Career
Born as Christene Cervenka, Cervenka was raised in Illinois and Florida before moving to Los Angeles in 1976. In 1977 she met musician John Doe at a poetry workshop at Beyond Baroque in Venice, California, and founded X. They released their debut album, Los Angeles, in 1980 and, over the next six years, five more critically acclaimed albums. As of late 2011 she has continued her career with X as well as in solo performances and participation in bands such as The Knitters, Auntie Christ and The Original Sinners.
In 1982 Cervenka published her first in a series of four books, Adulterers Anonymous, in collaboration with artist Lydia Lunch. She has also performed and recorded solo work doing spoken word. In 1999, as Exene Červenková, she appeared in the cult video Decoupage 2000: Return of the Goddess, along with guests Karen Black and the band L7. She gave a reading of her poem "They Must Be Angels", and appeared in an interview skit with Decoupage 2000 hostess Summer Caprice.
In 2005, her journals and mixed media collages were exhibited in a one-person exhibition titled America the Beautiful at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The exhibit was curated by Kristine McKenna and Michael Duncan. An expanded version of the exhibition traveled to DCKT Contemporary in New York in January 2006. The exhibition featured a selection of journals from the collection of approximately 100 that Cervenka has completed over the past 30+ years, as well as 18 collages. Cervenka's journals combine rough drafts of songs and personal reflections rendered in a baroque calligraphic script with photographs, drawings and scraps of ephemera found while traveling as a musician. Similarly, the collages are created from found materials to form an interpretative composite portrait of the country she's come to know through her life experiences on the road. DCKT Contemporary continues to represent her artwork.
Cervenka appeared on the 2000 tribute album Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors with Perry Farrell on the track "Children of Night".
Read more about this topic: Exene Cervenka
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