also Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies, Volume 1 and 2 is important to me. Do you know that book?

I do not. Is it like a case study?

It’s a case study of men’s relationship to women during World War II and pre-World War II. It’s about men’s relationships to the women in their lives, in Germany, particularly.

Continues after the jump…

Kembra Pfahler
 
If you are a regular reader of Dangerous Minds, then nothing in the title of this post should surprise you, because we know our readers a) appreciate our dedication to the celebration of high weirdness (and outsider knitting) and b) also appreciate the boundary-smashing performance artist, filmmaker, anti-naturalist actress (and more), Kembra Pfahler.  Pfahler is best known as the vocalist for her band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. For today I’m going to bring to you a version of Kembra done by another talented rule-breaker, crochet artist Shove Mink of Croshame.

We’ve featured Mink’s work here on DM before—but this time I can say without hesitation “you ain’t never seen anything” like Mink’s crocheted Kembras.

They’re even endorsed by their colorful muse:

“I love and support the works of Croshame and her visual generosity and extreme attention to detail. I encourage the collection of these dolls and I hope to include Croshame in shows I’m having in London next year.”

—Kembra Pfahler, 2018

I posted one of the most safe-for-work photos of Pfahler I could find at the top of this, as I can’t really post any of the images of Mink’s adorably naughty—one of them is posed masturbating with a crucifix—crocheted Kembras before warning you first. But let’s be honest, this is precisely one of the reasons you like DM, isn’t it? I take my job of discovering things you can never ever unsee very seriously, and this is about as NSFW as knitted shit gets. Mink also sells some of her creations on Etsy, in case you’re interested (PS: I know you are).
 

 

 
More after the jump…

The power of pussy: The inimitable Kembra Pfahler, spreading the gospel with a friend

So much of the popular, social media-driven feminist discourse is desperately treading water these days. The advances we’ve made over the years that have drastically improved the lives of women (unions, better wages, health care advances , reproductive rights) are under attack, and it only makes sense that we’d cling to what little we have left. It’s in this frantic crisis that we can sometimes forget the more utopian ambitions of the feminist second wave—the impulse not to preserve what little we have, but to recreate society entirely, in a way that exceeds the meager ambitions we’ve come to accept. Future Feminism seeks to nurture and develop that impulse.

The brainchild of Kembra Pfhaler (best known for The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black and her performance art), Johanna Constantine (of The Blacklips Performance Cult), Sierra and Bianca Casady (CocoRosie) and Antony Hegarty (Antony and The Johnsons), the collective is the result of three years’ of consensus-based artistic and intellectual collaboration, much of it forged during rigorous retreats in isolated locations.
 

Kembra Pfhaler, Johanna Constantine, Sierra Casady, Bianca Casady and Antony Hegarty, presumably on retreat
 
I had to opportunity to speak with Bianca Casady about the projects’ multi-faceted development.

“We didn’t have any plans, so we definitely didn’t have any models [for organizing],” Casady confesses, “it was five artists—the most obvious thing to do was an art project together, a co-authored piece.” The “group-authored sculptural work” is to be debuted at The Hole gallery in NYC, Thursday September 11, but it’s merely a fraction of the multimedia project that Future Feminism has bloomed into. The Hole also promises performances and lectures from such heroic foremothers as Lydia Lunch, Laurie Anderson, Marina Abramović and no-wave goddess No Bra. The sculpture itself remains somewhat shrouded in mystery, as are the “13 Tenets of Future Feminism” they will reveal on the opening night.

The five artists central to the collective will perform a concert at Webster Hall this Sunday to fund the exhibition, as it’s completely artist-funded thus far. Casady notes that the relative independence and autonomy of the Future Feminist collective has allowed them the freedom and time necessary to truly work as a unified body, though the timing for the reveal could not be more provident.

Some of us are very unplugged from the media. Mostly we really come together as artists. We’re certainly noticing a lot of uprising and actions going on formally, and a lot of momentum and energy right now. The timing feels like less of a coincidence. It feels like things are at a boiling point.

 

Image from the Future Feminism Benefit Concert poster
 
No one can predict which projects will inspire or move the masses, but it’s exciting to see feminism embrace the ambition of utopian thinking again—and it’s especially powerful to see women working together and creating new, strange culture—something that could (if we’re lucky) threaten the status quo.

