Ron Athey

Ron Athey is a Los Angeles-based artist who has been making performance works since 1981s Premature Ejaculation, an actionist/noise duo with Rozz Williams (his partner and front person of the seminal death rock band Christian Death). Self-taught, Athey’s earliest works were inspired by Johanna Went, Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, and electro-punk/queercore pioneers Nervous Gender. By the 90s the HIV/AIDS pandemic shifted response and this work, the “torture trilogy” became passion plays  which were presented in spaces such as ICA London; Cankarjev Dom Ljubljana; PS122 NYC; ExTeresa CDMX. Monographs “Pleading In the Blood” and “Queer Communion” were published in 2013 and 2020 on Intellect Press, followed by retrospective Queer Communion at Participant Inc. NYC and ICA-LA 2021.

In 2023 Athey and facilitators launched an annual immersive art making workshop in Athens, Greece titled Darkness Visible. Current videowork includes a series of post-porn-mythologies including Asclepius/Acephale, The Hierophant, and Pasiphae, Witch Queen of Crete: A Gloryhole Origin Story. And in various forms, a sacred modular theater, Hierophant Workings. Athey and collaborator Hermes Pittakos are currently showing a two act performance WILLENDORF (shown in September for a performance event honoring Vaginal Davis’ citywide survey in Stockholm).  

Ron Athey is represented by Murmurs Gallery, Los Angeles.