• PERFORMANCE
  • COLLAGE
  • FILM
  • SHOWS
  • STATEMENT
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  • CV
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Narcissister

  • PERFORMANCE
  • COLLAGE
  • FILM
  • SHOWS
  • STATEMENT
  • PRESS
  • CV
  • CONTACT
  • NEWS

ABOUT

Narcissister is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer. Wearing mask and merkin, she works at the intersection of contemporary dance, visual art, and activism. She actively integrates her prior experience as a professional dancer and commercial artist with her art practice in a range of media including live performance, collage, sculpture, video, film, and experimental music. She has presented work worldwide at festivals, nightclubs, museums, and galleries. Her art video “Vaseline” won Best Use of a Sex Toy at The Good Vibrations Erotic Film Festival. In 2013 she received a Bessie Award nomination for the theatrical performance of “Organ Player” and in 2015 she received Creative Capital and United States Artists Awards. Interested in troubling the popular entertainment and experimental art divide, she appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2011. Her first feature film “Narcissister Organ Player” premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2018; the European premiere was at the Locarno International Film Festival. Also in 2018 she had a solo exhibition at Participant Inc. gallery in New York. She is a Sundance Theatre Lab 2018 Fellow for the development of a new evening length performance commissioned by the Soho Rep in New York. She was nominated for the ArtPace Residency in San Antonio, Texas in Summer 2019 and her activist short art film "Narcissister Breast Work" premiered at Sundance 2020.

 

Education

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. 1993-4. Scholarship student.

Brown University. 1993. B.A. Afro-American Studies. UC San Diego. Spring 1992. Studies with

artist Faith Ringgold. La Sorbonne, Paris III. Fall 1992. French-African literature coursework.

Selected Performances

Voyage Into Infinity, Skirball Center (as part of Under The Radar), Jan 2026 (Forthcoming)

Commission for a Narcissister theatrical piece, Playwrights Horizons, New York, 2026-7

premiere (Forthcoming)

Shubbak Festival, Southbank Center, London UK, May 2025

Voyage Into Infinity, Pioneer Works, new work commission for the Main Hall, NY, Sept 2024

Kaje performance residency, NY, March 2024 Performance as part of Forest Economic

Congress, Mona Museum, Tasmania Nov 2023

Performance as part of Faith Ringgold retrospective, Deitch Projects LA, Aug 2023

Dark Mofo Festival, Tasmania, June 2023 ANTI International Live Art Festival, Finland, 2021

Pompidou Center, Paris, 2020

BAC Madrid Biennale- The Arts of the Body, Madrid, 2019

Parliament of Bodies, Bergen Assembly 2019, Norway The Body is A House, Performa 2017

Make Me Up Before We Blow Blow Festival, Belgium, 2017

House of Realness, Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, 2017

Chicago International Puppet Festival, 2017

Andy Warhol Museum, 2016 Coming to Power, 25 Years of Explicit Art by Women, Maccarone

Gallery, NY, 2016 Pica's TBA Festival, Portland, 2016 Out of Line, The Highline, NY, 2016 The

Broad, LA, 2016 Live Art Live, USC, 2016 SF Art Institute, 2015 Check Your Vernacular, The

Hammer, LA, 2014 Six Impossible Things, The Getty, 2013 Organ Player, Abrons Art Center,

2013 Self-Gratifiers: Feminist Appropriations in the Performances of Narcissister & Ann Liv

Young, University of Leeds, 2012 Camp/Anti-Camp Festival, Berlin, 2012 Bodies of Babel

Festival, Hamburg, 2011 This Masquerade- The Kitchen 2010, Abrons Art Center 2011 Re-

performer, Marina Abramovic retrospective, MoMA, 2010 Girl Monster, City of Women Festival,

Slovania, 2009 All Made Up, New Museum, NY, 2009 Mali Nocni Commentar, Zagreb Biennale,

2009

Selected “Narcissister Breast Work” Screenings

Sundance (World Premiere), 2020

Outfest, LA, 2021 Nada Art Fair, NY, 2022

Frameline, SF, 2022

Selected “Narcissister Organ Player” Screenings

Sundance (World Premiere), 2018 SXSW, 2018 Minneapolis International Film Festival, 2018

Las Vegas Film Festival, 2018

Frameline, SF, 2018 Marfa Film Festival, 2018 Outfest, LA, 2018 Locarno International Film

Festival, 2018 Revelation Perth International Film Festival, 2018 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,

2018 Jewish International Film Festival, Australia, 2018 ANTI, Athens Bienniale 6, Greece,

2018 Hamburg International Queer Film Festival, 2018 Film Forum (Official release), NY, 2018

Stockholm International Film Festival, 2018 Northwest FilmForum, Seattle, 2018 SIE Film

Center, Denver, 2018 Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, Poland, 2019

Solo Exhibitions

“Title TBD” Margot Samel Gallery, NY, 2026 (Forthcoming)

“Narcissister”, Kendall Koppe Gallery, Glasgow, UK, November 2024

“Narcissister, Studies for Participatory Sculptures,” Participant Inc., NY, 2018

"Narcissister: New Video Work," Petrella's Imports, NY, 2014 "Narcissister is You,” Envoy

Enterprises, NY, 2013

Selected Group Exhibitions

"Persona, Being Reimagined,” Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2026 (Forthcoming)

The Cult of Beauty, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Summer 2026

(Forthcoming)

“Carnival,” group exhibition, Deitch Projects, NY, May 2025

Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, Brooklyn Museum, 2024 Summer Camp, Sargeant’s Daughter, NY

2024 Artist commission, The Cult of Beauty, The Wellcome Collection, London England Oct

2023-April 2024 Maskenfreiheit, Margot Samel Gallery, NY, 2023 “Spikes that Bite” Margot

