Kembra Pfahler

Iconic rockstar and performance artist Kembra Pfahler’s life in pictures.

Original New York City icon 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 films with work at an independent porn studio. In the 1990s, she launched The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, a rock band associated with Kiss, Alice Cooper, and White Zombie.

Nude and covered in paint, with blackened teeth and bouffant hair, Pfahler developed a reputation for wild performance that reached far beyond the Lower East Side. Elements of Kabuki theater, surfing, bugs, and giant sharks from her legendary shows were later repurposed for performance art. Beginning in the early 2000s, Pfahler titillated gallery-goers with openings featuring dozens of painted women, butt-prints, and performances involving endurance and strength. With galleries including Emalin and Deitch Projects, Pfahler created a visual lexicon incorporating occult imagery, bondage, and challenging forms of femininity.

Through teaching, activism, and performance art, Pfahler serves as a mentor to students, and in recent years, a muse to designers including Rick Owens, Casey Cadwallader, and Alessandro Michele. Collecting four decades of ephemera, performance documentation, road pictures, and more, the book celebrates Pfahler as a countercultural star.