Kembra Pfahler, Hungry For Trash at Clerk’s House, Shoreditch, London, May 29th 2026 – Where were we? Walking along the canal, heading for the Clerk’s House and the Kembra Pfahler opening at Emalin, this has all been said already in a previous episode, the canal episode. This latest much anticipated Kembra Pfahler exhibition is called Hungry for Trash, which is of course a voluptuous name for a show, it opened last week. Yeah, I’m catching up again, a week late with the coverage, hey, lots going on in real life rather than art life right now and yes I know art is real life or an imitation of it or something like that and yes, this all very very (very) real.
So the New York artist’s latest London show opened and as expected the opening night was rather busy and yes, as we said already in the preview of this one, we’re still getting over that time ten years ago when Emalin first really kicked off as a gallery to notice with one of their early shows, with that Kembra Pfahler show over the road from the Shoreditch hell that is Boxpark in what was then Emalin’s space. As we also said already, the Organ review of that night ten years ago remains one of our most read website pages, indeed it is still visited on a regular basis. Last Thursday, actually no, it was last Friday that this one opened, told you there was a lot going on, what day is it today? Last Friday’s opening was a far more polite and casually well behaved affair unless the girls with the big boots and big hair, the pop stars, the rock stars, the drag queens and the performance artists arrived after we left (we did go early to try and catch the actual art on the wall and the floors of the small space, there before things became impossible)
The Clerk’s House is a rather intriguing, rather historic building right by Shoreditch church, the strangely numbered 118½ Shoreditch High Street is in fact a Grade II listed building that dates from around 1735, it is said to be the oldest surviving building in the area, it feels slightly wrong to see it being used in the way it currently is with all the coldly whitewashed white rooms turned into white cube walls and that very modern blond flooring, it feels a little soulless. All the art shows in here over the last couple of years have felt a little cold and detached, this Kembra Pfahler is kind of in danger of going the same way as every other show that has happened in this space in recent times, the “godmother of modern day shock art” is feeling a little tame in here, the whole event is. There are still the pentangles of course, there are the big nails, the glitter, the traces of Karen Black, it is all here on the floor, on the walls, on the TV mnitor that’s shouting and screaming from the floor…
Here’s another #43SecondFilm…
She is of course a legendary figure from New York’s underground scene; her art, music, performance, her acting, film and visual arts have been evolving and you might say confronting since the 1980s, the image she has built informed by as well as informing the countercultural aesthetics of Lower East Side New York, she is a gloriously twisted sister, a Goddess of sorts. a warrior come out to play as she draws on flavours that take in a monstrous fetishistic femininity as well as a more than healthy hint of Japanese Noh theatre. She has fronted her own gothy death-rock band, a band known as The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black; “The band’s cult performances incorporate handmade costumes and props created along the lines of her philosophy of availabism – making use of what’s available with the aim of fostering a radical view of femininity and beauty. The ceremonial treatment of her body in transgressive acts continues to mark the contemporary cultural landscape through her collaborations in film, photography and fashion” – she’s rather brilliant actually. she is her art, but here, in this latest show, she feels a little tamed, polite, reigned in, it all feels very conventional in here, almost demure, well behaved. Sure, there’s the little details, the red coffins, the yellow doll on the stairs, the blue one in the window, her cat bowls on the floor, the black figures, her demonic statues of liberty, but if you didn’t already know then you’d be hard pushed to get it all from just this show. Where 2016 was an almost riot, this is, well, like I already said, this is polite and restrained and not very shock rock. The undercurrent is still there though, the hints of her provocative positiveness, her defiantly big hair, those little black figures lurking low down on that ledge, the (dolls?) house in the middle of the floor, the earthy devilishly red trash… (sw)
The Clerk’s House, is one of Emalin Gallery‘s two current Shoreditch spaces, find it at 118½ Shoreditch High Street, London. Hungry For Trash goes on until 25th July 2026
Previously on these pages…
ORGAN PREVIEW: Introducing Emalin Stories with performance artists Kembra Pfahler and Vaginal Davis…
As usual, do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show…
THE ORGAN 