Sell Back Your Copy
For a $0.80 Gift Card
Trade in
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Painful But Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Painful But Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge [Paperback]

Throbbing Gristle (Author), Carl Abrahamsson (Introduction), Douglas Rushkoff (Foreword)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)


Available from these sellers.



Book Description

January 6, 2003
In this omnibus collection of the career of the seminal alternative artist and musician Genesis P-Orridge, the legendary performer opens his files to show the world never-before-seen texts, photos, artwork and magic. P-Orridge, whose bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV set the stage for modern industrial, punk and alternative music, here finally comes clean on many issues surrounding his life, work and mystique. From the 1960s, when the COUM Transmissions first turned England and the art world upside down, to his music, to his religion-as-a-joke-as-a-religion, this book covers it all.

Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed


Editorial Reviews

Review

""A rare and extreme opportunity to read the extraordinary method, theory and insight into the genius of Genesis P-Orridge. So Please take advantage of this exotic rare creature since this breed of individuality and originality is only one of a kind."

About the Author

Genesis P-Orridge is the world-renowned artist and musician (over 250,000 albums sold) from Manchester. As founder of the controversial art group COUM Transmissions, the industrial bands Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and Thee Majesty and the ironic cult religion Thee Temple Ov Psychic Youth, Genesis has reached an enormous audience and inspired countless contemporary acts, even those within the mainstream media such as Marilyn Manson. He also contributes frequently to magazines such as Penthouse and develops projects for the Sci Fi Channel.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 225 pages
  • Publisher: Soft Skull Press (January 6, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1887128883
  • ISBN-13: 978-1887128889
  • Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,010,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other's values. He sees "media" as the landscape where this interaction takes place, and "literacy" as the ability to participate consciously in it.

His ten best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated to over thirty languages. They include Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism, and Coercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy and graphic novel, Club Zero-G. He has just finished a book for HarperBusiness, applying renaissance principles to today's complex economic landscape, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. He's now writing a monthly comic book for Vertigo called Testament.

He has written and hosted two award-winning Frontline documentaries - The Merchants of Cool looked at the influence of corporations on youth culture, and The Persuaders, about the cluttered landscape of marketing, and new efforts to overcome consumer resistance.

Rushkoff's commentaries air on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR's All Things Considered, and have appeared in publications from The New York Times to Time magazine. He wrote the first syndicated column on cyberculture for The New York Times and Guardian of London, as well as a column on wireless for The Feature and a new column for the music and culture magazine, Arthur.

Rushkoff founded the Narrative Lab at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, and lectures about media, art, society, and change at conferences and universities around the world.

He is Advisor to the United Nations Commission on World Culture, on the Board of Directors of the Media Ecology Association, The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and as a founding member of Technorealism. He has been awarded Senior Fellowships by the Markle Foundation and the Center for Global Communications Fellow of the International University of Japan.

He regularly appears on TV shows from NBC Nightly News to Larry King and Bill Maher. He is writing a new monthly comic book for Vertigo, and developed the Electronic Oracle software series for HarperCollins Interactive.

Rushkoff is on the board of several new media non-profits and companies, and regularly consults on new media arts and ethics to museums, governments, synagogues, churches, and universities, as well as Sony, TCI, advertising agencies, and other Fortune 500 companies.

Rushkoff graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, received an MFA in Directing from California Institute of the Arts, a post-graduate fellowship (MFA) from The American Film Institute, and a Director's Grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has worked as a certified stage fight choreographer, and as keyboardist for the industrial band PsychicTV.

He lives in Park Slope Brooklyn with his wife, Barbara, and daughter Mamie.

 

Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring, eye and I-opening..., July 14, 2009
This review is from: Painful But Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge (Paperback)
--provided one is still capable of inspiration and cares to have eye or I opened. If so, this book will do the trick; it's hard to think of any serious artist being completely unaffected by the material here.

--generously illustrated with photographs of art, concerts, happenings, and GP Orridge in every conceivable guise, "Painful but Fabulous" is paired with text from a variety of authors to present an overview of the life and work of a multi-faceted, multi-talented performer and artist.

--Part biography, part critical theory, part artistic manifesto and magickal grimoire, "Painful but Fabulous" ultimately seeks to cover in one book all that has gone uncovered in the mainstream's general lack of appreciation for GP Orridge.

--Best known as the "face" of the groundbreaking industrial band, Throbbing Gristle, and later Psychic TV, GP Orridge is far less known as a poet/writer, occultist, cultural iconoclast, and graphic artist. This book seeks to redress that imbalance, putting the better-known musical work into context with the entire body of Orridge's considerable creative output.

