Posts tagged Jonathan Arias

Point 83: Love on Me

By Jon John

I have cancer.

I was given a slim chance of surviving. My first reaction was fear and self-blame; somehow I caused this sickness. My experience with this life threatening disease is the inspiration for this work.

This new performance Love on Me draws strength from conversations with the performance  artist Ron Athey and readings from Illness as Metaphor, by Susan Sontag. Susan Sontag prevailed over the harsh treatments of two cancer diagnoses. She denied the fatalness of her final cancer and treatment until her last breath. Ron Athey, self-describe as “living corpse” has survived decades with HIV. From Ron I have learned how to live with this dying body.

Every person gets sick.

Every person will wonder why he or she is the one to get sick, no matter if that illness is a bad cold or a terminal cancer. Metaphors help us understand the world. Metaphors for illness can comfort the anxiety of not knowing. Many are tempted to make sense of illness metaphorically, as a punishment, a sign, an opportunity, or a war raging in one’s body.

When referring to cancer and its treatment, medical professionals and patients use phrases such as “bolstering” the body’s “defenses” and “battling” the “invasive” tumor. Blood cells get “counts,” like surviving soldiers at the end of each day of war. With treatments, we use words such as “bombard,” “neutralize,” and “kill.” People whose diseases go into remission are “survivors.” Sontag notes obscure facts about chemotherapy and warfare, explaining how the earliest cancer drugs share lineage with mustard gas, just as an early syphilis treatment used arsenic—a dark irony being that the treatments, when approached with warfare mentality, are believed to cause a whole set of new health problems.

For Sontag, cancer was associated with certain inhibited personality types. The metaphor attached to cancer is repression of a desire. This suppressed longing gets, literally, “balled up” as a voracious tumor.

If cancer is a disease of passion, will love aid my struggle with this disease? Following some the modern myths that my disease is rooted in: sexual repression, inability to express emotions, failure, punishment, or an inhibited personality type— as oblation, I offer this performance and installation.

Point 83: Jonathan Arias – Artist’s Manifesto

By Jon John

  • I believe that the action of love remains one of the few accessible ecstatic rituals in our disposable society.
  • My invocations of love are not static. The rituals and aesthetics of my childhood experiences continue to transform through research and personal connection.
  • My ritual is communal alchemy. I don’t perform for audiences but rather engaged witnesses that become co-creators. My lovers.
  • From my veins flow Basque, Argentinean and Gypo. “Gypo” is a derogatory term I own for Gitano, which is the Spanish-Roma ethnicity.
  • The complexity of my ethnicities gave dimensionality to my religious upbringing. We are a catholic family that practices magic. My people gave me the gifts of healing bodies and conjuring spirits.
  • My queerness is not in a typical narrative of exclusion, but rather a celebration of my otherness.
  • It is not a longing of something missing, but a quest with an open heart.
  • Through altered state of consciousness I transcend my spoken vocabulary, to share my hidden secrets of love, life, and loss.
  • I utilize video, photography, installation, and most notably performance.
  • Flesh, skin, and blood are my palette to take you on a journey from tenderness to brutality via beauty and decay.

Point 83: Jonathan Arias, 1983-2017

THE BODY PIERCING ARCHIVE

by Paul King

This year’s APP Conference in Las Vegas provides a unique opportunity to view materials from Jon John’s performances. After the exhibition, his archive relocates to the Queen Mary University in London as part of their permanent collection.

It is with sadness that we share the news of Jon John’s passing. Publicly, he was known for his performance art as well as his gallery-tattoo shops, AKA Berlin and AKA London. AKA Berlin was opened in November of 2009, with a partner Valentin Plessy. Jon’s driving concept behind AKA was to create a supportive nexus for artistic talent. Resident artists became co-creators and family. Riding the success of AKA Berlin, Jon John opened AKA London in January of 2013. Unfortunately, it was one year later that he received his cancer diagnosis and began scaling back. Eventually, AKA London had to be closed. Today, the vision of AKA Berlin carries on under the very capable and talented hands of tattooist Philippe Fernandez, with Gabriel Meister as the lead piercer.

Although Jon John was an adept tattooist, body piercer, and jeweler, it was his performance art that gave him the greatest pleasure and purpose. Perhaps Jon John’s own words, best describe the significance of his art (please read his Artist’s Manifesto on page 57). In addition to his solo work, he collaborated with artists such as Ron Athey, Joey Arias, Marilyn Manson, Nick Knight, Paul King, Rancinan, Kiril Bikov, Juano Diaz, David Harrow, and others.

Against the strong warnings of his doctors, Jon John insisted on a farewell performance. He had been working on a performance piece for over a year that was delving into emotional and physical complexities of illness, medical treatment, love, life, and death. This performance, Love On Me: The Finest Hour, offered closure for family and friends:

My heart bursts with gratitude from our shared ritual. My family, friends, artists, and lovers, free from the artificial constraints of this body, this place, and this time, you have healed my spirit – we are together, always.

Less than one month after this final performance, at the age of 33, Jon John passed away with family and friends by his side. He had no regrets, no resentments, and nothing left unsaid. He remained an inspiration of love, his guiding principle, throughout his death as he had throughout his life.

—Paul King, friend and co-creator

  • For more information about Jon John:
    • www.akaberlin.com
    • www.jonjohn.net
  • To view performances:
    • https://vimeo.com/jonjohn

The Point – Issue 83