VISUAL ARTS
Beatriz Milhazes: force of nature
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IN THE SUMMER OF 1992, Anohni kissed the hand of Marsha P Johnson. Then 21, the British-born singer had moved to New York to study experimental theatre and was beginning to piece together her chosen family. “I quite idealised her,” Anohni says today of the renowned activist who fought in the 1969 Stonewall uprising against anti-LGBTQ+ policing in New York. “A lot of her innovations were unprecedented.
”Six days after Anohni met her, Johnson’s body was found floating in New York’s Hudson river. “That period changed the direction of my life,” Anohni says. Since then, Johnson has been something of a spiritual guide: Anohni named her band the Johnsons in tribute, and on her debut album, 2000’s Antony and the Johnsons, exalted Marsha on the chamber rock elegy River of Sorrow. “No precious liar or well-wisher / Can return the love that was stolen,”
