COUM Transmissions: The Wreckers of Civilisation
Before they took the art world by the scruff of the neck and shook it until its teeth rattled, COUM Transmissions had their beginnings in Hull. Here they would forge their boundary-stomping brand of anti-art, with outrageous street performances and surreal gigs in the city’s pubs and clubs. They soon developed a reputation for the bizarre, attracting the misfits and weirdos from around the city to their avant-garde mayhem-driven cause.
In December 1969, Genesis P-Orridge, along with friend John Shapiro, moved into a building in Hull’s Fruit Market area that Genesis nicknamed the Ho-Ho Funhouse. They were soon joined by Hull local Cosey Fanni Tutti. The Funhouse was filled with eccentric characters, and sometimes used as a clubhouse for passing Hell’s Angels. They started performing in Hull, under the banner of "Your Local Dirty Banned". Influenced by Dada artists and in particular the Fluxus network, their shows were improvised cacophonies on broken instruments and found objects. Once they purposely turned up to a gig without any instruments. As word spread of the creative maelstrom that was tearing down the barriers of the art establishment, they came to the attention of the media and art world.
By early 1971 they reached the notice of the Yorkshire Post, which did an article on the group. They performed sessions on Radio Humberside in the April of that year. Energised by the press attention, the collective started giving impromptu street performances, much to the annoyance of the local police. They gave a performance at the Gondola Club in Little Queen Street, which was raided by the police after a riot broke out. The club closed down permanently soon after the performance, and COUM were blamed for its closure, resulting in them being unofficially banned from playing in Hull clubs again.
They applied for arts funding, giving performances at the Hull Arts Centre and Ferens Art Gallery. Performances outside Hull followed, but they still used the city as their playground, entering the National Rock/Folk Contest at the New Grange Club with a set entitled “This Machine Kills Music” in the summer of 1972. By 1973 Genesis and Cosey left Hull for London; by this time they’d become too controversial for Hull and needed to escape. COUM were now internationally recognised, and were included in a Fluxus retrospective that toured the UK. They performed alongside the Vienna Aktionists, who encouraged COUM to push things by using shock tactics. Their performances were becoming more extreme, often involving themes of sexual fetishism, piss, vomit, blood and semen. In October 1976, COUM Transmissions gave their infamous performance of Prostitution at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. It would be the show that saw them described by one Conservative MP as "the wreckers of civilisation".
There were sculptures of found objects alongside used tampons and jars of bodily fluids. The controversy exploded, reaching a crescendo, when questions were asked in Parliament about whether public funding should be used for such an event. The notoriety of COUM Transmissions was cemented, and their dedication to pushing the boundaries of what is considered art has since gone down in art history.
COUM Transmissions, the first exhibition of materials drawn from the personal archives of Cosey Fanni Tutti and Genesis P-Orridge, will be at Humber Street Gallery between February 3 and March 22. Admission is free.
