Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: 30 Years of Being Cut Up, on view through October 18th at Invisible Exports gallery is simply jam-packed with astonishing work, most of which has never been exhibited before, having been in storage all these years.  Most of the works on display are from P-Orridge's private notebooks and mail art--collages meant for other artists or for h/erself and presents an intimate and at times humorous look at this mysterious artist.  

The show is executed as a retrospective in a chronological order around the gallery walls, helping to illuminate P-Orridge's artistic and personal development. The earliest piece, entitled Mum & Dad, dates from 1971 and pictures head shots of P-Orridge's actual parents as a chart presenting all the different combinations possible between the two portraits and the words MUM and DAD--a simple exercise exploring the possibilities of identity and being, presented in an organized, pseudo-scientific fashion.  This dichotomy between order and chaos is found to drive much of h/er work; for all the seeming social upheaval of the malleability between genders and identities, and the ever-present pornographic cocks and vaginas, the work itself is quite visually ordered, precise and even "officially" stamped.

In 1969 Genesis dropped out of University and joined the Exploding Galaxy commune in London where notions of privacy, possession and identity were abandoned in favor of a strict routine of constant performance;  on a daily basis, rather than retaining an identity one would assume a character and never break it.  In the book Painful but Fabulous s/he describes it; "In the morning when you got up, there was a big box in the centre of the room and that's where all the interesting clothes were. It was first come first serve, and if it was female clothes you pulled out, then you were female that day, or an elf.. Whatever you pulled out was what you were. You owned nothing, including identity...It was really rigorous."

This discipline shows itself not only in the impressive output of visual, collaborative, music and performance art that P-Orridge has produced over the years, but in the very calculated way s/he juxtaposes the various elements in h/er collages for maximum impact--a mash-up of images of the Royal Family, personal photographs, pornography, newspaper headlines, and postcards--then marks them with an insignia, stamped for COUM Transmissions (h/er early performance art collective) or TG (for Throbbing Gristle--the industrial band s/he co-founded), or with a delightfully ironic personalized rubber stamp that reads "Painting by Genesis P-Orridge" in a font you might see on a polite thank-you note.

P-Orridge's methodology and aesthetic borrows from sources ranging from Dada, Situationism, Burroughs  and Punk, with a splash of Camp: cutting up and rearranging elements of society in order to subvert said society.  The subconscious or subliminal is never marginalized, rather brought to the foreground--meaning lots of naughty bits mixed in with your full English breakfast.  The final rearrangement comes in the physical pandrogynous melding of Genesis P-Orridge and h/is wife Lady Jaye Breyer.  In 2003 they started a program to essentially re-create themselves in their own image through a series of cosmetic surgeries a la Orlan.

Prepare to spend lots of time at this exhibition--there is a lot to see, and this is strictly the collage work, previously unexhibited.  After the show treat yourself to a bit of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV videos on Youtube--watch the live clip of a young P-Orridge singing "Discipline", losing himself in a spontaneous and terrifyingly visceral performance, with Throbbing Gristle's ordered, constant electronic beats pervading, all the while Genesis chaotically shouting "Are you ready boys?  Are you ready girls?  I want DISCIPLINE."  Watch through the whole video (I know it's 9 minutes) for a surprise ending (it's worth it).

--Natalie Hegert

(*Images from top to bottom: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Assume Power Focus, 1977, mixed media (two-sided), 11 x 8 1/4 inches. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Mum & Dad, 1971, mixed media, 11 x 15 inches, on 12.75 x 16 inch mat. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Untitled (Mail art to Jerry Dreva), 1975. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Two Houses at War!, 1999, mixed media, 11 x 14 inches. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Two Into One We Go, 2003, mixed media, 14 x 11 inches.  All images courtesy of the artist and Invisible Exports, New York.)