Seven Stories Press

Works of Radical Imagination

Lydia Lunch

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Hailed by Time Out as "one of the greatest New York performers of all time," Lydia Lunch defies categorization. Few contemporary artists have forged a unique and varied artistic vision as successfully, or forcibly, during her long and notorious career.

Since bursting onto the late 1970s New York City music scene at the age of 16 with her band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Lunch has released over two hundred music recordings, either as a solo artist, in collaborations, or as guest artist. The poster-girl for the Whitney Museum of Art's Underground Film Festival, she has appeared in more than fifty films, including the infamous, gut-wrenching films of director Richard Kern, with whom she worked in the 1980s. As a writer, she has published numerous works of literature, such as her 2007 novel Paradoxia (Akashic), which has been translated into 12 languages.

Lunch continues to record and tour the world with numerous music and spoken word projects, film work, and art exhibitions, and is the subject of "Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over," a forthcoming feature documentary by acclaimed underground filmmaker Beth B.

Pleasure is the ultimate rebellion. The only true rebellion is pleasure. Pleasure at the brink of the apocalypse. Ecstasy at the mouth of the volcano. Pleasure at the brink of disaster.