Johanna Fateman
Johanna Fateman |
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Johanna Fateman (born 1974) is a writer, zine editor and musician. She is a member of the feminist post-punk rock band Le Tigre and the band and art/performance collective MEN.
She grew up in Berkeley, California, where her father, computer scientist Richard Fateman is a professor at UC Berkeley. On the "Herstory" page on the official Le Tigre website, Fateman refers to performance artist Miranda July as being her "best friend from high school"; July is also from Berkeley. At the age of seventeen Fateman moved to Portland, Oregon to attend Reed College, which she later left for art school in New York.
Background and career
Sometimes referred to as the "zine queen", Fateman began her career writing and producing many zines including My Need To Speak on the Subject of Jackson Pollock; ArtaudMania!!! The Diary of a Fan; The Opposite and The Opposite Part II; and Snarla, which she co-edited with Miranda July. It was through her zines that Fateman first met bandmate Kathleen Hanna. At a performance of Hanna's band Bikini Kill, Fateman gave Hanna a copy of one of her zines. As Hanna has related in interviews, she was impressed and inspired by Fateman's writing and the two kept in touch. Later, when Bikini Kill broke up, Kathleen Hanna moved to Portland, Oregon, where she and Fateman co-habitated with several other women in a house known as "The Curse". Radio Sloan, who also lived at The Curse, taught Fateman how to play her first songs on a bass guitar that cost $60 and a homemade amp that "looked like a haunted doll-house with a speaker".
Around this time, Hanna and Fateman formed their first band together, The Troublemakers, named after the film of the same name by G.B. Jones. The band played at house parties in Portland but broke up when Fateman moved to New York. Hanna soon followed her to the east coast and the two women joined forces with filmmaker Sadie Benning to form Le Tigre. After their first album Benning left the band to return to making films. JD Samson joined the line up for Feminist Sweepstakes, their next release. The band's most recent album is This Island[1] & as of January 2007, they are on hiatus. [2]
While working with Le Tigre, Fateman started her own solo project called Swim With the Dolphins, named after a book by the same title with the subtitle "How Women Can Succeed in Corporate America on Their Own Terms". She made a 5 song cassette entitled "the struggle for the full exercise of woman's equality" during the winter of 1999, which she describes as "sample-based, dj/dance-floor inspired music for the feminist rave in my head." [3] She was also the sound-designer for experimental filmmaker Cecilia Dougherty's Gone. [4]
Time Off From Le Tigre
Fateman continues to write, often for Artforum magazine. In 2006, she appeared in Kill Rock Stars spoken-word artist Juliana Lueking's series of videos People are a Trip. [5]
As mentioned in a 2006 interview with the vegan-oriented magazine Herbivore, Fateman owns a West Village, New York hair salon called 'Seagull'. At Seagull, she works as head receptionist and organizer. Both Fateman and her business partner were featured in a short documentary on Current TV.[6] Seagull has been featured in The New York Times, The Observer and many other publications.
Fateman continues to DJ, contributing a track to IFAW's Whale Remix Project and also working with former Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson on a DJ/production/remix project titled MEN. [7] She currently resides in uptown New York with her pet bunnies and her daughter Goldie (born March of 2009). [8]
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (September 2007) |
- While at Reed College, she was often known as "Jo" and for a while was dropping the "man" from the end of her last name, so as to be known as "Jo Fate."
- The tattoo on her neck says "Freedom". She got it at the same time as two of her friends.
References
- ^ Jo's Herstory
- ^ [1] Le Tigre Split
- ^ Mediocrity Rules. Jo Fateman
- ^ Video Data Bank: Video Art and Video Artists
- ^ [2] "What Does God Look Like?"
- ^ Le Tigre Haircuts episode on Current TV
- ^ [3] Busygrrrl's Le Tigre News [4] Men's myspace page
- ^ [5] Le Tigre's myspace blog