April Palmieri is an American photographer and musician who performed with a 12-piece all-woman percussion band,

Pulsallama Pulsallama was an all-woman, no wave band from New York. Described as "13 girls fighting over a cowbell," the post-punk group was primarily a percussion ensemble with two bass guitars and several vocalists. The band was formed in early 1981 fr ...

. During the early 1980s, the band played at such venues as the

Mudd Club The Mudd Club was a nightclub located at 77 White Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for underground music and counterculture events. It was opened by Steve Maas, Die ...

, the Pyramid,

Danceteria Danceteria was a nightclub that operated in New York City from 1979 until 1986 and in the Hamptons until 1995. The club operated in various locations over the years, a total of three in New York City and four in the Hamptons. The most famous locati ...

, and Club 57 in New York's East Village. Palmieri's photography from this era, including of

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

and

John Sex John McLoughlin (April 8, 1956 – October 24, 1990), better known by the stage name John Sex, was an American cabaret singer and performance artist in New York City from the late 1970s until his death in late 1990. Early life Sex was born on ...

, has been included in an exhibition at the

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...

and an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Education

Palmieri received a BFA in 1978 from the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

Pulsallama

The no wave

art-punk Art punk is a subgenre of punk rock in which artists go beyond the genre's rudimentary garage rock and are considered more sophisticated than their peers. These groups still generated punk's aesthetic of being simple, offensive, and free-spirit ...

band

opened for

The Clash The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the wa ...

Combat Rock ''Combat Rock'' is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Clash. It was released on 14 May 1982 through CBS Records. In the United Kingdom, the album charted at number 2, spending 23 weeks in the UK charts and peaked at number 7 in ...

tour several times in 1982 as an all-woman, all-percussion band. Their music has been described as percussive-heavy, crude, and shrieking. Their album, ''The Devil Lives in my Husband's Body'', released on London's

Y Records Y Records was a British independent record label set up in 1980 by Dick O'Dell in the United Kingdom, and distributed by Rough Trade. History Artists included the Slits, Shriekback and a number of groups that were associated with the Bristol ...

, has been described as a "joke that gets funnier every time you hear it." The song single was described as polyrhythmic, with a narrative that describes a man who howls like a hound and barks nightly in his basement. The song has been called a "post-new wave social satire" of suburban discord.

Ann Magnuson Ann Magnuson (born January 4, 1956) is an American actress, performance artist, and nightclub performer. She was described by ''The New York Times'' in 1990 as "An endearing theatrical chameleon who has as many characters at her fingertips as Lil ...

Wendy Wild Wendy Wild (born Wendy Andreiev, August 31, 1956 – October 26, 1996) was an American singer, musician, and artist who in the 1980s was a well-known presence in New York's downtown music and performance scenes. Career Growing up in Northp ...

and Jean Caffeine were among the members of the band. The band was active from 1980 to 1983; their distinctive sound has been compared to

Bow Wow Wow Bow Wow Wow are an English new wave band, created by manager Malcolm McLaren in 1980. McLaren recruited members of Adam and the Ants to form the band behind 13-year-old Annabella Lwin on vocals. They released their debut EP '' Your Cassette ...

and

Bananarama Bananarama are an English pop duo from London, formed as a trio in 1980 by friends Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey and Keren Woodward. Fahey left the group in 1988 and was replaced by Jacquie O'Sullivan until 1991, when the trio became a duo. Thei ...

. They performed in cocktail dresses with unusual props and instruments such as kitchen utensils. Jen B. Larson of ''BandCamp'' writes that for their first show, "Pulsallama recruited members from the Ladies Auxiliary of the Lower East Side, Magnuson's "twisted version" of a conservative women's civic club — plus

ean Ean may refer to: People * Ean Campbell (1856–1921), Anglican bishop in the early 20th century * Ean Elliot Clevenger, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter * Ean Evans (1960–2009), bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd from 2001 until his de ...

Caffeine, a practiced drummer from San Francisco punk band The Urge," and Palmieri recalled, " hedid not know it was an actual band, and missed the second show." They toured Europe and the U.S. East Coast and were known for their "primal, yet glamorous absurdity" and cacophonous stage antics. Their

neo-Dada Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, a ...

music was both a refection and critique of the Reagan Era. The band emerged during the Club 57

Downtown scene Downtown music is a subdivision of American music, closely related to experimental music, which developed in downtown Manhattan in the 1960s. History The scene the term describes began in 1960, when Yoko Ono, one of the early Fluxus artists, op ...

cabaret in New York City as part of the tongue-in-cheek "Ladies " at the venue. The band was spontaneously formed to perform at the 'Rites of Spring Bacchanal' event. A writer for

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

magazine wrote of their shows, "“I was dancing, screaming and laughing, all at the same time.” Palmieri was also a close personal friend of performer and downtown scene figure,

, and documented his life during the 1980s. Palmieri, who was a frequent performer at Club 57, recalls that the performance art space on Saint Marks Place was: “an open house to express yourself. We were delighted to let loose and be ourselves.” In July 2020, the band released a self-titled album of songs recorded live in New York in 1983.

Exhibitions

In addition to performing, Palmieri photographed the punk scene in New York city. Her work was included in the exhibition ''Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983'' at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC (2017-2018). In 2019, Palmieri showed work in the ''Yesterday's Tomorrowland Today'' exhibition curated by Ann Magnuson and Alexa Hunter in Los Angeles. Twenty-five of her documentary photographs of

were included in a show at the

. Her photographic work from that show was later included in the ''New York Scene/Unseen'' exhibition at the

Open Eye Gallery Open Eye Gallery is a photography gallery and archive in Liverpool, UK that was established in 1977. It is housed in a purpose-built building on the waterfront at Mann Island, its fourth location. Open Eye Gallery comprises an exhibition space ...

, Liverpool, along with the work of three other photographers. Her work was included in the ''MASS: Group Material'' exhibition held at

Artspace Artspace may refer to: * Artspace (website), an online marketplace based in New York City * Artspace, New Haven, an art gallery in downtown New Haven, Connecticut * Artspace Mackay, Mackay, Queensland, Australia * Artspace NZ, a visual arts cent ...

in 1986.

Group Material Group Material was a group of conceptual artists and an exhibition space, active from 1979 to 1996, which included Jenny Holzer, Julie Ault, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Félix González-Torres, Hans Haacke, and others as members and participants ...

was a collective of artists that was active in the 1980s.

References

External links

Official website

Videos and interview of Pulsallama
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palmieri, April Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American photographers 20th-century American photographers American women photographers American women percussionists 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women Women in punk

Education

Pulsallama

Exhibitions

Archive

See also

References

External links