Cosey Fanni Tutti is an English performance artist, musician, and writer, best known for her time in the avant-garde groups Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey. In 1975, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti consumed blood, semen and piss onstage in the UK. Government officials labeled them “the Wreckers of Civilization.”
Tutti worked for two years on the ‘Prostitution’ project in which she created a revealing exhibition about the porn and sex industry. For this project, she worked as a model for sex magazines and films. It was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 1976. Censorship restrictions were imposed on the exhibition so only one image could be viewed at a time. The project also involved a performance and discussion events in which women working in the sex industry and the public could enter a dialog about issues surrounding this industry and prostitution. Tutti also utilized her own used tampons and used diapers this “aroused hysterical reactions from the British media and art establishment, unable to address the political implications of the work.”
She had a long career as a stripper and in the fields of pornographic film and magazines, stemming from a desire to incorporate her own image into collages she produced in this period. This willingness to deliberately and consciously participate in the process of commercial image production has inspired a number of visual and performance artists. Some of her performance art work has also drawn on her experience as an adult performer.