“We’re not really looking for equal rights—that’s really different in our attitude,” says Casady. “We’re not looking to climb up the male pyramid scheme and try to assimilate into it to find some kind of balance. We’re proposing a complete shift, with the goal of balance, but it’s not like we want to meet in the middle. We have to reach for a better sense of ‘middle.’”

That’s a sentiment that’s existed before in feminism—the idea that having “what men have” is not enough, that we all deserve more. It’s fallen to the wayside in years, but I foresee a revival, as movements like Future Feminism strive for a radically different society, invoking the very qualities so often derided as “feminine.” In the words of the collective, “The future is female.”

The (absolutely packed) roster for the run at The Hole gallery is below.

Thurs Sept 11: Opening 6-9PM

Fri Sept 12: Bianca and Sierra Casady, Sarah Schulman

Sat Sept 13: Johanna Constantine, Lydia Lunch

Sun Sept 14: Clark Render as Margaret Thatcher, Laurie Anderson

Wed Sept 17: Narcissister, Dynasty Handbag, No Bra

Thurs Sept 18: Ann Snitow speaks with the Future Feminists

Fri Sept 19: Kiki Smith presents Anne Waldman, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge and Anne Carson

Sat Sept 20: Kembra Pfahler and The Girls of Karen Black

Sun Sept 21: Lorraine O’Grady

Wed Sept 24: Marina Abramović

Thurs Sept 25: Carolee Schneemann, Jessica Mitrani, Melanie Bonajo
 
Fri Sept 26: Terence Koh as Miss OO

Sat Sept 27: Viva Ruiz, Julianna Huxtable, Alexyss K.  Tylor

Sun Sept 14: The Factress aka Lucy Sexton, Clark Render as Margaret Thatcher, Laurie Anderson

 
Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons is joining past Meltdown Festival curators like David Bowie, Morrissey. Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker and Patti Smith, as he announces the line-up for this year’s prestigious event to be held in London, August 1-12.

Antony discussed the predominantly female performer selection, his ideas about “future feminism” and how these artists are pushing towards something completely new for society, with Pitchfork:

Hegarty: Kembra Pfahler is like my leader, basically. She’s such a seminal or feminal influence on so much of us in New York City. Just because she’s so fierce, ferocious and her creativity is so pure, and her vision of the world is so unrelenting. And she’s so unrelenting in her willingness to deliver a sense of truth. That has political ramifications.

Laurie Anderson is the same way: she’s named and framed her sense of apocalyptic culture for 25 years. Ferociously named it. Joey Arias is so hardcore. He’s a very hardcore queen. Marc Almond is also a super hardcore pioneer. There’s David Tibet from Current 93 and Cyclobe. They are on the frontier of English, queer, hallucinogenic paganism. And they sort of sit on the spiritual frontier in terms of trying to articulate or embody in their work a vision that they have of the world that’s very different from a typical patriarchal, sky god, Christian crap that even a lot of indie musicians in America are turning out. Christian chud. They’re pretending they’re alternative artists, but they are just confirming this patriarchal chud that we desperately need to rid ourselves of.

CocoRosie has been very controversial, especially in America, just because they take so many risks, and most guys in the boys club don’t take even them. In Europe they’re very embraced. Amongst artists, they are celebrated around the world, but there’s obviously been a lot of people that can’t take the frontier that they’re pushing. To me, they are amongst the most important young artists in American today. I think it’s intergenerational. There’s a lot going on in the festival.

Pitchfork: Every artist, in their own way, seems to have an uncompromising vision.

Hegarty: It’s not even just within art that they’re uncompromising. I think for me, it’s the next step that’s interesting. Since the early 2000s, a lot of straight boys created bands that are about, like, nurturing this pastoral inner life—these colorful psychedelic lives and nurturing their sensitivity as straight boys. And that’s great and everything, but we need to start participating in the bigger picture because this whole ecology of our world is going to start collapsing in the next 50 years, and if there’s going to be a validity to anything, in 50 years’ time just like the way they were, people are going to be asking what the kids of today are thinking, what the artists of today were thinking. Were they just checking out? Were they just, like, hugging a couple of cuddly bears or feel-good pillows? What is the point of music at this point? Is it just a beer swill at Coachella? Is it a few sensitive guys getting up there having a circle jerk while all the girls and all the other people have to sit around and try and find their experience within their opaque song styling? We could be participating, and that’s what I aspire to do, and so I wanted to create a vivid festival that had some teeth to it.

