Cosey Fanni TuttiIncognito
3 October 2025 - 25 January 2026
Humber Street Gallery
64 Humber St
Hull HU1 1TU
Incognito is the embodiment of multiple identities originally constructed by Cosey Fanni Tutti to function within the glamour industry between 1973 and 1981. The industry comprised modelling agencies, soft-porn magazine publishers and their distributors, as well as a network of venues: studios, pubs and clubs across London.
This eponymous exhibition brings together film, vinyl music, costumes, performance documentation, press cuttings, and correspondence; many rare material items from Cosey’s personal archive never previously exhibited.
In 1977, prompted by a conversation with two girls while modelling for a magazine shoot, Cosey began researching her striptease act. She successfully auditioned as Scarlet, a pseudonym adopted for her stage act by which she was signed by entertainment agency GEMINI. Having designed and made her own costumes, selected the 7” vinyl records for her acts, she began work as a topless dancer across London, principally in its pubs.
Cosey simultaneously continued her modelling, dancing, art actions and work with Throbbing Gristle. The points at which these worlds corresponded and diverged was something Cosey was privately exploring. Her body was the primary material of her art actions, modelling and dancing – the convergence of which is presented in the 18 part photo-work Life Forms.
Woman’s Roll comprises a 30 part black and white photo-sequence documenting Cosey’s first autonomous action at the Air Gallery in 1976. In this serialised self-portrayal she is liberated from the dictats and protocols of the glamour industry. These solo performances were contemporaneous to and synergistic with sonic performances and recordings by Throbbing Gristle which had emerged from COUM Transmissions at their exhibition Prostitution at the ICA the same year.
In 1979 Cosey asked fellow artist and Throbbing Gristle member Sleazy (aka Peter Christopherson) to photographically document her complete wardrobe of striptease costumes. The shoot took place at Hipgnosis, a studio where Sleazy worked as a graphic designer, based in London’s Denmark Street, renowned for designing album covers for luminaries of mainstream rock – Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, UFO and T Rex, to name but a few.
Harmonic COUMaction, a mutating autobiographical collage of Cosey’s life in Hull, was made to be projected as part of a commissioned live performance for Hull City of Culture, 2017. Cosey composed the soundtrack live on stage at the Fruit venue, Hull. Behind each costume, record, magazine image and art action, is a story, a memorable incident, a person, a conversation. It all began in Hull.
The intentional diversity of music was determined by certain criteria. The track had to be swiftly changeable according to the type of venue, occasion or male audience - office or factory workers, civil servants or sportsmen. Choosing familiar music from chart hits ensured audiences could quickly identify with me. My own mood also came into play when choosing records.
Each record also had a narrative of sorts, to suggest a choreography; a point within the song that might be suitable for floor work, dance moves and a way I could remove clothing. For example, ‘Wild Thing’ by The Troggs signalled my entrance on stage. Other, slower records, like Judie Tzuke’s ‘Stay With Me Till Dawn’ provided a sense of intimacy, seduction and sensuality. I had to perform live and sometimes in volatile situations, navigating a way of conjuring an evocative scenario that was all about sex, or at least its suggestion.
Cosey’s Selection of 7” singles
The ten tracks you hear are taken from my 7” vinyl collection. The order of play reflects the structure of the routine: three topless dancers on stage as the customers arrived for me to make an initial money collection. The DJ would then crossfade to my chosen soundtrack for my first striptease, after which three more topless dances with mood matching music led to the second money collection, and my final striptease.
After more research I began sewing my own costumes, selecting records and practicing dance moves. By July 1977, I was sufficiently confident to audition for GEMINI agency at the Chelsea Drug Store in Kings Road. I got the job.
The costumes I wore for my stripteases were selected according to the audience for which I performed. Each signaled a different fantasy or sexual predilection appropriate to the age or social grouping of men: working men’s clubs, rugby teams, post-office and police events, bachelor parties, as well as private members clubs for elderly gents, government ministers and Westminster civil servants.
A particular costume carefully matched with the right music, spoke the sexual language required for the audience to feel comfortable enough to indulge themselves in the fantasies I evoked. My striptease costumes are a private code which, upon revisiting, involuntary triggers memories, correspondences and connections, the significance of which I am only now beginning to decipher.
I made the majority of costumes myself using sensual but practical materials that enabled easy, elegant removal. They were always tailored to a specific act and I often incorporated items from my other art and music activities, including a sequined TG (Throbbing Gristle) flash on the black satin outfit, the feathers taken from art actions or fabric remnants of old COUM Transmissions costumes. These elements, sewn into the very fabric of the outfits, function as subtle signs, material evidence of my concurrent activities of the 70’s and 80’s – modelling, striptease, art actions and music performances.
The transactional nature of my striptease work is demonstrated throughout this exhibition. Any opportunity to promote business was eagerly seized upon by my agency GEMINI. At all events I was obliged distribute their business card and in turn some customers would give me theirs. The Hackney Advertiser and The Sunday Times brought in a lot of work for me and the GEMINI.
The tools of the trade were many: my dancing bag containing makeup, hairbrush, tampons, tissues, as well as least ten different costumes suitable for dancing and three for striptease.
