Ron Athey (born December 16, 1961) is an Americanextreme performance artist. He has performed epic shows and installations throughout the world. Known for his extreme body art (piercings, cuttings) and controversial subject matter (HIV, blood-letting), his work has made him a favorite target for conservative lawmakers. His surprising childhood as a Pentacostal preacher, (when he was still a child), and subsequent teenage explorations in the sex and drug culture of Los Angeles have deeply influenced his work. His best known works include "Joyce" and the current opera "The Judas Cradle," and he occasionally teaches performance studies. He resides in California, and is considered one of the most intelligent and well-mannered performance artists in the world. December 16 is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1961 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Since the beginning of the Dadaism in the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich in 1916, many artists have resorted to extreme performance art as a critique of contemporary consumer culture. ...
Athey also began to dabble in SandM and a bevy of substance abuse, which led to a heroin addiction.
Athey attracted international attention in 1994, after a Minneapolis performance in which he sliced into the back of a fellow performance artist, placed strips of paper towel over the wounds and then hoisted the bloodied strips of paper towel, via pulley, over the heads of the audience.
RonAthey: It's funny, because I think there are two different things that have brought on different issues.
Born in 1961, Athey spent his early years with a family he describes as "poor people using fantastic religion to elevate their self." He says he was speaking in tongues by the age of 10, groomed for a career as a fundamentalist minister.
Athey's art draws viscerally on his life, with the intention, he says, "to overcome a bad memory, to portray it in art." In one four-minute piece, he sticks 30 hypodermics into his arm to resurrect his days as a junkie.
The fact that Athey is in fact an important modern artist and not merely an intriguing leader of a minor body-modification cult may be lost in the din of his supporters' — and the film's — too-approving voices.
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