In Memoriam A Tribute to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
The Brooklyn Rail
by Jane Ursula Harris
I met Genesis in 2007 at the opening of a show I’d curated called Keeping Up With The Joneses. Along with work by Pope.L, Laurel Nakadate, LaToya Ruby Frazier (in her New York City debut), among others, it featured a photo of Lady Jaye in their Gates Avenue apartment dressed for work in one of her dominatrix outfits. Like a Vermeer by way of Pierre Molinier (one of Gen’s favorite artists), she stands gracefully in the tiny cluttered kitchen, her long slender body extended by stilettos, and her blonde pixie cut refracting light from the window behind her. I’d wanted work related to their pandrogyne project, which I’d discovered via a friend, but fate intervened. A month before the show was to open, Gen texted to tell me Jaye had passed, a devastating revelation that made the gauche prospects of negotiating what works to include impossible. I let Gen decide, and s/he picked the large-scale photo of Jaye in the kitchen.
I arrived late to the opening (a bad habit I have even when I curate), and it was very crowded. My ex came up to me and told me he’d given Gen some kind of pill (Oxy I think) to ease he/r pain. I don’t know if s/he took it, but I share that anecdote because I don’t believe in moralizing the use of chemical substances to alter oneself whether for peace of mind, spiritual growth, or pleasure. And Gen made lots of work—music and art alike—under the influence of various substances, particularly hallucinogens, which s/he treated as ritual conduits. I still covet one of the beautiful gridded collages made from heroin baggies that s/he and Jaye made, and Blood Bunny (1997–2007), the life-sized wooden rabbit they rubbed with blood derived from the ketamine injections they took for astral travel. When I wrote an essay for the Believer on Gen’s survey at the Warhol Museum, s/he showed me the related scars on he/r arm; small cuts made by Jaye to bring he/r back into he/r body.
Courtesy of: The Brooklyn Rail
