Johanna Went



Let us know when you bail.

Halfway through 1984’s Knife Boxing, Johanna Went interrupts her incessant frenzied bopping to thrust her hands into a crudely made body part—half-buttocks, half-vagina—suspended from the roof of Club Lingerie.1 A vicious viscous excremental substance seeps down her arm. She brings her face close and sucks the stuff into her mouth before hauling out a giant goo-covered tampon that she aggressively flings at the audience. Some cringe, others laugh. Quickly she pulls on a costume, a huge mask-headed apron covered in sex doll heads, all the while screaming her unique tongue, a babble from Hell channeled through Lolita-cum-Medea. Screeching tape loops accompany her, along with a blaring saxophone and a loud percussive racket emanating from a woman drumming on found objects.2 A monstrous vagina appears stage right. Went extracts more tampons, heaving each into the mesmerized mosh pit. Completely at one with her, the audience starts hurling these back in a game of volleyball gone mad. After all, this show was held to coincide with the Los Angeles Olympics. Much art programming accompanied that event, but Went was not part of the roster. Instead, she held her own celebration of sports, on the stage of a punk club, flanked by headless stockinette figures replete with genitalia parodying the elegant cast metal kouroi made by Robert Graham to decorate the official Olympic stadiums.


Source of quote, long essay.

Another essay on the creator, here.

Her Wikipedia page.


Comments
I made it to 2:04. I tried to listen to it. I really did.
Posted by Patrick98 on 03/13/20 at 08:45 AM
:35
Posted by Judy on 03/13/20 at 11:49 AM
0:00, after scanning the description (although the monstrous vagina appearance made it tempting).
Posted by Virtual in Carnate on 03/13/20 at 01:28 PM
Please don't put stuff like this on your website any more.
Posted by Joshua Zev Levin, Ph.D. on 03/13/20 at 01:30 PM
You just have to disengage your thinking apparatus. My childhood was filled with this kind of stuff. Captain Beefheart / Zappa were heavy staples. I made it all the way through this one.
Posted by KDP on 03/13/20 at 01:44 PM
I rank her right up (?? maybe down) there with Yoko Ono.
Posted by mary on 03/13/20 at 02:29 PM
I'm with Virtual. I didn't even make it through the description.
Posted by ges on 03/13/20 at 04:17 PM
I bailed at the middle of the third line of the description.
Posted by Phideaux on 03/13/20 at 11:52 PM
I got to about :30. It upset my dog.
Posted by Brian on 03/14/20 at 03:38 PM
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