Tom of Finland Foundation and Lethal Amounts present iconic artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge exhibition PANDROGENY I & II. Opening tonight and running until November 24th 2019 at Tom of Finland Foundation and Lethal Amounts Gallery. This marks the first time that the legendary artist’s work has been on view on the West Coast. Below is a sneak peek from a very special interview we did of Genesis Breyer P’Orridge with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist for our next print issue. Click here for tickets to the exhibitions.
HANS ULRICH OBRIST The exhibition in Los Angeles will be called Pandrogyny 1 and 2?
P-ORRIDGE For two locations. One at Tom of Finland, in his house... they keep it as it was when he lived there. When you do an exhibition, what you put there goes amongst all his things, so that one is mainly sculptures. There was a mini retrospective in Holland this year, then it went to Berlin, and now Tom of Finland. It has things like ‘Tongue Kiss,’ which is two wolf heads, and the tongues have been replaced with knife blades. The one above is turning slowly and once every turn the two ends of the knives click. Another one is Bubblegum Machine, and it represents the womb. It has ice cubes and scorpions. It’s the myth of biological replication.
OBRIST Living scorpions?
P-ORRIDGE No unfortunately. It would be nice but no one would let me do that, but real scorpions that have been dried. So it’s things like that, they’re all created out of things that have been around me in my living space, that’s how I always work. Things that are already here that have been drawn to me in some way and then they become something.
OBRIST: What’s your relationship with L.A.?
GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE I never had one really. I would never live there. To me it has a strange atmosphere. It’s like it has a big cave underneath, with a dark energy in it that you can fall into by mistake. It doesn’t suit me at all.