In 2018, Vibiana and The Broad hosted two Ron Athey showings of the performance “Gifts of the Spirit: Prophecy, Automatism and Discernment,” continuing The Broad’s exploration of Yayoi Kusama’s work.

This immersive, site-specific performance by Los Angeles-based artist Ron Athey reflected on Athey’s Pentecostal upbringing and Kusama’s idea of “self-obliteration.” Athey’s vision for an “automatic writing machine” was brought to life in collaboration with the composer Sean Griffin as a performance made up of 16 writers, six typists, a hypnotist, vocalists and musicians. In this work, the artist “completed” his memoir (“Gifts of the Spirit”) together in ecstatic communion with his collaborators. This living machine made for a tightly choreographed and scored visual spectacle bringing together writing, reading and listening into a layered performative action resulting in a collectively authored text and sound score.

Gifts of the Spirit was co-produced by Volume, guest-curated by Jennifer Doyle and was made possible in part by a grant from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.

Read more on Artforum here.

FEATURED STORIES

NEXT STORY