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Riot2017
Series of 23 photographs
inkjet prints, colour
variable dimensionsIn 2011, Michael David Quattlebaum Jr. published “From the Silence of Duchamp to the Noise of Boys”, a book of poems that explored his early experiences with love, sex, and psychedelia. In the meantime, he was involved in performance actions with the No Fear collective, turning his poetry into lyrics played over industrial punk sounds. He was aware that no one from his generation read poems and sought to find a way to reach and create a wider audience.
This is where Mykki Blanco comes in – a feminized extension of Quattlebaum’s personality and character. Initially, Mykki Blanco was a social media project consisting of videos where Quattlebaum performed in drag as a teenage girl in a “haul video,” a diaristic monologue about recent purchases and celebrity gossip. The first EP, “Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels,” was released soon after, merging Quattlebaum’s personas as a poet, performance artist, and rapper.
In “Riot”, the artificial appearance of the club lives alongside plants and floral compositions. The series combines a selection of Mykki’s portraits – shot before and during a performance – with sensitive images of nature used as elements of contrast and comparison.
The project is named after “Riot”, a song from the mixtape “Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss” (2012).