Performance artist Dynasty Handbag photographed in East Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 10, 2016 for Artsy.
Photo by Emily Berl
Dynasty Handbag is a performer you won’t easily forget. She is visually striking, typically wearing outlandish outfits onstage, such as a black spandex swimsuit or a vintage long-sleeved shirt and transparent tights tucked into oversized, gold granny panties. Her makeup consists of heavy swathes of blush, thick lashings of eye shadow, and an abundance of red lipstick slathered over her mouth. The personas she assumes during performances, which are usually staged in alternative theaters, storefronts, comedy venues, art galleries, or restaurants with built-in stages—like El Cid in Los Angeles, where her current monthly show “Weirdo Night!” takes place—are as campy and abject as characters in John Waters films.
In one such recent performance at El Cid, Dynasty Handbag strode onstage, explained to the audience that her parents were both dead and the two trunks at the front of the stage were actually coffins, and then proceeded to whip out her laptop and talk through a collection of film clips of men dressed in women’s drag, sending them up for gesturing at “subversion.” In a performance of her new song, “I Can’t Stop Thinking ’Bout Having Sex With You Girl,” Dynasty parodies the New Country song “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line (more on that later), passionately belting out the lyrics in her purple underwear. Dynasty Handbag isn’t a woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown, however, but a character with no social boundaries or proper etiquette. Dynasty says whatever she wants to whomever she wants, whenever she wants.
read the full interview on Artsy: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-madcap-performer-dynasty-handbag-is-on-the-rampage-in-l-a
