COUM Transmissions was a confrontational and subversive art group founded in England in 1969 and active until 1976. Their forte was challenging conventional ideas of art, manners, sex and behavior, earning them the disdain of much of the Britih press and chastised in Parliament by Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn, who referred to COUM as the “wreckers of Western civilization.” Their Prostitution show, which consisted of explicit photographs of lesbians, assemblages of rusty knives, syringes, bloodied hair, used sanitary towels, press clippings and photo documentation of COUM performances in Milan and Paris, was so outrageous that Australia banned the group from traveling there.
Art Sex Music is the autobiography of a musician who, as a founding member of the avant-garde group Throbbing Gristle and electronic pioneers Chris & Cosey, has consistently challenged the boundaries of music over the past four decades.
It is the account of an artist who, as part of COUM Transmissions, represented Britain at the IXth Biennale de Paris, whose Prostitution show at the ICA in 1976 caused the Conservative MP Nicholas Fairbairn to declare her, COUM and Throbbing Gristle ‘Wreckers of Civilisation’… shortly before he was arrested for indecent exposure, and whose work continues to be held at the vanguard of contemporary art, some of which resides as part of the Tate permanent collection.
And it is the story of her work as a pornographic model and striptease artiste which challenged assumptions about morality, pornography and art.
Art Sex Music is the wise, shocking and elegant autobiography of Cosey Fanni Tutti.