NEED ME, or, (de)mystifying the myth of the modern primitive presents the western renaissance of body piercing as a definitively queer history rooted in the sexual underground – one that provided a vital bloodline to the pulse of queer artistic production through the 1980s and 1990s. Sourced from archival research primarily conducted at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, the Body Piercing Archive, and the GLBT Historical Society, NEED ME is ultimately grounded in the archive itself. The exhibition will trace the networks of queer individuals and present evidence of piercings’ lineage in kink through magazines, correspondence, ephemera, and artwork. NEED ME explores icons such as Jim Ward and Fakir Musafar while synthesizing artworks and artists who contributed to what has been termed the age of the ‘modern primitive.’ Works and ephemera from Catherine Opie, Ron Athey, Bob Flanagan & Sheree Rose, Annie Sprinkle, and Efrain Gonzalez, among others, will illuminate the nuanced and layered drive toward the modern practice of piercing, working to enrich an intrinsically queer story. The exhibition does not intend to be a holistic survey or primarily a history exhibition. New work by artist-in-residence Noorann Matties will provide a haunting meditation on the fraught history of the ‘modern primitive.’ NEED ME intends to mystify as it demystifies, dealing with both illuminated and factual interpretations, and takes a stab at the first-ever exhibition focused on the queer history of modern body piercing.