Samel Gallery, NY, 2022 “pornotopia revised,” Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, 2022 “Role Play,”

FONDAZIONE PRADA, Italy, 2022 “Friends & Family,” Magenta Plains, NY, 2021 “Abortion is

Normal,” Arsenal Contemporary, NY, 2020 “Otherworldly: Performance, Costume and

Difference,” Parsons’ Aronson Gallery, NY, 2019 “The Pleasure Principle,” Maccarone Gallery,

LA, 2019 “Punch,” Deitch Projects, LA, 2019 “A Detached Hand” Magenta Plains, NY, 2019

“Sculpture for People,” Deitch Projects, LA, 2019 “No body to talk to” Invisible Exports, NY, 2019

“I Am My Own Primal Parent,” Karst Gallery, UK, 2018 “Honey,” Bodega Gallery, NY, 2018

“Sculpture for People,” Deitch Projects, NY, 2018 “This one is smaller than this one,”

Postmasters Gallery, 2016 "Draped Down," Studio Museum, Harlem, 2014

"Naked Office," The Hole, NY, 2013 "FORE," Studio Museum, Harlem, NY, 2013 "Siren," Anna

Kustera Gallery, NY, 2010

Residencies/Grants/Awards/Panels

Artist Residency, Millay Arts, Austerlitz NY, 2021, 22, 25 (Forthcoming)

Denniston Hill Fellowship Residency, 2024

Keith Haring Fellowship Residency, MacDowell, 2023

Franconia Fellowship Residency, Shafer, MN, 2023

Artist Residency, Shandaken Storm King, 2022 Artist Talk, Yale University, 2022

Artist Talk, Brown University, 2022 LMCC Artist Residency, Governor’s Island NY, 2021 Grand

Jury Prize Best Documentary Short, Narcissister Breast Work, Outfest LA, 2021

Artist Residency, Millay Colony, Austerlitz NY, 2021, 22 Artist Relief Emergency Relief Fund

recipient, 2020 Anonymous was a Woman Emergency Relief Fund recipient, 2020 Artist Talk,

UC Santa Barbara, 2020 “Double Knowledge – the Legacy of Carolee Schneemann” ArtBasel

Panel, Miami, 2019

Artist Residency, ArtPace, San Antonio, 2019 Artist Talk, Harvard University, 2019 Soho Rep

Commission for Narcissister theatrical piece, NY, 2019 Best Documentary Award, Narcissister

Organ Player, Hacker Porn Film Festival, Italy, 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab (collaborator:

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins), Morocco, 2018

Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, NY, 2017-18 Juror, Inaugural Queer/Art Prize, NY, 2017 Artist

Residency, AZ Encampment, Joshua Tree, 2016 United States Artists Award, 2015 MacDowell

Fellowship, 2015 Theo Westenberger Grant, 2015 Creative Capital Award, 2015 Artist in

Residence, Yaddo, 2014, 2017 Quickies Erotic Film Festival, Audience Choice Award for

“Vaseline,” 2013. "Organ Player " Bessie Nomination for “Outstanding production of a work

stretching boundaries of a traditional form", 2013 Jerome Foundation Grant for evening-length

work, Abrons Art Center, NY, 2012 Backstage Magazine “Bistro Award for Outstanding

Performance," 2009 Artist Residency, Art in General/HDLU, Zagreb, 2009 Good Vibrations Film

Festival “Best Use of a Sex Toy” award for “The Self-Gratifier,” 2008 Artist Residency, Center for

Photography, Woodstock, 2006 Whitney Museum IS Program, NY, 2004-5

Workspace Grant for Emerging Artists, Center for Book Arts, NY, 2004

Selected Press/Publications

Narcissister included in “Freaks of New York,” New York Times, Dec 2024

Top Ten, ArtForum, Jan 2024 Narcissister on ARTE:"Störfaktor Kunst“ PART III: FEMINISM,

2021 “Jeffrey Deitch Interviews Narcissister,” Autre Magazine, 2021 Narcissister Interview,

Artlaws podcast, 2021 Disavowing Virtuosity, Performing Aspiration, Choreographies of

Anticlimax in the Work of Yve Laris Cohen, Narcissister, and John Jasperse, Futures of Dance

Studies, 2020

“Why an Army of Masked, Topless Women Took Over the Streets of NYC,” Daily Beast, 2020

“Narcissister on her documentary and transformation,” ArtForum, 2018 “A Night Out With

Narcissister,” Interview Magazine, 2018 “Studio Visit: Narcissister,” Bomb Magazine, 2018 “La

Narcissister dont vous avez toujours reve,” Tracks, Arte TV France, 2018 “Narcissister’s Very

Strange, Fantastic Totem,” The Approval Matrix, NY Magazine, 2018 “An Erotic Avant Porn Artist

Bares Her Body and Soul,” Daily Beast, 2018 “What Best Movies Sundance 2018 Have in

Common,” The Week, 2018 “Artists for Gender Equality,” Artsy Short film, 2017 “Narcissister

Starts a Pussy Riot at Performa,” Vice Magazine, 2017 “Masked and Unafraid: Narcissister On

the Naked Choreography of Performance,” Vice Magazine, 2016 “Public Pubic: Narcissister’s

Performance of Race, Disavowal, and Aspiration,” TDR:The Drama Review, 2015 “Narcissister

Is The Topless Feminist Superhero New York Needs,” Huffington Post, 2014 "The Mannequin

Also Speaks," The New York Times, 2013 "Performance Artist Narcissister Turns Self Love Into

A Political Act At Envoy Enterprises," Huffington Post, 2013 "Is it Art, or Avant Porn?," Jewish

Daily Forward, 2013 "DANCING SOCIAL, The multiple publics at play in the work of

Narcissister," Theatre Survey, 2012