UPDATE -- October 10, 2011:

We're delighted that our $15,000 fundraising target has been reached. The fundraising campaign will remain open until December 31, 2011, and additional contributions are welcomed. All donations will be used on the book production, and additional resources will allow us to enhance the book quality beyond our original plans! Many thanks for your interest in this important project.

The publication

 

This will be the first ever publication devoted to the work of Ron Athey, a central figure in the development of performance art since the 1980s. Edited by Dominic Johnson, Pleading in the Blood: The Art of Ron Athey will foreground the prescience of Atheys work, exploring how his visceral, body-based practice foresaw and precipitated the central place afforded to the body in art and critical theory in the 1990s and after. While histories of art, performance, theatre, and subcultures have consistently acknowledged Atheys major contribution to the development of contemporary cultures, there has never been a dedicated book about him. Pleading in the Blood aims to fill this conspicuous gap.

 

Developed in close collaboration with Ron Athey, this book seeks to provide a critical overview of Atheys practice. In his stagings of crisis, sexuality and death in the time of AIDS, Athey calls into question the limits of artistic practice. Athey has been a crucial figure in the development of performance art and body art; club performance; intersections between punk, queer and alternative cultures; sexual politics, specifically in relation to queer practices and the politics of HIV/AIDS; and the representation of religion and ritual.

 

The book will track Atheys work from the 1980s underground through to his influential works for festivals, galleries and museums, which have crucially impacted upon the development of body art, Live Art and experimental theatre. The book will include contributions from distinguished national and international artists, writers and scholars: six newly commissioned chapters on different aspects of Atheys work; shorter testimonials by artists; Atheys own writings; and extensive full-colour images. Contributors include Amelia Jones, C. Carr, Adrian Heathfield, Lydia Lunch, Dominic Johnson and Patrick Califia amongst many others.

 

The book will be published in 2012.

 

More information on Ron Atheys work can be seen here:

http://ronatheynews.blogspot.com/

 

 

The editor

 

Dominic Johnson is a Lecturer in the School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London. He is the editor of Franko B: Blinded by Love (2006) and Manuel Vason: Encounters (2007), and is currently completing an authored publication on the work of Jack Smith, which is forthcoming from Manchester University Press. www.dominicjohnson.co.uk

 

 

The publishers

 

Pleading in the Blood: The Art of Ron Athey will be co-published by the Live Art Development Agency (UK) and The MIT Press (USA).

 

The Agency was founded in 1999 to support the proliferation of Live Art practices and critical discourses in the UK, and is now recognised as the leading organisation for Live Art in the UK and a world leader in the field. The Agency is the only organisation dedicated to the publishing and distribution of Live Art books, DVDs and editions. Building on the international success of Out Of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh (2009), Pleading in the Blood will be the second co-publication between the Agency and The MIT Press (USA).

 

The Agencys publications list: www.thisisliveart.co.uk/projects/publications/index.html

 

Unbound, The Agencys on-line store for Live Art materials: www.thisisunbound.co.uk

 

 

Why the book needs support

 

We believe that this book will:

        Introduce new audiences to the work and influence of Ron Athey

        Provide a comprehensive and rigorous overview of Atheys work for existing audiences

        Contribute to critical discourses about the possibilities and limits of art and interdisciplinarity

        Positively enhance public awareness and understanding of innovative and progressive artistic practice

        Facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, including in the higher education, libraries, and archives sectors, and

        Inform future artistic and critical practices and debates

 

The Agency and MIT Press have already raised two thirds of the publications budget. However, we believe that Pleading in the Blood merits the highest possible standards and be as richly illustrated and as lavishly produced as possible. Your support will strongly enhance those production values and will be a crucially needed step in meeting our collective vision for the book.