MANON. Manon 1980 “Ball der Einsamkeiten”.

(Zurich): MANON Kong, 1980.  First edition.  Small oblong quarto.  Unpaginated.  Scarce early publication issued to coincide with the exhibition at Fondatie Kunsthuis, Amsterdam November / December, 1980 and Kunsthaus, Zurich March / April, 1981.  A volume of thirty self-portraits.  A pioneer of body and performance art since the 1970s, in Manon’s ambivalent depiction of female identity, she deliberately affirms gender roles as well as their subversion. Her radical performances and conceptual photographs have challenged the personal and political nature of sexuality and gender, calling long-established norms for such paradigms into question through a combination of self-presentation and masquerade.  The present volume through a series of photographic images illustrates the artist’s interest in personal redefinition, through taking up her own body as both medium and metaphor.  A very good copy.with invite card to the exhibition at Fondatie Kunsthuis laid-in together with Dutch text sheet.