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Joanna is an art critic, art historian and performance artist. Her latest book, "Monster/Beauty: Building the Body of Love" (2001), develops a theory and practice of personal beauty. "Erotic Faculties" (1996) is a collection of her critical and performance writings. Recent projects include co-curating "Picturing the Modern Amazon" and being principal co-editor of the book that accompanied the exhibition. Recognized as a powerful, provocative, and articulate performance artist, she has presented performances and lectures at museums, galleries, universities, and conferences in the United States, Canada, and the UK.
How well fashion designer 'Betsey Johnson' understands pink's potency. The walls of her boutiques are painted fuchsia, and it's easy to find pink clothes in them. Pink sells clothes because pink lifts spirits. Yet, we perceive pink as a pale version of red; we think that red is bold and pink is demure. This formulation of difference reveals the trivializing association of pink with femininity. Pink "belongs" to little girls, to "old ladies," and to gay men; to the cute, the campy, the no-longer-lovely. Pink, like femininity, signals excess in a culture that would rather believe in the threat of red than in the potency of pink.
In a different actuality, pink is complex and dynamic. Its conscious use by girlie girls, gay men, and a hip designer such as Johnson indicates that pink's "excess" carries the essence of erotic play, whether the user makes love in a geranium-bright lace thong, colors her lips in MAC's Razzpa, or decks himself in high pink blush like the fictional rock star Brian Slade in director Todd Haynes's "Velvet Goldmine". Excess, as experience beyond the dull and complacent, can be active pleasure, and that is my point: to consider the importance of pink in what I call aesthetic/erotic self-creation. Being a performance artist (as well as an art critic and art historian), my presentation will perform pink-in what I wear and also in my "excessively" girly, queer, and romantic way with words and emotions.
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