Mx Justin Vivian Bond is a trans-genre artist living in New York City. As a performer both on and Off-Broadway, Mx Bond has received numerous accolades winning an Obie (2001), a Bessie (2004), a Tony nomination (2007), the Ethyl Eichelberger Award (2007), The Peter Reed Foundaton Grant, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant for Artists. V authored the Lambda Literary Award winning memoirTANGO: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels (The Feminist Press, 2011).
Films include John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006), Sunset Stories (2012), Imaginary Heroes (2004), Fanci’s Persuasion (1995), After Louie (2016). Television credits include Difficult People, (2017), High Maintenance, (2016) and The Get Down, (2016). Solo exhibitions of JVB’s watercolors, sculptural installations and live art have been presented by The New Museum as part of the exhibition titled Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon (NYC, 2017), Participant, Inc. (NYC, 2011, 2016), Art Market Provincetown (2014), and Vitrine (London, 2015). Albums include Kiki and Herb: Do You Hear What We Hear?, Kiki and Herb Will Die For You at Carnegie Hall, Dendrophile, andSilver Wells.
Artist Statement:
Although I am known primarily as a performer, I consider myself to be a writer creating my own narrative. I make choices based on what inspires me and what will keep me engaged in living my life in a way that I find fulfilling and interesting. Therefore, I write my own shows and create scenarios––personal and public––that bring me into contact with fascinating and sometimes dangerous people and situations, which, hopefully, encourage political and philosophical discourse as I attempt to maintain a certain level of critical detachment. Sometimes I play myself and sometimes I play a character. I don’t believe anyone else has the right to define our identities or to dictate our choices and so I continue to forge my own way within multiple genres, classes, genders, and communities.
(Sources: justinvivianbond.com, Foundation for Contemporary Arts)
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