”It’s most important right now that men be feminists. If women say they aren’t it’s only because the word is not relating to them and we need to find new terms.” Electronic musician and performance artist Peaches wants us to question norms.
”The inspiration I look for is ridiculousness in what norms are and what mainstream finds acceptable.” says Peaches, who wants to question what we find normal. Vaginoplasty, plastic surgery performed on female genitalia for aesthetic reasons, has become more and more normal in recent years – having your vagina redone so it looks better. ”What do you mean look better? It’s fine! It’s natural, that’s how it looks!” says Peaches, who went on to write ’Vaginoplasty’, a song about loving your vagina whichever way it looks.
”All my work is really based on being able to be comfortable in your own body.” Explains Peaches, whose music and performances are highly colourful, packed with of glittering, burlesque-inspired costumes and quite a bit of silliness. But that does not make her critique of gender and norms less poignant. ”The artist is in a unique position to express ideas in different forms,” she explains. ”The fact that I like to express them in a humorous manner doesn’t mean I don’t think these issues are serious. But I also want people to know that they don’t have to take themselves so seriously.”
Merrill Beth Nisker (Peaches) (b. 1968) is a Canadian electronic musician and performance artist who’s songs are noted for disregarding traditional gender norms, and for their use of sexually explicit lyrics. She has been making music since the 1990’s but became known with the albums ’The Teaches of Peaches’ (2000) and Fatherfucker (2003), for which she was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. She has worked with many of the big names of alternative mainstream culture, including Marilyn Manson, Iggy Pop, Le Tigre and Christina Aguilera. In 2015 she released her sixth studio album, RUB, as well as a book of photographs (in collaboration with photographer Holger Talinski) entitled ’What Else Is In the Teaches of Peaches’.
Peaches was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, Denmark in August 2016 in connection CHART Art Fair. Clips from her concert at CHART as well as footage from the music video ‘Vaginoplasty’ are featured during the video courtesy of the artist.
Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard and Anders Lindved
Produced and edited by: Kasper Bech Dyg
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2016
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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