Re-Cutting the Legacy of Genesis P-Orridge

When Fluxus emerged in the 1960s as a Neo-Dada movement that celebrated the random and mundane, artists like Yoko Ono and John Cage created inter-media performances that merged art with the everyday. Considered music by their makers, many of the most notorious performances incorporated acts of violence on instruments, artist, and viewers alike: Nam June Paik's leap from a Cologne stage to cut off the necktie of audience member John Cage (1960); George Maciunas' nailing of every key on a piano (Carpenter Piece, 1962); and Yoko Ono's invitation to an audience to cut bits of clothing from her body (Cut Piece, 1965).  The link between Fluxus and everything contemporary—from installation art to punk music—has led to the rediscovery in recent years of its lesser-known figures—Tony Conrad, Gustav Metzger, Al Hansen. Another such figure is the British-born artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, best known for pioneering the industrial music scene of the mid-1970s, and for co-founding the band PsychicTV, the video art and music group that originated from the artist's philosophical writings on magic and self-expansion. But what many fans don't know is that P-Orridge has also been making visual art in the form of collage for over thirty years, which makes the retrospective Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: 30 Years of Being Cut Up a must-see. The first of its kind in North America, it spans three decades of the artist's life, tracing the evolution of a man born Neil Megson (his given name) into the underground musician Genesis P-Orridge yet again transformed into the female artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
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