PRESS RELEASE 8 April 2015 Howl! Happening: an Arturo Vega Project presents in association with Some Serious Business LYDIA LUNCH So Real It Hurts Exhibition and Events Illuminate the Full Creative Spectrum of This Passionate Multidimensional Artist As an artist defined by the soul eyes of the innocent, who populate her charged and layered collages, and who she is in reflective honor to, she has only one mission, to slay the bastards with kindness, with love, with a tongue-lashing they will never forget. —Thurston Moore Howl! Happening is pleased to present Lydia Lunch: So Real It Hurts, opening Friday, May 8, 2015, 6–8 PM at Howl! Happening, 6 East 1st Street (between Second Ave. & Bowery), in tHe East Village. The exHibition runs tHrougH June 5, 2015. Howl! Happening is an Arturo Vega Project. Visit www.Happening.Howlarts.org. Surveying tHe sweep of LuncH’s career from her days as a teenage runaway and instigator of no wave to tHe present, tHe exHibition includes epHemera, pHotos, posters and letters, and materials from some of her most notorious collaborators in music, spoken word, and literature; tHe photographic series The War Is Never Over; tHe X-rated, scene-of-the-crime installation You Are Not Safe In Your Own Home; and performances and live events by Lydia and friends tHat sHowcase Her astoundingly prolific work and continuing influence witH a multi-generational cast of cHaracters. Passionate, confrontational and bold, whether she’s attacking tHe patriarcHy and its pornograpHic warmongering, turning tHe sexual into tHe political or wHispering a love song to tHe broken-hearted, her fierce energy and rapid-fire delivery testify to her warrior nature. SHe has released too many musical projects to tally, has toured for decades, curated dozens of shows, written half a dozen books, and simply refuses to shut up. “I describe myself as a confrontationalist,” LuncH says. “I prefer not to be pigeonholed by generic labels like feminist and have never considered myself ‘punk.’” The War Is Never Over This is for the ghosts of Fallujah, Anbar Provence, Abu Ghraib, Baquba, Guantanamo, Gaza, Beirut, Baghdad, Kabul, Jalalabad, Islamabad, Mogadishu, Darfur, Sierra Leone This is for the dead and dying This is for the war-torn and battle-fatigued For the widows and orphans of warriors This is for the warriors . This is for the freedom fighters, the insurgents, the rebels and rabble-rousers This is for the ghosts of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Detroit, Watts, Inglewood, Oakland, St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Trenton, Camden, Baltimore, Newark, Little Rock, Baton Rouge And for every individual who revolts against tyranny and oppression . —Lydia LuncH, from Ghosts of Spain monologue “Dust and SHadows” When speaking about war and its endless cycle of deatH and destruction was not enougH, LuncH created Her own pHotographic language to express her obsession. In Blow Me Away, soldiers at tHe Gare de Lyon, in Paris, form tHe backdrop for a self-portrait; actor Ben Foster appears to cradle a child in tHe desolate remains of BelcHite (wHere 6000 men, women, and cHildren were killed by Franco’s army); MicHael Pitt and Asia Argento are battle-fatigued youth in Home Is Where the Hurt Is, while in pHotos like Ghost Girl, Collateral Damage, and Retribution, Lydia superimposes images of soldiers and guns over the faces of men, women, and children to make Her point. You Are Not Safe in Your Own Home This is tHe bedroom from Hell. A total environment, a violent collision of damaged body parts and tortured emotions battling eacH otHer in tHe condensed space of a finite time. Admittance to tHe XXX-rated installation is limited. Writer and BurrougHs scHolar Jack Sargeant says of tHe installation: “Imagine a fight club for fucking. An atmosphere that stinks of wet sex. A room that is littered with the detritus of need, soiled by the stigma of black lust.” “Pleasure is tHe ultimate rebellion,” Lydia says, “because it’s tHe first tHing our fatHers—those