On the evening of February 14, 1980, the writer and actress Cookie Mueller posed as the ex-boyfriend of the poet and playwright, Gary Indiana, for a performance he was doing alongside another of his friends, Kathy Acker, at the Mudd Club in New York.听They both read aloud letters addressed to ex-lovers, and while Acker projected photographs of her sexy correspondents; Gary projected 鈥Cookie鈥. In the remaining artificially lit portrait: she wears听a lilac-cotton bowling shirt,听her unwashed bleached hair slicked back into a low ponytail, complete with stick-on sideburns.听She听clutches a lit, half-smoked cigarette,听brings it closer to her moustached mouth. But听as a costumed bit part,听this time her lips didn鈥檛 part to talk her own love letters.听听
Or did they? Could they have?听What if听I were to听take the picture as听an example of听what听Jos茅 Esteban Mu帽oz听describes as 鈥渆phemera听as听evidence,鈥 meaning 鈥渕emory and performance鈥 all of those things that remain after a performance, a kind of evidence of what has transpired but certainly not the thing itself鈥? Following Munoz,听I propose that听the part-object picture is an invitation听to dream, gossip, and speculate听new possibilities about, but also for, and particularly with, and especially听around听the original event (Valentine鈥檚听Day, 1980: this lecture鈥檚 permeable boundary), in a way that dates it and departs from it at the same time, circling it, stretching ideas and texts and events beyond it, which have an affinity with one another. This听stance听makes it possible to reconsider the Mudd Club performance听as听an entry-point into recognizing the critical effects of the love letter in the work of Mueller, as well as Kathy Acker.听For听in this lecture, I write between, across, and towards them, adopting a spatial, affective,听epistolary position to show how both writers transformed the traditions of the love letter etched into histories of women鈥檚 writing鈥攖hey let it be听perverse; they let it be听sick 鈥 to transform and repair our narratives of love. 听
Dr Alice Butler听is the Centre for American Art Terra Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. She also teaches in Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art. An interdisciplinary scholar and art writer, she specialises听in 迟丑别听intersections of feminist art and writing to explore questions of sickness,听sexuality, and gender, via feminist and queer perspectives and experimental approaches to archive and听autotheory.听She has previously held fellowships with the Paul Mellon Centre, the Freud Museum London, and the AHRC. Recent publications include the article 鈥溾楬ave you tried it with three? Have you?鈥 Ann Quin, Love Triangles, and 迟丑别听Affects听of Art/Writing,鈥 in听Capacious: A Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry听(2021) and the essay 鈥淔an Letters of Love,鈥 in听Fandom as Methodology: A Sourcebook for Artists and Writers听(2019). She has also recently published essays in the art writing anthologies听ON CARE听(2020) and听ON FIGURE/S听(2021). She is currently听finalising听work on a number of book projects, including a monograph on the sick desires and pleasures of Kathy Acker and Cookie Mueller鈥檚 interdisciplinary art writing, and a collection of essays, articles, and dialogues on gesture in feminist art and writing, within which she will be publishing new research on Francesca Woodman鈥檚 photography and autoeroticism. This intersects with a new project on the interrelation of textiles, sickness, and perversion, as represented and performed in feminist art practices, that she is researching during her Fellowship at the Centre for American Art.听听
