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Anarchy in the ICA: COUM Transmissions' Prostitution, 1976

Anarchy in the ICA: COUM Transmissions' Prostitution, 1976 - A talk by Siona Wilson, City University of New York

2/18/2013
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
13 Carpenter Hall
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Exhibitions, Lectures & Seminars
In 1976, the renowned performance art group, COUM Transmissions, decided to exit the art world to form the experimental rock band Throbbing Gristle. They marked this occasion with a final multi-media installation, titled "Prostitution," at London's Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). This highly controversial exhibition provoked an unprecedented media furor. It included images of one of the group posing for pornographic magazines; sculptures featuring used tampons; and one of the first public manifestations of British punk music. In this talk Siona Wilson will analyze COUM's important contribution to performance art, the work's complex engagement with questions of sexual difference and queerness, and the reasons for its omission from the history of "feminist art."
Siona Wilson's faculty page at CUNY
Event poster on Art History Department page
For more information, contact:
Betsy Alexander
603-646-2306
Permanent URL to this event: https://arthistory.dartmouth.edu/events/event?event=23181

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