I would carry approximately twenty 7” singles to cover any duplication arising from the same choices made by the DJ’s or other dancers. For dancing and stripteases at bachelor parties, I would have two cassette complications because there was rarely a DJ, just a compere. Michael Barrymore was one such compare.
I received a flat fee of between £10 - £15 for topless dancing. The expectation was that I perform two striptease acts during the set for which I was booked. At these events I collected money from the customers in a pint beer glass. The two essential bags, leather and camouflage, were used for carrying home the cash I earned. Some pubs would change it into paper notes, others were not so obliging.
The Six Bells pub in Chelsea was particularly ambitious in formally booking me through Elanay Contracts. The letter I received clearly set out what was expected of me on the day of the shoot.
The black zip through leotard I wore for my stripteases was worn in most of the photographs taken at the Six Bells. It also appeared in the Szabo portraits, one of which I used for the Hayward Gallery Annual poster. As such, the leotard is a costumes used across dancing, modelling and art action.
Vitrine Six - Cosey Fanni Tutti Throbbing Gristle personality card, mimicking the Z-card but in a larger format. The photograph was taken over two sessions on 4th and 8th July 1979 at Szabo’s studio in Earls Court, London. I’d taken my personal clothing, my zip through leather shorts from a gay sex shop down Wardour Street, silver Mary Quant lurex top and ankle boots. (See wall casing with diary entries).
In 1977 I was working on a collaboration with my photographer friend Szabo and asked him to take a promotional shot for my forthcoming striptease project. I was wearing a silver sequin G-string, bra and gloves. This outfit was never used in my stripteases but the photographic image was later carried on the reverse side of the Throbbing Gristle ‘Cosey’ personality card. Both images were and continue to be used for diverse purposes by myself and Throbbing Gristle.
The two black & white photos displayed here are typical of what was required for nude modelling - a ‘tabloid page 3 girl’ style. I also modelled for a hairdresser in Knightsbridge who made me look so glamorous I didn’t recognise myself.
The model cards, known as Z- cards, acted as a marketing tool and carried all the vital information at a glance – my body measurements – contact address and telephone number. Combined with my portfolio, I had all the necessary means to demonstrate my credentials as a model. They were sent to clients as an introduction, followed by a personal audition and request to see my portfolio. The clients cited in the letters and receipts on display here are from Tuppy Owens, Gold Star and Health and Efficiency.
On three separate days between June and August, I presented a one hour action set against 35mm slide projections. The imagery was drawn from my stripteases and modelling, supplemented by Sleazy’s documentation of the Hayward action itself. This visual looping led to the creation of Lifeforms, the photo-work also on show in this exhibition.
Hayward Annual 1979 catalogue, invitation card and events programme, catalogue for the 1979 International Trigon Biennale Masculine - Feminine’ in Graz, Austria. Cosey’s pages showing part of Life Forms: modelling, dancing, art action image from the Hayward Annual.
Woman's Roll - Woman’s Roll was an art action which took place at the AIR Gallery, Shaftesbury Avenue, London on 7th July 1976.
It was a very personal action, a form of ritual open to interpretation, formed by the synthesis of my body and symbolic elements. It signified my autonomy and my separation from the collective COUM Transmissions. The room was a blank canvas - white walls and wooden floor – which I harnessed as my creative space, energising it through my actions.
I began by carefully placing eight blue arrows in a circle, the colour symbolic of femininity, the cycles of both moon and menstruation, truth, self-determination and confidence. I considered blue as a calming, relaxing colour that aids the expression of feelings.
I then lay down in the circle’s centre, keeping still until people settled down and I felt a sense of unified peace. The action was carried out in silence, the pace of the action was slow, my movements and gestures were graceful. I focused on my bodily form in relation to the items I worked with. I adopted a meditative approach but always remained sensitive and open to expressing my emotional state. The action was an expression of myself, in which I maintained self awareness throughout.
Woman’s Roll, like many of my actions, utilised my body as a site for art, juxtaposing beauty with simulated mutilation. As an ingredient in artificial blood, honey emitted a strong scent, as did the strawberries bound to my legs by bandages. These saccharine aromas were at odds with the gory, painterly aesthetic of the wound I methodically replicated, purposely confusing the audience’s sense of sight and smell.
Binding my body with rope, chain or, in this instance, bandage was a recurring feature of my actions. It not only denoted my interest in the sexual connotations of BDSM but, importantly, in the restrictions and limitations imposed on women.
The day before my action at the AIR Gallery I’d performed as Throbbing Gristle, a formative and relatively laid back experimental set compared to the later, confrontational live Throbbing Gristle gigs. Looking back, Women’s Roll is especially poignant as the very first live performance of Throbbing Gristle also took place at the AIR Gallery on 6th July 1976. The feathers and fur signed sensuality, clustered together with synthetic pale pink and lemon yellow eggs. This created a nest in which I buried four small boxes I’d made, each inscribed with the number four – a reference to the number of members of TG. Within each box I placed a tiny bloody latex scar - one box for each member of Throbbing Gristle. This acknowledged the previous day’s performance in exactly the same physical space and reinforced the residual energies of our collective presence.
