BREYER P-ORRIDGE, Painful But Fabulous (The Lives and Art of Genesis P-Orridge), A22 Gallery, 2003

Issued for the private view on 1 June 2003, this signed exhibition invitation announced Painful But Fabulous (The Lives and Art of Genesis P-Orridge) at James Birch’s A22 Gallery, 22 Laystall Street, Clerkenwell, London, from 4–27 June 2003. The exhibition brought together expanded Polaroids and objects spanning 1973–2003. Measuring 13.5 × 21 cm, the invitation is offset-printed in colour to the recto with black printing to the verso and reproduces Transgendered Sacred Heart (sketch), 2003, credited to BREYER P-ORRIDGE, the collaborative identity of Genesis P-Orridge and Lady Jaye Breyer. The image combines a Catholic Sacred Heart prayer card with a Polaroid photograph, retaining the halo, clouds and devotional composition while introducing an altered body and suspended red heart. The distinction between the individual name in the exhibition title and the collaborative image credit places the invitation within the development of the couple’s Pandrogeny Project, which explored shared identity through bodily modification, photography and performance. This example is signed vertically in ballpoint beside the figure’s halo, with the Psychick Cross and number 23 associated with Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. From the James Birch Collection, it formed part of a group of five individually signed invitations retained by the exhibition’s organiser and documented in the October 2026 Sworders sale; this is a recorded group of signed copies, not a stated edition of five. Condition is very good, with a faint paperclip indentation at the lower right corner; otherwise clean. Retained by Birch, the invitation records both the exhibition’s circulation and the coexistence of the individual and collaborative names within its printed presentation.

Read more in the Journal: RE:CIRCULATION No. 009, Found Prayer Card.