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Genesis & Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge: Life as a Cheap Suitcase (Pandrogeny & A Search For Unified Identity)

Summerhall, Edinburgh
Four stars
From COUM Transmissions to Throbbing Gristle and beyond, Genesis Breyer
P-Orridge  was the ultimate self-created deity. So when he and partner
Lady Jaye embarked on their Pandrogyny project in a bid to look
identical to each other, it was the ultimate love story. This first UK
show since 2003, the same year the pair celebrated Valentine's Day by
having identical breast implants, is part document of the ongoing
series of body modifications the pair underwent, part homage to Lady
Jaye, whose 'body dropped' in 2007.

The scars are there still in this in-the-raw assortment of imagery that
charts their quest for two to become one, both in large-scale light-box
images that provides an entry into their special world, and in
elaborately framed photographs of them post-op. Elsewhere, coyote-head
installations, religious iconography and royal family subverting
collages expose lives in permanent opposition.

After such extreme measures, however, it's a small black and white
image of the pair that's most evocative. Already resembling twins,
their faces are captured side by side, as if looking off into some
imaginary sunset, together forever.

The List, August 2014


ends
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