EMA- -LIN KEMBRA PFAHLER FOCUS � Stand H8 Frieze London Regent‘s Park 02 - 06 October 2019 Kembra Pfahler (b. 1961, Hermosa Beach, CA, USA. Lives and works in New York) is a visual and per- formance artist, filmmaker, punk-rock musician, actor and model. Formative in the LA punk scene in the 1970s, Pfahler is known for her leading role in New York’s Lower East Side underground scene in the 1980s and ‘90s. Her arrival in New York City at age eighteen – where she enrolled in the School of Visual Arts to study under the tutelage of artists Mary Heilmann and Lorraine O’Grady – alongside the devastating effects of the AIDS epidemic that swept the city and took the lives of many of her closest friends, marked a turning point for Pfahler, thereupon veering into more extreme artistic territory. Pfahler developed the philosophy of availabism, defined by ‘making the best use of whatever is available at any given time’. Quotidian objects, including bowling balls, eggs and turkey basters, crucifixes and anal beads, appear as theatrical props in performative actions that use irreverence, humour and bold sexuality to dismantle existing paradigms of femininity. Pfahler’s collaborations with artists such as Richard Kern, Matthew Barney, Bruce LaBruce, Anohni, Ron Athey, Vaginal Creme Davis, Jack Smith and more generally the Cinema of Transgression, to name a few, continue to shape the way performance art of the 1980s and 1990s is framed today. Resisting an active role in the commercial art world, Pfahler was convinced by legendary art dealer Colin De Land to stage her first solo exhibition at his gallery, American Fine Arts, Co. in 2002. Soon after, solo exhibitions at Deitch Projects and her inclusion in the 2008 Whitney Biennial followed. Today, Kembra Pfahler continues to perform and lectures at Columbia University and Bard School of the Arts in New York. Kembra Pfahler (b. 1961 in Hermosa Beach, California) lives and works in New York City. Recent exhibitions and performances include SHE WHO SAW BEAUTIFUL THINGS, The Kitchen (New York, NY, USA, 2019); Sex Cells, Lethal Amounts (Los Angeles, US, 2019). Major solo exhibitions include Capital Improvements, Emalin (London, UK, 2016); Fuck Island, Participant Inc. (New York, NY, USA, 2012); File Under ‘V’, Rove Gallery (London, UK, 2005); Availabism and Anti-naturalism: A Feminine Experiment, American Fine Arts Company (New York, NY, USA, 2002); and Riddle of the Sphinx, Deitch Projects (New York, NY, USA 2002). Selected group exhibitions include Future Feminism, The Hole (New York, NY, USA, 2014); New York Minute, Garage Center for Contemporary Art (Moscow, RU, 2011) traveling to MACRO Museum (Rome, IT, 2011); Dead Flowers, Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2010); and Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY, USA, 2008)..