![[smiths] Magazine](https://smithsmag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/logofresh3.png)
On December 8th, 1980, John Lennon was shot outside of his home by his obsessed fan, Mark David Chapman, who claimed to be both disappointed and jealous of the artist and his fame. Fourteen years later, Kurt Cobain took his own life after years of depression and addiction, suffocated by his own fame. Amy Winehouse also grappled with mental health issues and addiction, all while the media exploited her personal life and struggles. Like in Britney Spears’ case, the relentless gaze of the press was endless and manipulative, and the industry’s drive for profit overrode the individual’s needs to the point where their autonomy and voice were compromised. How many creative souls have been snuffed out by their exploitative treatment? How many more have to be used and discarded like outdated products? And how long will we stand by and witness, playing a complicit role in their downfall?
Many artists, outraged by this blatant mistreatment, have used their platforms to call out these exploitative practices. By attempting to break the parasocial relationships between fans and idols, they mark a distinction between the persona sold to the public and the real, feeling person behind it. Throughout the decades, artists of all sorts have harnessed abject descriptions to critique the consumer culture that profits from their mistreatment, confronting how their bodies are bought, displayed and consumed for entertainment. From Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece in 1965 to Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm 0 performances in the 1970s, artists have harnessed installation art, performance, film, music, and the body itself to create provocative environments, forcing viewers to confront their complicity in fostering the exploitative side of stardom. These artworks pose an interesting question: Can immersive art reframe the fan-idol relationship through provocation to reclaim power, or does it merely perpetuate exploitation?
The power of this type of immersive art, as outlined by Claire Bishop, exposes its potential to engage the senses whilst powerfully conveying the artist’s message through immersion rather than passive viewership. By inducing a “critical vigilance towards the environments in which we find ourselves,” the visitor enters an antagonistic relationship with the surroundings and becomes immersed in a staged environment which mimics the industry’s exploitative practices.
This phenomenon is explored in COUM Transmissions’ 1976 installation and performance titled Prostitution. The British collective scrutinised the commodification of the self within the art world, inviting questions surrounding the sale of the body within the entertainment industrial complex. Despite exhibiting for only one week, the shocking collection of syringes, used tampons, bloodied bandages, bottles of blood, knives, and chains 1 caused a public uproar and broader debate about what deserved to be in a museum. Newspaper clippings of articles featuring COUM populated the walls and were later joined by others documenting the public outrage surrounding the exhibition. Another wall was covered in pornographic magazine covers featuring Cosey Fanni Tutti, an artist and member of the collective. The unusual atmosphere was accompanied by live rock music blasting throughout the Institute of Contemporary Arts space.
The abject items that adorned the museum space interrogated the boundaries of what is considered acceptable within a sanitised environment such as art galleries. Such objects function like traces, revealing the true, sometimes ugly nature of embodiment by showing fragments of the real life behind the persona put on by various artists. By exhibiting objects conventionally considered trash and undesirable sights, the sterility and social conventions of the space are challenged. Not only do these objects challenge the “secular status”2awarded to many artworks by imitating their exhibition style with mundane objects, but they also draw a parallel between them and the way in which celebrities are regarded. By revealing the humanity behind the product-like image put out by the industry, COUM calls out the exploitative and unrealistic narratives in the art world. No longer is the objectified, ‘artwork’ of a celebrity viewed as flawless and overly glorified; instead, they stand as flawed, real humans.
The pornographic images of Cosey Fani Tutti drive this point, in particular the cover titled Sexual Transgression No. 5 (Fig.2). These photographs, originally printed on the covers of commercial porn magazines, feature the artist in various poses and in varying levels of nudity. In Sexual Transgression No. 5, the artist uses Venus’ iconography as seen in Manet’s Olympia3 to draw a parallel between the idealised female nude of classical high art and explicit imagery from modern pornography. This way she confronts visitors with the historic commodification of the female body, questioning the broader cultural systems that have come to normalise the sale of the nude. Juxtaposing explicit imagery with the sterile gallery environment underscores the public’s complicity and passivity when confronted with these exploitative practices. The pornographic images function as visual proof, tethering the object’s critique of commodification to the physical consequences of exploitation. Together, these elements create a visual and conceptual argument that confronts the viewers with the ethical and moral failings of societal systems that exploit individuals for profit.
