Naked trolls with their faces covered in make up and a pile of messy hair on their heads languidly stare at visitors; an impeccably dressed doll of Diana Vreeland stands tall in another glass display, the red nails on her hands looking as if they had just been coated with fiercely red nail varnish, while Jackie Kennedy is frozen in her pink wool suit with matching pillbox hat, the outfit she was wearing when her husband President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
These silent yet disquieting presences haunt the visitors of the "Greer Lankton, Love Me" exhibition at Participant Inc (253 East Houston Street, New York; on until today), the first event organised in New York in collaboration with the Greer Lankton Archives Museum (G.L.A.M.) since Lankton died eighteen years ago.
Born in Flint, Michigan in 1958, Greg Robert Lankton studied fabrics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago between 1975 and 1978. After undergoing sexual reassignment surgery in 1979, Lankton continued her studies, receiving her B.F.A. from Pratt Institute for Sculpture.
Upon graduating, in 1981, Lankton was included in the "New York/New Wave" exhibition at MoMA PS1 curated by Diego Cortez; three major solo exhibitions followed at Civilian Warfare between 1983 and 1985, as well as four group exhibitions at the Whitney Biennial and Venice Biennale.
Between the mid-'80s and the early '90s, Lankton displayed her work at the East 7th Street boutique Einsteins, founded by her husband, the fashion and jewellery designer Paul Monroe. Together they became known for iconic window displays featuring her dolls and for catering to a clientele of celebrities, including Madonna and Andy Warhol among the others.
The art world darling of NYC's Lower East Side, a muse and model for many, Lankton had her last show - "It's all about ME, Not You" - in 1996 at Pittsburgh's Matress Factory, prematurely dying from a drug overdose shortly afterwards at just 38.
Curated by Lia Gangitano at Parcipant Inc, in collaboration with Monroe, and entitled after an Avedon photo, one of Lankton's favourite images of Candy Darling, "Love Me" features nearly 100 of Lankton's dolls, including trolls inspired by Pinky, a beloved pink haired doll from the '60s that was her only friend as a kid; Sissy, a five foot five bald drag queen and the voluptuous six foot tall Princess Pamela.
The exhibition features also ephemeral materials, works on papers and photographs by friends and peers including Nan Goldin, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Peter Hujar, Eric Kroll, Zoe Leonard, Paul Monroe, Daryl-Ann Saunders, Kate Simon, and Geoff Spear; plus films by Joyce Randall Senechal and Nick Zedd. Some of the pieces come from private collections (Iggy Pop loaned for the occasion the blue-skined Princess Pamela), but also from main museums, such as the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Vreeland's figure was displayed into a Barneys window and later on entered the Met's Costume Institute collection).
While it is interesting to rediscover this intriguing artist via images, objects, and personal memorabilia (the glass displays with bits and pieces from Lankton's life are a testament to the fact that she used to surround herself with images and loved good stories or bizarre facts like Diana Vreeland getting all the soles of her shoes lacquered in bright red), it is her dolls that powerfully mesmerise visitors.
Her figures reflect indeed Lankton's own lifelong obsession with her own body: her fashion icons, drag queens, hermaphrodites and transsexuals display the marks of drug addictions, weight and gender issues (Lankton suffered from anorexia, asthma and drug addiction), turning into repulsively attractive (and meticulously constructed with wire stuctures, fabric, glass eyes and human hair....) symbols of the artist's own passion for the extremes in life. Monroe recalls indeed in an essay how she would surround herself with images of both anorexic people who couldn't lift their heads and 500 pound people unable to leave their beds.
Yet "Love Me" is not a just visual journey through Lankton's legacy to queer art history. Sickly thin or grossly obese, her doll figures tell us indeed stories of abuse, transgression, illness and glamour, becoming the lucid statements of an artist with a profound body-consciousness and prompting us to ponder about the current individual desire to experience freedom from both masculinity and femininity (think about fashion designers' mismatching body sex and gendered dress codes) and about our collective obsession with digital and physical body alterations and modifications.
Image credits for this post
1. Greer Lankton, LOVE ME, installation view, left, Nan Goldin, Greer in the tub, NYC, 1983, Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery; right,Trolls,c. 1982-1983, Collection of Francine Hunter McGivern. Photo: Karl Peterson.
2.Greer Lankton, LOVE ME, installation view, left to right, Diana Vreeland, c. 1990, Courtesy of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art;Trolls, c. 1982-1983, Collection of Francine Hunter McGivern; Eric Kroll, Greer Lankton surrounded by her sculpture, 1984, Chromogenic print, copyright Eric Kroll; Peter Hujar, 1934-1987, Greer Lankton in Bed, 1983, Greer Lankton in a Fashion Pose (I), 1983 and Greer Lankton in a Fashion Pose (II), 1983, vintage gelatin silver prints, from the Peter Hujar Archive, Courtesy of Pace/MacGill Gallery. Photo: Conrad Ventur.
3. Greer Lankton, LOVE ME, installation view, front, Diana Vreeland, c. 1990, Courtesy of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and rear, Princess Pamela, c. 1992, Collection of Iggy Pop. Photo: Karl Peterson.
4. Greer Lankton, LOVE ME, installation view, left to right, Zoe Leonard, greer, 1983-1984, Vintage gelatin silver print; Kate Simon, Teri Toye with Teri doll, 1984, Vintage gelatin silver print, Collection of Patrick Fox; Eric Kroll, Civilian Warfare Gallery and its artists, 1984, Chromogenic print, copyright Eric Kroll; and in ephemera case, Nick Zedd, The Bogus Man, 1980, three vintage film stills and contact sheet, and The Bogus Man for the East Village Eye, fold-out poster, from the Nick Zedd Papers 1963-2010, Courtesy of the Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University. Photo: Karl Peterson.
5. Greer Lankton, Freddie, 1981, and Ellen, circa 1980
Photo: Greer Lankton, 1983, for Civilian Warfare
6. Greer Lankton, Jackie Kennedy, 1985
Polaroid by Greer Lankton
7. Greer Lankton, Diana Vreeland, circa 1989
Photo: Paul Monroe
8. Greer Lankton, Sissy's Bedroom (installation at Area, New York), 1985
Chromogenic print
Courtesy of Greer Lankton Archives Museum (G.L.A.M.)
9. Greer Lankton, Sissy in Pieces, 1985
35mm photograph
Courtesy of Greer Lankton Archives Museum (G.L.A.M.)
10. Greer Lankton, Sissy at Prince Street Station, 1982
Magazine reprint
Courtesy of Greer Lankton Archives Museum (G.L.A.M.)
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