Kembra Pfahler

A life in pictures of a New York City performance artist, musician, and icon.

New York City icon Kembra Pfahler has terrorized and tantalized audiences since her arrival in the Lower East Side in the early 1980s. Originally associated with the Cinema of Transgression, Pfahler supported her early films with work at an independent porn studio. In the 1990s, she launched The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, a rock band compared to Kiss, Alice Cooper, and White Zombie.

Nude and covered in paint, with blackened teeth and bouffant hair, Pfahler’s reputation for wild performances reached far beyond the Lower East Side. Elements of kabuki theater, surfing, and enormous ad-hoc props appeared in her legendary shows and performance art. Pfahler titillated gallery-goers with openings featuring dozens of painted women, butt-prints, and performances involving endurance and strength. Her extended visual lexicon incorporates occult imagery, bondage, and pin-ups; experimental sets featuring eight-foot vinyl records and miniature Statues of Liberty that transform as they reappear in her work.

Through teaching, activism, and performance art, Pfahler serves as a mentor to students and, in recent years, muse to designers including Rick Owens, Casey Cadwallader, and Alessandro Michele. Collecting memories from collaborators and five decades of ephemera, performance documentation, and more, this book celebrates Kembra Pfahler as counter-cultural star.