Mucus in My Pineal Gland is the debut collection of New York City-based artist and writer Juliana Huxtable. Gathering for the first time, poems, performance scripts, and essays, this startling new book expands Huxtable’s critique of gender, sexuality, politics, whiteness, and history while establishing her as a singular poetic voice.
Much of Mucus in My Pineal Gland uses devices recognisable from “confessional” literature: overtly direct affective statements, recollections of early sexual encounters as if they were the keys to understanding the adult author, general propositions about life filtered through the particulars of personal experience. These are wonderful and familiar devices: they facilitate both empathetic identification (“I can relate to that”) and empathetic alienation (“I can’t quite imagine the inside of that experience”).
Huxtable's work has been previously featured in numerous publications, including Artforum, Candy, Tropical Cream, and Mousse. She was included in the 2015 New Museum Triennial, curated by Ryan Trecartin and Lauren Cornell.
Copublished by Capricious and Wonder, 2017.
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