EXCLUSIVE: Here are the first stills from Art Sex Music, a feature documentary directed by Caroline Catz and produced by Andy Starke (Free Fire, Kill List).
The doc, which has just wrapped, is based on artist, musician and author Cosey Fanni Tutti’s bestselling memoir of the same name and explores her work as an uncompromising cultural pioneer who was once described as a “wrecker of civilization” in UK Parliament in 1976 following her controversial Prostitution art exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
Art Sex Music unfolds within an immersive cinematic world build from Fanni Tutti’s archive, transforming decades of diaries costumes, photographs, films, artworks and correspondence into a living environment of interconnected installations through which she revisits and reflects upon her own life.
The film follows Fanni Tutti’s evolution from her working-class upbringing on a council estate in Hull to one of Britain’s most influential artists, charting a life that dissolved the boundaries between art, music, performance and personal identity through her early days in the bands COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle as well as her collaborations with British musician Chris Carter and her solo work. Central to the film is Fanni Tutti’s transformation of her work and personal experiences in the sex industry into a radical artistic practice that challenged conventional ideas of sexuality and representation.
Catz is an award-winning filmmaker, actress and narrator. She wrote, starred in and directed BBC doc Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes in 2020. She is best known for her role as Louisa Glasson in long-running ITV drama Doc Martin. Art Sex Music marks the second feature collaboration between Catz, Stark and Fanni Tutti for banner Anti-Worlds.
“It is a personal honor and privilege to be collaborating with Cosey once again, this time exploring the remarkable continuum of her life, work and artistic vision,” said Catz. “Art Sex Music invites audiences into Cosey’s creative realm through her personal archive, into the experiences, ideas and materials that shaped her life and inspired her autobiography. It is a portrait of an artist who has continually redefined what it means to live and create on her own terms. This is a film that explores eroticism not as a provocation but as an artistic, political and cultural force.”
‘Art Sex Magic’ photo courtesy of Luke Clayton Thompson
