Richard Kern - Lung With Lizard

Richard Kern (United States, 1954)
"Lung With Lizard", 1987
Archival pigment print — edition 17/50, signed by the author

Portrait of Lung Leg with a lizard on the face, taken in 1987
in Kern's apartment on East 13th Street, in New York, during the shooting
of the first scene of the film "Submit to Me Now".

The author recounts that Lung Leg appeared that day with a small
green salamander in her pocket, asking if she could have it walk across her face
during the shot. He often brought live animals on set: once a jar
of black crickets, another a can of fishing worms.

THE SUBJECT

Lung Leg has been the fetish icon of the Cinema of Transgression and the
protagonist of several Kern films. She is also the model for the cover image of
"EVOL" by Sonic Youth (1986), taken from a frame of the film "Submit to Me".

CHARACTERISTICS

• Archival pigment print on museum board
• 8 × 12 inches (20.3 × 30.5 cm)
• Signed in pencil by the artist on the back
• Numbered 17/50
• With Exhibition A certificate of authenticity, signed by co-founder
Laura Martin and dated February 23, 2012
• Not mounted, not framed

THE EDITION

Published by Exhibition A (New York) in collaboration with the artist, in
a limited edition of 50 copies. The edition is sold out with the publisher.

THE ARTIST

Richard Kern was among the leading figures of the Cinema of Transgression, the
underground New York cinema movement of the 1980s born in the East Village. He directed the video for Sonic Youth's
"Death Valley ’69" in 1985, and later videos for King Missile and Marilyn Manson.

He has held over fifty solo exhibitions internationally, including at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Feature
Inc. in New York, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. He has participated in
group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the
Brooklyn Museum. He lives and works in New York.

provenance

Purchased directly from Exhibition A in September 2016. Purchase documentation
available.

CONDITION

Extremely Fine. Flatly stored, never exhibited or matted. No creases,
no signs of handling, edges intact.