4ojustout MARCH 21, 2008
ART ON THE EDGE
OF ENDURANCE
EXTREME PERFORMANCE ARTIST RON ATIIEY COMES TO PORTLAND
BY TONY LETIGRE
here are many ways to say
merge the profane with the profound, to mix the
ment funding for the arts. In question was $150
“hallelujah.” Sqch is the motto
beautiful and the repulsive, the demonic and the
that made its way to Athey as part of a block grant
divine in such a way that we no longer see them
and modus operandi of Ron
as polar opposites, but as points on the same con
Athey, a man who has been
tinuum, or even as indistinguishable from one an
dubbed “America’s most con
other.
Through
troversial performance artist.” Athey,
whose
last the alchemy of art, Athey spins
the syllables
straw and of shit of his macabre life into a pecu
name is pronounced like the first two
liar and challenging kind of gold.
“atheist,” has lived the sort of life that might have
“If the inside of your head gets pummeled with
landed him an appearance on The Jerry Springer
Show. Fortunately, he aimed higher, choosing to
enough emotional blunt force trauma to splinter
that tfe Walker Aft Center had received through
the National Endowment of the Arts. U.S. Sen.
T
Call the friendly Audiologists
I
at Bridgetown Hearing Clinic
for your FREE 10-day,
no-obligation
on the back of fellow performer Divinity Fudge,
with art rather than exploiting them for the low
that fleshy prison which houses the pain,” Athey
dabbed the blood with white cloths and hoisted
brow masses hypnotized by daytime television.
waxes eloquent in an excerpt from his online bi
them over the audience on a pulley. A sensational
The “hallelujah” mantra is appropriate for a
man who was trained as a child to be a Pentecostal
minister by a family for whom the adjective “dys
ography. “The sight of your own blood, brought
forth from your hand, is a violation that you your
self now control.”
account of the performance that appeared in the
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CONTACT US
503.453 6301
who had not attended, created ripples that even
tually led to the NEA’s annual budget for fiscal
PROFOUND PROFANITY
year 1996 being slashed nearly in half. Athey
To say that Athey is an HIV-positive gay artist
ing impact on him is plain to
1 wk 866 *n
rellSlous iconog-
■
raphy he employs (and an
is like saying that Cirque du Soleil is a circus that
In commenting on the hoopla, Athey’s criti
doesn’t have any animals. It’s true as far as it goes,
cism is directed less at the religious right, whom
but it doesn’t begin to encompass the magnitude
he takes for granted as detractors of his work, than
of its subject. Athey’s body of work—in his case,
at the NEA and conservative figures in the art
an eminently apt pun—stretches over the past
world who are quick to disassociate themselves
from artists whose work foments controversy. “I
Athey how to tran
couple of decades, during which he has managed
to shock many, offend some and impress others
substantiate
with the freaky intensity of his singular vision and
taboos, to
willingness to make his own body his canvas. His
work has enshrined and lifted to the level of high
www.bridgetownhearing.com
SASH & CARPENTRY Co.
Minneapolis Star Tribune, written by a reporter
fed to him as a youth, its continu
nihilates) in his work. It
would seem that no one
knows better than Ron
w w w. 2 "Test
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o r ! d. c o rr TODAY!
PHONAK
EAST PORTLAND
with HIV-positive blood.
During a scene in the performance called “The
Human Printing Press,” Athey, who had spoken
frankly of his HIV-positive status, carved designs
the psyche, you develop ways to punish the body,
• long ago rejected the crazed faith force-
503-528-6849
jection on rumor that audiences were assaulted
transform and exorcise the traumas of his early life
functional” is altogether inadequate. Although he
Bridgetown Hearing Clinic
825 NE 20th Ave, Suite 230
Portland, OR
Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and others based their ob
art all sorts of behaviors normally associated with
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proved a convenient scapegoat.
see amazing things in Europe that are government
funded, that are too expensive for the box office
to pay for, that will never come here,” Athey says.
“The government can have a place in arts fund
ing, but there can’t be that decency clause.”
the extreme subcultures that thrive on the kinky
outskirts of society: bondage and sadomasochism,
*
A IIARSH LIFE
bloodletting, mock castration, self-mutilation,
branding, flogging and genital stapling. (“The
in every way. He was bom in Groton, Conn.,
scrotum tissue really isn’t that sensitive,” he
in 1961, but by age 2 was living in Los Ange
avers. “It’s just like a quick pinch.”)
Athey’s life, like his work, has been extreme
les, where he has been based ever since. By the
Athey’s name belongs in a pantheon
age of 10, “Ronnie Lee," under the aegis of a
of names you may or may not have heard:
schizophrenic mother and her devoutly deranged
Lydia Lunch, Helen Spackman, Andres
household, was speaking in tongues and had been
Serrano, Bob Flanagan, Gina Pane, Karen
sainted as a budding prophet messiah. His child
Finley, Vaginal Davis, Annie Sprinkle,
hood years were spent in and out of revival tents,
Franko B, Bruce LaBruce. It’s a rogue’s gal
where his tears were urged and coveted by the
lery of underground anti-celebrities, the
congregation, hands were laid on him and he wit
outsider artists of stage, screen and gal
nessed faith healings at least once a week. Add to
lery. They’re not household names, and
this an aunt suffering from hypersexualized mania
they’re probably OK with that. Athey
who believed she would marry Elvis Presley only
concedes that his work is “certainly not
mass popular culture.” But just as his
after giving birth to the second incarnation of
Christ; a grandmother given to channeling extra
venues have changed from seedy clubs
dimensional spirits through the mediums of auto
to august art galleries, his name and
work have bubbled up from the fring
matic writing and Aktion paintings; and a general
belief that Athey’s family had been “chosen by
es to the mainstream. As a writer and
God to kick off Armageddon,” and your uncon
editor, his byline has appeared not
ventional childhood starts to look entirely unre
just in Infected Faggot Perspectives
markable by comparison, now doesn’t it?
and Virus Mutations but also in LA
Weekly, Details, The Advocate and
For 15 years Athey weathered this psychic
onslaught before running away from both church
the venerable Village Voice.
and family. But the loss of faith left him with a
Then there was that little inci
void that he attempted to fill with self-mutilation
dent in 1994 for which Athey may
and drugs. He spent about a decade as a junkie,
be most notorious, when the reli
during which time he made several overt suicide
gious right, foaming at the mouth in
attempts in addition to the slow, passive suicide
that many would argue heroin addiction itself rep
the wake of the Clinton presidency,
zoomed in on Athey as an easy tar
get in its quest to curb govern
resents. Now, 46 years old and having been diag
nosed with HIV 20 years ago, his days as a junkie