Live rock music blared through the installation, reportedly so loud that “it could have disturbed the Queen in her castle at the end of the road”4. Here, the music functions as “immersive and proximal,”5 harnessing rock’s counter-culture nature to generate a provocative environment. The music’s loudness and defiance mirror the outrage evoked by the visual elements, emphasising the installation’s confrontational tone. The intense experience places visitors in the artists’ shoes, exposing them to the exploitative and damaging practices inherent in the music industry. This element complements the visual provocation of Prostitution, amplifying its capacity to challenge societal norms and provoke critical reflection.
Moreover, these elements emphasise the exhibition’s framing of individuals as commodified goods. Olteteanu hypothesises that “performers may sense that they “are the music they are performing”6, further exploring how artists’ bodies are treated as products for public consumption. COUM thus manages to create a paradoxical situation where they simultaneously critique the commodification of bodies and use them as objects within the installation. Prostitution enacts the exploitation they seek to unravel, successfully emulating the circumstances many artists often inhabit and revealing the abject, horrifying and ugly truth behind their lives in the limelight.
This success is proven by the widespread public debate that Prostitution caused at the time of its conception. Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn called the installation “a sickening outrage. Sadistic. Obscene. Evil.”, fueling public outcry7. The “sensationalist media uproar” amplified the heated debate surrounding the installation, even sparking debates within Parliament8. Many newspapers, such as People and News of the World, criticised Prostitution for its sexual and explicit content. Yet paradoxically, they had promotional images for sex films within their own pages9. This hypocrisy reinforced Prostitution’s critique of the exploitative and profitable system that commodifies bodies. Art historian Siona Wilson theorises that the media’s relentless coverage of Prostitution played into the installation’s goal. She argues that “they incorporated their media presence into the very fabric of the installation itself”10, opening up to a discourse beyond the gallery space. This way, the public’s response is expected and encouraged, and becomes a part of the artwork, creating a feedback loop of outrage and critique that amplifies the installation’s social commentary.
So, Prostitution successfully challenges the overarching social structures of domination that seek to profit from bodies by generating an immersive and provocative environment that mirrors the consequences of such abuse on the artist’s lives. Through its use of abject materials, provocative images and live performances, the exhibition generates a “sense of antagonism”11 towards its surroundings that forces visitors into the shoes of the artists themselves. Its engagement with perspectives beyond the museum further amplifies its impact, demonstrating art’s ability to foster critical conversations. A sense of moral grievance is activated in the viewer, encouraging them to confront uncomfortable truths.
Such a visceral reaction to the honest and controversial show proves the disruptive potential of these types of artworks. While certain elements risked perpetuating the exploitative practices of the industry, such as Cosey Fani Tutti’s porno covers and the live rock performance, the overall structure and effect encourage the viewers to step into the shoes of the artists, asking for empathy. This way, COUM manages to break the cycle of parasocial relationships and mindless content consumption, de-romanticising fame and its victims.
Such an exhibition (despite being from 1976) is highly significant in our current context; its quasi-prophetic quality seems to foresee the overwhelming dominance of social media and communication in our daily lives. The line between private and public has become blurred due to the digital world, rendering many popular artists, and musicians in particular, vulnerable to the prying eyes of their fans. Influencers embody the public figure-as-product phenomenon that COUM transmissions sought to condemn, with some greedy institutions going as far as creating AI influencers for monetary purposes. In an increasingly obsessive fan culture, these artworks create provocative critiques, opening our eyes to the dangerous exploitation led by the entertainment industry and inviting us to take responsibility.
More of Sasha’s work is available to read on her website.
Cover Image: Cosey Fanni Tutti, Sexual Transgression No. 5, poster from the exhibition Prostitution, ICA, October 1976. Tate Collection, London. In “Surrealism and Punk: The Case of COUM Transmissions,” Marie Arleth Skov, 214.
Works Cited
1 Institute of Contemporary Arts. “Prostitution Revisited,” 2016.
2 O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube, 1999: 14.
3 Skov, Surrealism and Punk: The Case of COUM Transmissions,” 2022: 214.
4 Tim Noakes, “Genesis Breyer P-Orridge,” 2016.
5 Ion Olteţeanu, “The Formative Function of Musical Interactions Within Social Identity,” 2011: 216.
6 Idem, 218.
7 Skov, Surrealism and Punk: The Case of COUM Transmissions,” 2022: 215.
8 Idem.
9 Art Design Café. “COUM Transmissions, Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Genesis P-Orridge,” 2009.
10 Siona Wilson “Prostitution and the Problem of Feminist Art: The Emergent Queer Aesthetic of COUM Transmissions,” 2015: 97.
11 Bishop, “But is it Installation Art?” 2005.