Juliana Huxtable

Juliana Huxtable (born December 29, 1987) is an American artist, writer, performer, DJ, and co-founder of the New York–based nightlife project Shock Value.

Huxtable has exhibited and performed at a number of venues including Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Project Native Informant, Artists Space, the New Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Huxtable's multidisciplinary art practice explores a number of projects, such as the internet, the body, history, and text, often through a process she calls "conditioning."

Huxtable is a published author of two books and a member of the New York City–based collective House of Ladosha.

She is on the roster of the talent agency Discwoman, a New York based collective and talent agency that books DJs for parties and events around the world.

Huxtable moved to New York to attend Bard College and graduated in 2010.

Huxtable has spoken about her desire to be a painter while growing up and enrolled in several painting classes during college.

She abandoned the medium after professors criticized her for her "obsession with" formal technique and identity.

In an interview with artist Lorraine O'Grady, Huxtable mentioned studying literature and gender studies.

Huxtable moved to New York to work as a legal assistant for the ACLU's Racial Justice Program after college.

While at the ACLU, Huxtable amassed a significant following on Tumblr, posting long stream-of-consciousness poems and self-portraits that experimented with fashion and Nuwaubian imagery.

After leaving her position at the ACLU, Huxtable began DJing.

In August of 2013 Huxtable DJ'd at the Studio Museum in Harlem's Uptown Fridays party series.

The same year Huxtable participated in the House of Ladosha's show The Whole House Eats (stylized as THE WHOLE HOUSE EATS) at Superchief Gallery.

During her time as a DJ, Huxtable regularly integrated her poetry into DJ mixes.

Huxtable's poetry was featured in the song "Blood Oranges" from Le1f's mixtape Tree House as well as the runway soundtrack for the Hood by Air 2014 Fall/Winter fashion show "10,000 Screaming Faggots" by Total Freedom.

Huxtable's interest in fashion led her to model for a number of fashion houses and campaigns.

In 2014, she was featured on the fifth anniversary cover of C☆NDY magazine along with a number of other transgender women – Janet Mock, Carmen Carrera, Geena Rocero, Isis King, Leyna Ramous, Yasmine Petty, and Laverne Cox.

Huxtable has modeled for DKNY, Eckhaus Latta, Chromat, and French fashion house Kenzo.

In August 2014, Huxtable performed in the video for the Hercules and Love Affair song "My Offence."

The video features excerpts of conversations with figures from New York City's queer nightlife scene such as Honey Dijon.

The band's primary member, Andrew Butler, described the song and its video as an examination of his "relationship to taboo words and the use of 'cunt' amongst NYC's gay community to relay flattery, empowerment and strength".

In early 2015, Huxtable was selected to present work in the 2015 New Museum Triennial Surround Audience, curated by Lauren Cornell and artist Ryan Trecartin.

Huxtable included two text-based works and two self-portraits, each an inkjet print from the series Universal Crop Tops For All The Self-Canonized Saints of Becoming. These works, along with a sculpture by fellow Triennial artist Frank Benson that depicted a life-sized Huxtable rendered in iridescent colors, were prominent works in the show.

Vogue Writer Mark Guiducci dubbed Huxtable the "Star of the New Museum Triennial".

Huxtable premiered on season two of Ovation TV's web-based talk show, Touching the Art, hosted by fellow 2015 Triennial artist Casey Jane Ellison.

Artist K8 Hardy and New Museum curator Shelley Fox Aarons were also guests in the same episode.

Later that year, Huxtable was selected to showcase a new performance piece in the Performa 15 Biennial.

The hour-long performance titled, There Are Certain Facts That Cannot Be Disputed, was presented at the Museum of Modern Art.

It included poetry, audio and voice over, video elements, and live-music with fellow collaborators and explored the complicated relationship between the ephemeral nature of digital information and the drive for historical documentation on the internet.

As described by the festival's organizers, Huxtable's performance considered "cyberspace as a twilight zone of precariousness and preservation, traversing closed servers, bounced URLs, and Google cache as human and digital characters".

Huxtable is a founder and DJ for Shock Value, a weekly New York City–based nightlife collective run by women artists, DJs, writers, and fashion icons.

Huxtable is a member of the New York City–based collective House of Ladosha.

Members include Cunty Crawford Ladosha (Adam Radakovich), Neon Christina Ladosha, Paws Off Ladosha (Riley Hooker), Magatha Ladosha (Michael Magnan), La Fem Ladosha (Antonio Blair), and YSL Ladosha (Yan Sze Li).

She previously lived and worked in New York City, and has been based in Berlin since 2020.

Huxtable was born in Bryan-College Station, Texas.

She has described her hometown as a typical "conservative Bible Belt town in Texas."

Huxtable's mother, Kassandra, raised Huxtable and her two siblings alone after Huxtable's parents divorced.

Huxtable was born intersex and began her transition after college.

She notes that struggles with gender conformity and sex identity started earlier in life.