Preview our Spring 2024 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
TRAPART BOOKS
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Sacred Intent
Conversations with Carl Abrahamsson 1986–2019
Edited with introduction and interviews by Carl Abrahamsson. Introduction by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
Three decades of conversations with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, provocateur, artist, gender revolutionary and leader of the bands Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and more
Published for legendary artist and musician Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s 70th birthday in 2020, Sacred Intent gathers conversations between Breyer P-Orridge and his friend and collaborator, the Swedish author Carl Abrahamsson. From the first 1986 fanzine-based interview about current projects, philosophical insights, magical workings, international travels, art theory and gender revolutions, to 2019’s thoughts on life and death in the the shadow of battling leukaemia, Sacred Intent is a unique journey in which the art of conversation blooms to the highest degree.
With (in)famous projects like COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY) and Pandrogeny, Breyer P-Orridge has consistently thwarted preconceived ideas and transformed disciplines such as performance art, music, collage, poetry and social criticism, always cutting up the building blocks to dismantle control structures and authority. But underneath P-Orridge’s socially conscious and pathologically rebellious spirit, there has always been a devout respect for a holistic, spiritual, magical worldview—one of “sacred intent.”
Sacred Intent is a must read for anyone interested in contemporary art, deconstructed identity, gender evolution, magical philosophy and the responsibility artists may carry and contain within their work. The book not only celebrates an intimately deep friendship spanning over four decades, but also the work and ideas of an artist who has never ceased to amaze and provoke the status quo.
Also included are photographic portraits of Breyer P-Orridge taken by Carl Abrahamsson.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Sacred Intent.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
FAD
Mark Westall
From the first 1986 fanzine-based interview about current projects, philosophical insights, magical workings, international travels, art theory and gender revolutions, to 2019’s thoughts on life and death in the the shadow of battling leukaemia, Sacred Intent is a unique journey in which the art of conversation blooms to the highest degree.
Elephant
Emily Gosling
demonstrates beyond doubt the artist’s unique knack for wringing symbolism and meaning from sounds that others would miss
The Wire
Spenser Thomson
The account of a 40 year friendship with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge reveals the musician's shifting interests and creative philosophies.
Brooklyn Rail
Carl Abrahamsson
This remarkable artist changed things, thinking, people, movements, art, memories, perceptions, culture in general, and so many other things; I cannot think of any other punch-packer of similar stature in the western world of art and esotericism.
AnOther
Allows a closer look at the latter three decades of P-Orridge’s career, collating a series of conversations undertaken with the Swedish writer, photographer and filmmaker Carl Abrahamsson. Beginning with an interview in 1986 – spanning magic, art theory and gender revolution – to a final conversation in 2019 about living life in the shadow of leukaemia, Sacred Intent offers perhaps the most intimate portrait of the provocative artist yet.
Kaleidoscope
Editors
...documents Breyer P-Orridge’s journey from the early COUM Transmissions work and the experimental music of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV to h/er more recent rethinking of love, gender and the concept of the individual itself, which s/he termed Pandrogeny.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Featured photograph is of artist, musician and pandrogeny pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge with their dog, Musty Dagger, in New York, 2013. It is reproduced from one of our most highly anticipated books of the season, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Sacred Intent, a collection of interviews between Breyer P-Orridge and Trapart publisher Carl Abrahamsson conducted from 1986—when P-Orridge was fronting Psychic TV en route from COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle—and 2019, when leukemia accelerated, forcing them to contemplate "a world without Gen in it." These are historic conversations, lending insight into half a century of revolutionary thought, action and spirit. But they are also so warm, intimate and real. In 2013, Abrahamsson asked what made Breyer P-Orridge happy. "Very little since Lady Jaye dropped her body, to be honest," they said, "compared to every minute filled with happiness and love by Jaye," their partner in pandrogeny, who died in 2007. And yet, "Musty Dagger, she makes me happy," they allowed. "We can literally just lie on the bed for hours and play, and she’ll attack the toys and they’ll squeak, and when she grabs one of the squeakers she’ll just do it over and over… It’s nice to have something that’s living to touch. That’s what we miss the most; having someone to hold or touch..." RIP Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, who died on March 14, 2020. continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 5.75 x 8.25 in. / 384 pgs / 20 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $30.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $42 GBP £27.00 ISBN: 9789198451269 PUBLISHER: Trapart Books AVAILABLE: 5/12/2020 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Sacred Intent Conversations with Carl Abrahamsson 1986–2019
Published by Trapart Books. Edited with introduction and interviews by Carl Abrahamsson. Introduction by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
Three decades of conversations with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, provocateur, artist, gender revolutionary and leader of the bands Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and more
Published for legendary artist and musician Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s 70th birthday in 2020, Sacred Intent gathers conversations between Breyer P-Orridge and his friend and collaborator, the Swedish author Carl Abrahamsson. From the first 1986 fanzine-based interview about current projects, philosophical insights, magical workings, international travels, art theory and gender revolutions, to 2019’s thoughts on life and death in the the shadow of battling leukaemia, Sacred Intent is a unique journey in which the art of conversation blooms to the highest degree.
With (in)famous projects like COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY) and Pandrogeny, Breyer P-Orridge has consistently thwarted preconceived ideas and transformed disciplines such as performance art, music, collage, poetry and social criticism, always cutting up the building blocks to dismantle control structures and authority. But underneath P-Orridge’s socially conscious and pathologically rebellious spirit, there has always been a devout respect for a holistic, spiritual, magical worldview—one of “sacred intent.”
Sacred Intent is a must read for anyone interested in contemporary art, deconstructed identity, gender evolution, magical philosophy and the responsibility artists may carry and contain within their work. The book not only celebrates an intimately deep friendship spanning over four decades, but also the work and ideas of an artist who has never ceased to amaze and provoke the status quo.
Also included are photographic portraits of Breyer P-Orridge taken by Carl Abrahamsson.
