Tag Archives: essays

Kim Gordon’s ‘Is It My Body?,’ a Book of Essays, Due this Month

Kim Gordon’s collection of essays, “Is It My Body?: Selected Texts,” will be published by Sternberg Press later this month.

The book collects essays Gordon wrote for various publications including Artforum in the 1980s and early 1990s.

From the Sternberg Press website:

Throughout the 1980s and early ’90s, Kim Gordon—widely known as a founding member of the influential band Sonic Youth—produced a series of writings on art and music. Ranging from neo-Conceptual artworks to broader forms of cultural criticism, these rare texts are brought together in this volume for the first time, placing Gordon’s writing within the context of the artist-critics of her generation, including Mike Kelley, John Miller, and Dan Graham. In addressing key stakes within contemporary art, architecture, music, and the performance of male and female gender roles, Gordon provides a prescient analysis of such figures as Kelley, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Tony Oursler, and Raymond Pettibon, in addition to reflecting on her own position as a woman on stage. The result—Is It My Body?—is a collection that feels as timely now as when it was written. This volume additionally features a conversation between Gordon and Jutta Koether, in which they discuss their collaborations in art, music, and performance.

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Return Of The Throwing Muses: “We wanted no further part [of] the recording industry”

Later this week the Throwing Muses return with a new album, Purgatory/Paradise, their first in ten years. The 32-track album comes with a 64-page book of essays and stories by Kirstin Hersh, plus photos and artwork by Muses’ drummer  Dave Narcizo and Hersh.

“We’ve always lived in our own private world,” Muses leader Kirstin Hersh told The Independent, “and we might  well have made this record and never released it, but we felt it was worthy of release.”

The group has spent the past decade “divorcing ourselves from the recording industry, which is collapsing. We wanted no further part in it,” Hersh said.

The new book/album is being published by HarperCollins’ The Friday Project Limited imprint.

For the entire story, head to The Independent.

Here’s are some old videos for your enjoyment.