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Exene Cervenka

Exene Cervenka (born Christine Cervenka February 1, 1956) is an American musician, writer, and artist. Raised in Illinois and Florida, Cervenka moved to Los Angeles in 1976.

Career

In 1977 she met musician John Doe at a poetry workshop at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA, and founded the punk band X. They released their debut album, Los Angeles, in 1980, and, over the next six years, five more critically acclaimed albums. Today she continues her musical career with X as well as in solo performances and participation in bands such as The Knitters, Auntie Christ and The Original Sinners. One of her solo songs, Leave Heaven Alone (on the album Old Wives' Tales), condemned militarism and environmental destruction. In 1982 Cervenka published her first in a series of four books, Adulterer's Anonymous, in collaboration with artist Lydia Lunch. She has also performed and recorded solo work doing spoken word.

In 2005, her journals and mixed media collages were exhibited in a one-person exhibition titled America the Beautiful at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The exhibit was curated by Kristine McKenna and Michael Duncan. An expanded version of the exhibition traveled to DCKT Contemporary in New York in January, 2006. The exhibition featured a selection of journals from the collection of approximately 100 that Cervenka has completed over the past thirty plus years, as well as eighteen collages. Cervenka's journals combine rough drafts of songs and personal reflections rendered in a baroque calligraphic script with photographs, drawings and scraps of ephemera found while traveling as a musician. Similarly, the collages are created from found materials to form an interpretative composite portrait of the country she's come to know through her life experiences on the road. DCKT Contemporary continues to represent her artwork.

Personal

Over the years she has also been known as Christine Cervenka, Exene Cervenkova and Christine Edge (her married name). Cervenka married Doe in 1980 (they divorced in 1985).

According to Henry Rollins's Get in the Van he and Cervenka were/are good friends who did a lot of spoken words shows together in the 80's.

Cervenka met Viggo Mortensen in 1986 on the set of the comedy Salvation!, a spoof of televangelism. Mortensen played her husband, Jerome. They married on July 8, 1987. On January 28, 1988, Cervenka gave birth to her only child Henry. Mortensen and Cervenka separated in 1992, and were divorced in 1997.

Cervenka appeared on the 2000 tribute album titled "Stoned Immaculate: The Music of the Doors" with Perry Farrell on the track "Children Of Night".

As of 2006, she lives in Missouri with her husband, Jason Edge.

Exene Cervenka discography

Los Angeles (1980) - X
Wild Gift (1981) - X
Under the Big Black Sun (1982) - X
More Fun In The New World (1983) - X
Poor Little Critter On The Road (1985) - The Knitters
Ain't Love Grand! (1986) - X
See How We Are (1987) - X
Live at the Whiskey a Go-Go (1988) - X
Old Wives' Tales (1989) - Exene Cervenka
Running Sacred (1990) - Exene Cervenka
Hey Zeus! (1993) - X
Unclogged (1995) - X
Surface To Air Serpents (1996) - Exene Cervenka
Beyond and Back: The X Anthology (1997) - X
Life Could Be A Dream (1997) - Auntie Christ
Original Sinners (2002) - Original Sinners
The Best: Make the Music Go Bang! (2004) - X
The Modern Sounds Of The Knitters (2005) - The Knitters
Live In Los Angeles (2005) - X
Sev7en (2006) - Exene Cervenka and the Original Sinners