GREER LANKTON
Years before the Lower East Side was home to surf shops and vegan cupcakes, AIDS and drugs ravaged the community, and galleries had names like Civilian Warfare. It was there (among other venues) that Lankton, who died in 1996, exhibited her remarkable doll sculptures. Although best known to many as a muse of Nan Goldin’s, Lankton was a superb artist in her own right, capturing the glam and the pain of the artistic life in paint, paper, and wire. In her case, the pain was both psychic and physical; born Greg, in Michigan, Lankton had gender reassignment surgery in her early twenties, an operation she detailed in watercolors seen here. As compelling as the figures themselves are (from a life-size Diana Vreeland to a bust of Candy Darling), it’s the memorabilia and the photographs of Lankton (by Goldin, Peter Hujar, and others) that will capture your heart. Through Dec. 21.
November 2 – December 21
Participant, Inc.
http://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/art/greer-lankton