Gallery Carre
A Woman of Many Parts, Some Exposed (NY Times)
Feb 5th, 2025 by Jessica Gold Haralson
From the NY Times:
“OUCH, ouch, ouuuccch,” Julie Atlas Muz moaned from the floor of P.S. 122 last Saturday. She was on a break from the final rehearsal for her first solo show, and the process was taking its toll. This even though Ms. Muz, the burlesque dancer and downtown performance artist, is in enviable shape, creatively and physically. Hers is almost certainly the only résumé that includes the Whitney Biennial (2004), the Valencia Bienal (2005) and the Miss Exotic World and Miss Coney Island pageants. (She is the reigning crown-holder for both.)
But the last few weeks have required more contortion than ever. As she completed preparations for her show, “Divine Comedy of an Exquisite Corpse,” in the East Village, patrons were flocking to the Deitch Projects gallery in SoHo for the final days of “Womanizer,” her first foray into visual art. With Kembra Pfahler, Ms. Muz was curator for the exhibition, which included her large, glossy, (very) intimate self-portraits. As she shuttled between these projects and her regular gigs at places like Joe’s Pub, she also packed up her body glitter and custom-made false eyelashes to appear on television in London and in two sold-out shows with Margaret Cho in Chicago. “This has been the most intense work period of my life,” Ms. Muz said. “I’ve just been an art android.”
Now, trying to regain some measure of fleshy calm in the hours before the curtain lifted at P.S. 122, she borrowed a bottle of black nail polish and did her toes.
With wide-set eyes, blond hair and a carved physique, Ms. Muz, 33, is a towering goddess in the cabaret and night-life world. When she takes the stage in her pasties and five-inch platform heels (without them, she is only 5 foot 3), the audience gets titillation with an edge. In one number a fake bloody hand, shackled to her own, has its way with her, to the tune of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s “I Put a Spell on You.” In another, she escapes from a truss as Lesley Gore sings “You Don’t Own Me.” In one subterranean bar Ms. Muz was bludgeoned as Italian opera played. She emerged from the piece nude and covered in fake blood. It’s one of her favorites.
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