Cosmetic Surgery as "Cut-Up": The Body and Gender in Breyer P-Orridge's Pandrogeny

Abstract

The Pandrogeny project was a collaboration between the artists Lady Jaye Breyer and Genesis P-Orridge that used cosmetic surgery, hormone therapy, cross-dressing, and altered behavior in an effort to merge their two separate identities into a third, singular "pandrogyneous" character called "Breyer P-Orridge." This essay critically explores the practices and theories that comprise the Pandrogeny project, contrasting its use of cosmetic surgery to ORLAN's pioneering Reincarnation of Saint-ORLAN performance art series. We argue that there is potential for performance artists to critique and interrogate the normative frameworks of gender, appearance, and embodiment that guide the cosmetic surgery industry. However, artists and patients both undergo surgery within these frameworks, and thus their outcomes are shaped by the limits of the cosmetic surgery industry.