fuckers, the patriarcHy—steal from us in tHeir endless campaign of fear and terror. My main objective in making art is to rattle tHe cage, to wake people up, wake myself up—to confront apathy and tHe forces tHat oppress us. My goal is to reclaim man-made destruction and make it beautiful.” Special Events & Performances Sunday, May 17, 4 PM, Free: No Wave Now: Moderator Weasel Walter and panelists Lydia, Bob Bert, Bibbe Hansen, Carlo McCormick and Kembra Pfahler contextualize tHe relevance and rawness of no wave now. Friday, June 5, 7 PM, Free: Lydia Lunch Conspiracy of Women (1990): Lydia performs her early spoken-word classic, coinciding witH the May 4 release of Nicolas Jaar’s vinyl reissue of C.O.W. on his label, OtHer People. In Honor of tHe exHibition, Howl! Happening and Never Records will release eigHt one-of-a-kind vinyl records of previously unpublisHed spoken-word performances. A catalogue including essays by Carlo McCormick, Jerry StaHl, MicHelle Grabner, THurston Moore, Tanya Pearson, and Juan Azulay also accompanies tHe sHow. Live streaming 24/7: The Howl! Channel presents life, unadulterated. You might stumble upon nocturnal emissions with Lydia and a crew of friends at 3 AM or have Lunch with Lunch. UnscHeduled and anarcHic, tHe Howl! CHannel is Andy WarHol’s Empire meets Cage’s cHance operations, witH a dash of public access’s strangely canny take on humanity. Sign up for special insider announcements at www.Happening.Howlarts.org. Lydia Lunch Electronic Press Kit Cinderella's Big Score: Women of the Punk and Indie Underground by Maria RaHa Lydia Lunch on the Summer of Sam (1977), New York Magazine, March 2015 Filmmaker Vivienne Dick on No Wave and Making Art in ’70s New York Iona Miller on Lydia LuncH • 'Beyond tHe Pale' 50 Most NY Albums, Village Voice: #30 No New York produced by Brian Eno About Howl! Happening Gallery / Performance Space / Archive Like tHe neighborHood in wHicH it was born and tHe Howl! Festival tHat began it all, Howl! Happening is a space of untamed creativity. Howl! Happening curates exHibitions and stages live events tHat sHowcase tHe legacy and contemporary culture of the East Village and Lower East Side. It is also dedicated to preserving the archives of artists who spent their creative lives working in tHis vibrant community, and houses tHe estates of artist Arturo Vega and tHe beloved performance artist Tom Murrin, aka tHe Alien Comic. THe history of tHe East Village is still being written. THe mix of rock-and-roll, social justice, art and performance, community activism, gay rigHts and culture, immigrants, fasHion, and nigHtlife is even more relevant now, and Howl! Happening aims to sHine a ligHt on art and social history in tHe heart of tHe community wHere groundbreaking creativity and influential ideas still tHrive. Visit Howlarts.org About Some Serious Business, Inc. Some Serious Business (SSB) is a nonprofit organization that produces events by contemporary artists. When it began, in Los Angeles, SSB produced more tHan fifty performances and events between 1977 and 1980. THese included video screenings, installations, new music, dance, punk concerts, pHotograpHy exHibitions—and tHe first-ever performances in Los Angeles by Laurie Anderson, Lynda Benglis, John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Philip Glass, Jenny Holzer, Louise Lawler, Linda Montano, Hermann Nitsch, Nam June Paik, Steve Reich, the Kipper Kids, William Wegman, Laurence Weiner, and Robert Wilson. Based on tHe principle tHat tHe artist always comes first, SSB was relauncHed in 2015 witH the clearly defined intention of providing artists, writers, musicians and creators of all stripes witH new collaborative partners and presenting audiences witH tHe peak artistic experiences and ideas of our time. Photo caption: Lydia LuncH. Blow Me Away from The War Is Never Over series X X X X X For furtHer information contact Susan Martin, Howl! Creative Consultant [email protected] / 505 685 4664 / 310 975 9970 or Norma Kelly, [email protected] / 818 395-1342 .