Summer Happenings at The Broad: Warhol Icon

Jenny Hval has in recent years made a name for herself as a recording artist and writer both in her native Norway and abroad. Multidisciplinary and transgressive are words often employed to describe her art, but Jenny Hval’s polyphonic artistry is in fact seamlessly interwoven between musical, literary, visual and performative modes of expression. Her artistic voice is altogether present, accessible and obscurely complex at the same time. Hval released her first two albums under the alias Rockettothesky (an alias named after her very first recorded song in 1999, and slayed with the greatest pleasure in 2010). She has since recorded three albums under her own name: Viscera, Innocence Is Kinky, and Apocalypse, girl (Sacred Bones Records / Su Tissue, 2015). She made her debut as a writer with the novel Perlebryggeriet in 2009. The less genre friendly Inn i ansiktet followed in 2012. She has worked on a number of collaborations, sound pieces, compositions, productions and performances. She is currently preparing for the release of her bold, new vampire blood solo album Blood Bitch, co-produced by noise artist Lasse Marhaug and herself.

Nao Bustamante is an internationally known artist, originally from California; she now resides in Los Angeles. Bustamante's precarious work encompasses performance art, video installation, visual art, filmmaking, and writing. The New York Times says, "She has a knack for using her body." Bustamante has presented in Galleries, Museums, Universities and underground sites all around the world. She has exhibited, among other locales, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the New York Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Sundance International Film Festival, Outfest International Film Festival, El Museo del Barrio Museum of Contemporary Art, First International Performance Biennial, Deformes in Santiago, Chile and the Kiasma Museum of Helsinki. She was also an unlikely contestant on TV network, Bravo's "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.” Bustamante is alum of the San Francisco Art Institute, New Genres program and the Skowhegen School of Painting and Sculpture. Currently she holds the position of Associate Professor and Vice Dean of Art at the USC Roski School of Art and Design.

Vaginal Davis is the internationally acclaimed intersexed doyenne of intermedia arts and sciences. Her beat is galactic. Born in Los Angeles but based in Berlin, Germany since 2005 where she works with CHEAP Kollektiv founded in 2001 by Susanne Sachße, Marcuse Siegelstein, and Daniel Hendrickson. Davis has curated and hosted the performative film event Rising Stars, Falling Stars since 2007, now located at silent green Kulturquartier through the auspices of Arsenal Institut fur Film und Videokunst. She is a frequent guest professor at colleges, art schools, and universities globally, teaching her spiky brand of live art that utilizes the DBD (doing-by-doing) method.

La Cicatrice Interieure (The Inner Scar)
Philippe Garrel (born 1948) is a French director, cinematographer, screenwriter, film editor and producer, associated with New Wave movement. Garrel became interested in film and started his career early, influenced by the new work of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. At the age of 16, Garrel wrote and directed his first film, Les Enfants Désaccordés, in 1964. In 1982, Garrel won the Prix Jean Vigo for the film L'Enfant Secret. He won several awards at Cannes, Venice Film Festivals represented over 25 years for his filmmaking. Garrel met the German singer and actress Nico in 1969 and the two embarked on a working relationship that spanned ten-years, including their work on La Cicatrice Interieure for which her seminal album Desertshore was composed.

Geneva Jacuzzi is well known for her uncompromisingly obtuse synth-driven pop and one-of-a-kind performance art that is comprised of one time only spectacles and installations. Her works have been presented in famous art institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA and numerous other venues across the globe. She has developed a very focused cult following in the art AND music scenes. She was originally well known for her multitude of self-released home recordings but also released a full length Lamaze in 2010 to much acclaim. Her most recent album Technophelia (Medical Records) is the culmination of a hybrid of DIY and professional studio recordings. Her lyrics describe blood thrown onto fire, clown-like machines in search of sadness, and the raging monologues of elemental beings, while her videos and live performances depict the shattering of self into a variety of personas, all played by Jacuzzi. 

Kembra Pfahler was born in Hermosa Beach, California in 1961, and she lives and works in New York City. Major solo exhibitions include Fuck Island, Participant Inc. (New York, NY, USA, 2012); Capital Improvements, Emalin Gallery (London, 2016); 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 Womanizer, 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).

Tiny Vipers Since the release of her sophomore album Life on Earth, Seattle-based musician Jesy Fortino (Tiny Vipers)  has become a civil engineer. While studying at University of Washington to pursue a wholly new life direction, she wrote and recorded Laughter. Although Laughter seems like a deviation from the singer-songwriter albums Fortino released on Sub Pop, it can be seen as a continuation of early works such as Empire Prism, and later instrumental works like her 2015 contribution to the ‘Ambience’ series (Box Bedroom Rebels) and collaborations with Rafael Anton Irisarri and Liz Harris (Grouper). Though Hands Across the Void and Life on Earth are collections of songs, just underneath their façade simmers a raw emotional expression that goes beyond words. Laughter is the result of experiments deconstructing pop tropes. Fortino takes inspiration from early electronic pioneers like Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh, as well as the raw experimentation of 80’s proto-industrial tape culture. Additionally, she carries the seemingly disparate influences of Slava Tsukerman’s Liquid Sky soundtrack and Meredith Monk’s exercise in turning the human voice into a spectral instrument. The record presents a spectrum of emotions that accompanied Fortino's engineering studies. Opener “Boarding Charon's Boat” is full of wonder and curiosity. There is also uncertainty, frustration, and despair, like the lyrics in “K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid):” “You think you won't let this world harm you / you think you won't let anyone down / you’ve listed away your own heart.” In between these extremes there is a soundscape of patience, hope, discovery, and adventure. The apprehension that comes along with trying something new and challenging is captured in the fragile structure of the compositions, which threaten to fall apart almost as soon as they come together.