1. Kembra Pfahler was born on August 4,1961 and is an American interdisciplinary artist and rock musician.
24 Facts About Kembra Pfahler
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Kembra Pfahler has been called the "godmother of modern day shock art".
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Kembra Pfahler is the daughter of surfer Freddy Kembra Pfahler who had appeared in the 1958 surf film Slippery When Wet, directed by Bruce Brown.
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Kembra Pfahler's brother is Adam Pfahler, the drummer of Jawbreaker.
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Kembra Pfahler appeared as a child actress in TV commercials for Kodak film.
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Kembra Pfahler went to college at the School of Visual Arts in New York and studied under Mary Heilmann and Lorraine O'Grady.
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Kembra Pfahler has shown work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Deitch Projects, The Hole Gallery in New York, Bowman Gallery, and Kenny Schachter Rove Gallery, in London.
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Kembra Pfahler's drawings are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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Kembra Pfahler is currently represented by Emalin Gallery in London.
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Kembra Pfahler performed in XS: The Opera Opus when it was presented at the Pyramid Club.
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Also during the 1980s, Kembra Pfahler worked as a Calvin Klein model, during an advertising campaign in the heroin chic style.
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Kembra Pfahler appeared as a model in the photographs accompanying the article "These Children that Come at You with Knives" written by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain in a 1999 issue of Pop Smear Magazine.
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In nearly all her performances, Kembra Pfahler appears in her signature 'look,' naked with monochrome body paint, knee-high black pleather boots with white laces, a huge stack of black fright wigs with bows and black teeth.
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Kembra Pfahler sang backup on the song "Shoot, Knife, Strangle, Beat and Crucify" on the album Brutality and Bloodshed for All of GG Allin and the Murder Junkies.
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Kembra Pfahler repeated this performance two more times, including in 1998 for Penthouse.
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Kembra Pfahler's contribution was an installation with a bed set that contained a skeleton and dolls painted in multiple colors, surrounded by walls plastered with red paste, as well as a video that shows her ripping the dolls out of a birthing canal.
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Kembra Pfahler has held three recent solo shows in the UK with Emalin.
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In fall 2019, Kembra Pfahler walked in the Mugler Spring 2020 Ready-to-Wear fashion show.
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Kembra Pfahler has modeled for Rick Owens, Rodarte, Marc Jacobs, and Helmut Lang.
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Kembra Pfahler founded the art movements and conceptual philosophies of Availabilism, using what is closest at hand as both the inspiration for her work and the medium of her expression.
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Availabilism is associated with punk and DIY movements, Kembra Pfahler has defined it as:.
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Kembra Pfahler teaches students in how to use Availabilism through her workshops 'Performance Art 101,' which she has delivered regularly over the past two decades in New York City's East Village as well as venues including Pioneer Works and The Watermill Center.
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Kembra Pfahler has often used word-play and portmanteaus to describe areas of her practice these include: Anti-Naturalism, to describe an aesthetic of total artificiality; Beautalism, to describe making beauty out of brutal real-life circumstances; and Yesterbating, as a critical description of nostalgia.
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In 2011, Kembra Pfahler co-created Future Feminism alongside Anohni, Bianca and Sierra Casady, and Johanna Constantine.