Ron Athey, Hermes Pittakos, After Taboo at Tate Modern, London, 1st March 2025 – After Taboo? Well it certainly felt like an event, there was quite an atmosphere, anticipation in the air, the queue almost felt like a performance in itself, and after the wait, once you were in the darkness of the arena, the darkness on the brutalism, that perfect stage of a concrete down in the basement of the Tate Modern, down in that basement of the old power station, that underground church to something or other. It is as much about the sound, the feel, the murmer of the arriving crowd the, people watching, the light on the concrete, the real sense of occasion and the coming together of it all. About the knowing nods that were more than enough in terms of communication in the silence, no one is talking in here.

The reverence, the beautiful concrete, the high walls and roof way way above us, the coming together of it all in one place at this just right time if indeed there can be a just right time with all that is happening in the world right now. This is the same week as the major, some might say mainstream acceptance, the major celebration of a Leigh Bowery with a big retrospective at the Tate Modern has opened…   

– “After Taboo takes inspiration from the fearless spirit of Leigh Bowery. This event brings together boundary-defying self-taught artists Poulomi Desai and Ron Athey (in collaboration with Hermes Pittakos) for a night of performances in Tate Modern’s underground Tank. Celebrate the power of art to challenge and overturn social norms” – Never have worked out what self-taught means when it comes to artists, isn’t that all of us? Seems like an age and a half since we last encountered Mr Athey in the flesh, it was actually at a couple of performances at fire-alarm interrupted Bristol Arnolfini event and a day before that somewhere in Birmingham. Ron Athey is an artist and performer who always throws up interesting questions as well as beautiful contradictions. We can kind of guess what might happen but really, even if we have seen this piece performed before, we have no real clue…

The main event is a piece called Willendorf by Ron Athey with Hermes Pittakos: “For the creation of Willendorf, Athey invited long time collaborator, friend, and sculptor, Hermes Pittakos to revisit and re-contextualise The Trojan Whore, a performance Athey staged in 1996 in memoriam of the late artist Leigh Bowery. Willendorf follows a two-act structure. Symbols of fertility and martydom from ancient times meet Athey’s signature endurance aesthetics as the artist becomes a totem of non-reproductive futurity, resistance, power, and revitalisation”.

Ron Athey is on first, there is no announcement, no fanfare, just a figure standing there in the dark in the middle of the space, audience all around, an almost industrial soundtrack echoing around the cavenous space, face glowing when the light catches, is that Ron Athey? It looks intriguing, ir sounds even better and yes there are obvious flashbacks to Leigh Bowery (and even cleaning up the mess after a Minty gig). Body art, extreme performance art, Ron Athey is over from the U.S for this one off performance and the first week of the Leigh Bowery celebrations at the Tate…

Hermes Pittakos has impeccable timing, he arrives almost stealth-like, suddenly there, pondering, circling, no words, no real need or a requirement to connect with the darkness of the audience, all focus inward, serious body art from both of them, words aren’t needed, they weren’t on the night, they’re not really needed here. No deep analysis needed, it was about the moment, the being there, the sight lines, the shared experience. Being here is deeply emotional, it was at times uncomfortable, it was at times very (very) comfortable, warming, beautiful, beautifully intense. Challenging, never confrontational, never that obvious, never that simple. A celebration, celebrations, celebrations of many things or maybe just one thing?

Taboo? After taboo? Beyond taboo, unforgettably transgressive, delicious stripes of excess. No mainstreaming here, Ron Athey and his co-artists and collaborators are still on the outside, still part of that underculture that can’t quite be pinned down.

We might be underneath the Tate on a Saturday night, it still feels hidden down here though, secret. And he’s not slowing down, into his early 60s now, Ron Athey is as prolific as ever, an influential performance artist (and more) for a good four decades now – yes he was rather influential from the start and tonight in here, this feels special, it does feel important. It certainly is engaging even though we are very much the (unconventional) audience in here, it feels like Communion, a counter culture for right now, counter culture as contemporary art, as church, as worship, no not as worship, that not what it was. What was it? What just happened? It was intense, I have no idea how long it went on for, an hour? And we haven’t even got to Poulomi Desai yet…

sculptural, claustrophobic, well no, the idea that it must be for him though, not for us, this space is big, but how does he do it? What is it like in there? He’s soaked with sweat afterwards,and yes, the end is triumphant, it is a celebration, it is almost a relief, it was intense, there’s an audible exhale before the big cheer at the end of it all and still no words needed, did anyone speak at the end? Did we all just walk around in silence? Just nods and glances exchanged, no need for anything else. And we haven’t even got to Poulomi Desai‘s performance yet, there’s a fifteen minute break, we step outside, we never did get back in, it was intense, beautifully so. (sw)             

There is of course a Leigh Bowery exhibition on at the Tate Modern right now, it opened on February 27th, it goes on until 31st August – A celebration of the boundary-pushing career of artist Leigh Bowery

and www.ronathey.org

There are some photos, do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show and hopefully to get a flavour of the event…