--Here, too, are discussions (and pictorial representations) of Orridge's pioneering explorations into body modification and transgenderism, commenced long before such issues became, if not commonplace, not entirely alien pursuits to civilized society suggestive of outright insanity.

--Orridge shocked, offended, and influenced many during the heyday of Throbbing Gristle and confrontational performance art, and continues to do so, albeit in a far more behind-the-scenes fashion today.

--Organized, in part, by Orridge, including a short essay and a couple of interviews, "Painful but Fabulous" is a record of an extraordinary personage who turned a personal life into a public artwork--and made no compromises. As a result, the art has great integrity and power, and has received little compensation and less regard.

--Orridge stands as a kind of modern-day Artaud: a boundary-breaking artist who took art not only seriously, but as a sacred calling that required blood and sacrifice, and nothing less than one's entire life. Such artists are usually not well-rewarded in their own lifetimes, and sometimes not even after their lives are over. They remain too far outside the ability of the culture to commodify their efforts. Orridge is and may well always remain, in that regard, especially in the magickal underpinning of his artistic output, an artist's artist.

--A book for the primitive, but not the prude; for the cultured but not the polite, "Painful but Fabulous" records a life in art that was no doubt painful to live, but, when all is said and done, fabulous. And fabulous is this book which attempts to capture that uniquely engaged life between its covers.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book on Gen's life, art and influences., August 27, 2008
This review is from: Painful But Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge (Paperback)
I got this book several years ago when it came out while on a Throbbing Gristle kick (what can I say? I'm a glutton for sonic punishment) and was not disappointed. Of course, this is a book about his art and his life, not his music. This may not be everyone's cup of tea; there is a vagina dentata bag, photos of performances involving used tampons, photographic documentation of Gen's transformation from a relatively-normal-looking dude to a man with breasts, weird doodles, pornographic postcards and Brian Jones worship (he died for our sins, don't you know?).

There are interviews, essays by other people, selected art exhibitions and actions, COUM stuff, an "erotic mailart" section, and a selected discography. The relation of his work to the works of William S Burroughs and Brion Gysin is discussed (also some portraits he took of them).

Douglas Rushkoff describes the impact of the cutup method on Gen (and on art in general) by telling us that he learned about Genesis while researching cutups. He knew of Burroughs and Gysin, "but who was this third man beign added to the mix?... Wasn't he the lead singer for UK industrial band Throbbing Gristle? Yes, but he was also the man who turned cut and paste from an experimental art form into an act of conscious defiance."

There is a decent amount of text here and photos on pretty much every page. Ocassionally it gets a bit wacky, but it's to be expected. Interesting photos, interviews, and essays, and in general a well-put-together book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


12 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars the real 'st.jerome' would disapprove, but..., May 14, 2003
This review is from: Painful But Fabulous: The Life and Art of Genesis P-Orridge (Paperback)
This book is purported elsewhere to include a vinyl 7" one side spoken word, the other several locked-grooves for mixing--The friend of mine that has that record said he REALLY digs it. I don't see details of the 7" in the 'product details' above, but... I'm told that it is supposed to be included. Otherwise, I generally think this is more for the die-hard fans of GPO/PTV than for the curious. The overall look and feel of the book is kind of lo-fi in the format of the Re:Search books, which is ok, because it makes this more affordable for its seekers and won't lose Soft Skull Press much money (or at least I hope not, bcs "they'rre grrite"), but ultimately the color illustrations are kind of lacking for something that's trying to present GPO as an accomplished artist, and this doesn't really acheive the presentation required of a proper art-monograph. (of course, this review doesn't meet the criteria of a proper review either, so forget me) die-hards will require this, and those interested in knowing the genesis ov Genesis P-Orridge should start with the Wreckers of Civilization: History of Coum and TG book which is much more exhuastively historical of Gen's earlier period, and ... well... perhaps I should go and review that one elsewhere. Oh yeah, I think Gen would want me to sign off with something like ASSUME POWER FOCUS, TAKE CARE & CONTROL!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews


Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
And it's about time this book is published. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Genesis P-Orridge, Throbbing Gristle, Neil Megson, Brion Gysin, New York, Exploding Galaxy, San Francisco, William Burroughs, James Hillman, Los Angeles, Alecto Enterprises, Austin Osman Spare, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Kegan Paul, The Collected Works, Thee Psychick Bible
New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:



Books on Related Topics (learn more)


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums



So You'd Like to...


Create a guide


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject