Long ago, I had my blood drawn and spilled in an anti-war performance called “Bloodbath”. The site of the carnage was a small theatre (72 seat) in little old Winona, MN, USA. Dr. Dawn Perlmutter wrote a paper about the use of blood in art and included “Bloodbath”. Her words were published by the UCLA “Journal of Anthropoetics” as “The Sacrificial Aesthetic: Blood Rituals from Art to Murder”.
Years later, those words were re-born in “Euro-Arts” magazine. Earlier this year - and completely out of the blue - I was contacted by the features editor from a Chinese magazine and asked if there were any images available from “Bloodbath”. I dug through my archives, found and sent them off. “Bloodbath” appeared in the April issue of China’s “Vision” magazine. With each publication, it feels as though the work has been re-created. It’s found it’s way around 3 continents.
Probably like many artists, I have read about myself in a number of magazines in a number of languages. With my limited knowledge of western languages, I have often been able to figure out what was said.
I must say this is my very favorite article. I can’t figure out what the heck has been written. I can make out the title, my name and the names of my friends that helped make “Bloodbath” a reality because those items appear in English, but the rest is all Greek – oops! – I meant Chinese – to me.
Vision, April 2010, Youth Vision Magazine, Beijing, China, 2010
EuroArt, Issue 09, Winter 2009, EuroArt Web Magazine, Europe, 2009
Anthropoetics 5, no. 2, Fall 1999 / Winter 2000, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 1999