MUELLER, Cookie. How to Get Rid of Pimples.

MUELLER, Cookie. How to Get Rid of Pimples.
New York: Top Stories, 1984

8vo (215 x 135 mm). [4], 77, [80] pp. Black-and-white photographic illustrations after David Armstrong, Nan Goldin, and Peter Hujar. Salmon wraps with photographic portrait of Mueller; spine sunned as usual, minor shelfwear, stray spots to edges. Very good.

FIRST EDITION. Mueller’s scarce first book, featuring pseudonymized photos of her friends in “before and after” portraits — with the “before” pictures featuring dots drawn on to the subjects, jokingly mimicking pimples — accompanied by strange, miracle-cure home remedies for acne. 

“These images of a 1980s New York creative class, drawn-on and dot-less, alongside Mueller’s surreal takes on wellness, suggest a dearth of cures for the maladies ailing this milieu: AIDS, for one. In the five years following How to Get Rid of Pimples’s publication, Mueller, her husband, Vittorio Scarpati, and contributing photographer Peter Hujar would all die from complications related to the virus” (Natasha Stagg). 

A writer, actress, and micro-celebrity of the downtown New York scene, Mueller led a freewheeling life of intensity, refusal, and large doses. Her life and work intersected with John Waters, Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, Gary Indiana, David Wojnarowicz, among numerous others known and countless forgotten. She died due to AIDS-related illness at only 40 years old. 

Anne Turyn’s Top Stories series was primarily dedicated to experimental writing by women. It ran from 1978 to 1991, publishing 29 titles. While the editorial sensibility was cast widely, it featured much of the underground art scene, including Laurie Anderson, Constance DeJong, Jenny Holzer, Jane Dickson, and more.

A nice copy of this work by the indelible Dreamlander, writer, and downtown figure, and a rare artifact of 1980s New York City.

PROVENANCE: Ira Silverberg

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