The performance artist Kalup Linzy at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery. His animation, back left, was on display.
By TIM MURPHY
Published: August 3, 2011
THE art-fashion crowd struck a cool pose at the opening party for “On Shuffle,” an indie rock-themed show at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea. Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth nonchalantly stepped around her installation, a circle of glitter on the floor. Cecilia Dean, a founder of the avant-garde fashion bible Visionaire, sailed in wearing a black Margiela jersey.
Roger Kisby/Getty Images
James Franco and Mr. Linzy backstage at the Rob Pruitt Art Awards at Webster Hall in February.
Amid the swans nervously clutching a glass of white wine was the show’s unlikeliest darling, a black Southern-inflected, gender-bending, genre-defying video-and-performance artist named Kalup Linzy. Instead of the bad wigs or skimpy dresses that his characters are known for, Mr. Linzy looked positively demure in a beige henley T-shirt and sneakers. The only sparkle was a pair of diamond stud earrings.
“I bought these on clearance at a department store in Union Square,” Mr. Linzy, 34, said in his deep drawl, as his 10-minute video, “L’il Myron’s Trade,” played in a continuous loop. “I can’t remember the name. A basement? Feline’s?”
It was hard to know if Mr. Linzy was in on the joke, which could also describe the art world’s amusement with his work. His raunchy and humorous videos, low-budget affairs that have found their way to MoMA’s permanent collection, are inspired by daytime soap operas.
The characters, many played by Mr. Linzy, are typically women or drag chanteuses who lust for sex and fame as openly as they call Grandma. With names like Taiwan, Patience and Labisha, they are his alter egos, portraying a child of rural Florida or an anxious art-world striver of New York.
“He’s a multifaceted artist who’s become a recognizable figure on the contemporary New York art scene in only a few years,” said Klaus Biesenbach, the director of MoMA PS1 in Queens, which has given Mr. Linzy studio space and, last year, included his work in the influential Greater New York show. “He crosses between visual arts, performance, directing, acting and music.”
Mr. Linzy first caught the art world’s attention in 2005 as the breakout artist of two shows, one at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the other at Taxter & Spengemann, a Chelsea gallery. “A star is born,” wrote Holland Cotter, an art critic for The New York Times. “His name is Kalup Linzy.”
As his fame rose, so did the company he kept. Chloë Sevigny and Liya Kebede, the Ethiopian model, have appeared in his videos. Diane Von Furstenberg and Proenza Schouler have made dresses specifically for his performances. But his best-known and most complex collaboration has been with the culturally promiscuous heartthrob James Franco.
The two met in 2009 at Art Basel Miami Beach, at a party honoring Mr. Biesenbach. Mr. Linzy was performing there as Taiwan, the melancholy drag chanteuse, singing torch songs with a Billie Holiday-like flower behind one ear. Mr. Franco was impressed and asked if he would appear on “General Hospital,” the soap on which Mr. Franco was playing a deranged artist known as Franco.
“I smiled and said O.K., but I didn’t really think it would happen,” Mr. Linzy said. Two months later, a childhood dream came true when he appeared on “General Hospital” as the club singer Kalup Ishmael, singing “Route 66.”
It was one of the oddest art pairings in recent memory. “It’s a hilarious collaboration,” said Hrag Vartanian, the editor of the art blog Hyperallergic. “I don’t know whether Franco is using Kalup for art world cred and vice-versa, in terms of Kalup getting pop culture cred.”
The incongruous duo performed live several times, including last year at the Rob Pruitt Art Awards at Webster Hall, in which they rapped “Chewing Gum,” an X-rated song that features variations on the line, “This ain’t no chewing gum.”
The collaboration took another twist last month when Mr. Linzy released an EP of dance-oriented songs, “Turn It Up,” with spoken-word contributions from Mr. Franco.
A soap-opera-obsessed artist in a haute-concept art world, Mr. Linzy has been described as the heir to artists and performers as diverse as Cindy Sherman, RuPaul and John Waters. His low-budget videos, which he not only stars in but also writes, directs and produces, feature seemingly simple narratives that slyly upend conventional notions about race, sexuality, class and art world pretensions.
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