Hear, hear!

Antony’s Meltdown line-up:

Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins in her first live performances (she’s doing two shows) since 1998
Laurie Anderson
William Basinki: “Disintegration Loops”
Marina Abramovic doing a rare lecture.
CocoRosie
Hal Willner’s"Freedom Riders”
Charles Atlas’ Antony and the Johnsons tour doc Turning.
Planningtorock + Light Asylum
Buffy Sainte-Marie
The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black + Tenderloin
Kembra Pfahler + Claywoman
Diamanda Galás
Joey Arias channeling Billie Holiday in his “Strange Fruit” review
Marc Almond performing his classic Torment and Toreros album in it’s entirety
Selda
Myrninerest + Cyclobe + Derek Jarman Films

As someone who has seen most of the acts on this year’s Meltdown bill, I have to say that this is one of the very best curated music festivals I’ve ever heard of. There’s a real vision here and I think it’ll be an amazing experience for attendees.

Meltdown Festival tickets will go on sale next Tuesday, May 8th at noon for Southbank Centre members only, and then on Thursday 10th at noon for the general public.

Below, a stunning performance of “Cripple and the Starfish” at Amsterdam’s Theater Carré Amsterdam, June 21, 2009:
 

 
Thank you, Lenora Claire!

E.V. Day/Kembra Pfahler, Untitled, 50” by 50”/Edition of 3

There’s an online gallery of the amazing new collaboration between Dangerous Minds pal Kembra Pfahler and E.V. Day that’s been posted at Dazed Digital. The photos were shot in France at the famous gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny:

Pfahler told Dazed:

“I find that when your motives are very clear, it sets the tone for how people treat you. The gardeners there were so happy to see the costume juxtaposed with the verdancy of the garden – we got nothing but kindness from those we encountered. It was our intention to spread joy and it was contagious. So we didn’t come into any harmful objections from anyone.”

E.V. Day on Kembra:

“What I admire about Kembra – and the archetype she created, Karen Black – is that she explores the darkness that comes with extreme beauty, without losing sight of the humour in there, too. Plus, Kembra is about the sweetest person I ever met – except when she’s hungry and in the back of a tiny Renault that’s lost in Paris traffic.”

The work is currently on exhibit until April 24th 2012 at The Hole, 312 Bowery, NYC
 

 
Below, director Bijoux Altamirano’s music video for The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black’s “Bring Back The Night”
 

 
Still looking for that “difficult to buy for” friend’s Xmas gift? What about this badass poster from artist Kembra Pfahler? It comes in an edition of just 50 from The Hole. The poster is 24” by 36” with each one being numbered. Buy here.

These are both part of a Levis-sponsored traveling art exhibit at The Hole. The show is an homage to POSTERMAT, one of the shops that made 8th Street in NYC so great in the 80s, also featuring notables like Bruce LaBruce, Yamataka Eye, Gavin McInnes, Jack Pierson, Maripol, Clayton Patterson, ARE Weapons,  Robert Lazzarini, Shepard Fairey, Cheryl Dunn, and Yoko Ono. Kembra also appears in Bijoux Altimirano’s poster. All posters limited to editions of 50 and numbered.

I thought Robert Lazzarini’s clever homage to the famous Farrah Fawcett poster (I had one on my childhood wall right next to one of Cherie Currie, I can assure you) was especially good, but a lot of them are awesome.
 

 
Eagle eyed Dangerous Minds contributor Tara McGinley caught a brief glimpse of our pal Kembra Pfahler of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black (that’s her in the picture frame) on last week’s Gossip Girl (Okay, I admit it, we’re total Gossip Girl addicts and nothing you can do or say will change that).

We think Gossip Girl’s team should give Kembra a real cameo on the show. Witness her performance here at the Villa della Petraia in Florence during the Proenza Schouler event, June 18, 2009. Now that’s production value!