Printed Matter, Inc. is pleased to announce an exhibition featuring the work of fierce pussy, a collective comprised of a group of queer women committed to creating public art and performing direct action around issues of lesbian identity and visibility. The opening reception and book launch for fierce pussy will take place on Saturday, April 5, 2008 from 5 – 7 PM. Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue (between 21st and 22nd Street).

Active in New York City from 1991 to 1995, fierce pussy was composed of a fluid and often-shifting cadre of dykes. Core members included Pam Brandt, Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy Episalla, Alison Froling, Zoe Leonard, Suzanne Wright, and Carrie Yamaoka. Adamantly low-tech, fast and low-budget, fierce pussy relied on modest resources: old typewriters, found photographs, their own baby pictures, and whatever material they could get donated. Much of the work was produced using the equipment at their day jobs. Emerging during a decade steeped in the AIDS crisis, activism, and queer identity politics, fierce pussy brought lesbian identity directly out into the streets in a manner characterized by the urgency of those years.

fierce pussy wheatpasted their posters and printed and distributed stickers and t-shirts throughout the city. Their other projects included re-designing the bathroom at the Gay and Lesbian Center, a greeting card campaign directed against the policies of Cardinal O’Connor and Senator D’Amato, and a moving billboard/truck. For Gay Pride 1991, fierce pussy re-named streets along the parade route after prominent lesbian heroines using stenciled and spray-painted street signs.

The exhibition will feature a survey of fierce pussy’s posters as well as stickers and postcards. Also included is archival material such as photo documentation and newspaper articles as well as source materials and original artwork for the collective’s campaigns.

Saturday’s event will also serve as the launch for fierce pussy, a self-titled book of posters published by Printed Matter and fierce pussy in conjunction with the exhibition. The publication reproduces 16 classic posters from fierce pussy in an over-sized format with spiral binding, such that the reader can tear out a poster and install it wherever she wishes. fierce pussy encourages the dissemination of its posters worldwide.

The exhibition announcement is a remix of one of the collective’s earlier posters. A postcard edition of this poster was made especially for the exhibition and the collective’s much-coveted fierce pussy toilet paper has been re-editioned as well.

The poster book, postcards, and toilet paper edition are available at www.printedmatter.org and at our storefront in New York City.