ADMISSION:
Admission is free. RSVP beginning Monday, January 5, 2026, at 10 a.m.

RSVP

DESCRIPTION:
“A multilayered perspective on artist Fakir Musafar’s life to creatively excavate his role as a pioneer of extreme body modification.”—Hyperallergic

“Part alt-cultural timeline, part essay on communal support, the film is an open-minded portrait of an iconoclast that serves to illuminate entire communities, while also noting the audacity of Fakir's borrowings. It's almost too much to digest in one viewing...a visceral impact.”—Screen Slate

A BODY TO LIVE IN, the new feature-film by Angelo Madsen, is an uncompromising, no-holds-barred look at the agonies and ecstasies of the controversial artist Fakir Musafar (1930–2018), the infamous icon of BDSM performance art, body modification, and the ‘modern primitives’ cultural movement. Join filmmaker Angelo Madsen and performance artist Ron Athey in conversation with ONE Archives curatorial assistant Quetzal Arévalo in a night that explores the life and work of this legendary photographer, performer, and gender flex cultural icon. Selections from the film will be interspersed with conversation that uncovers a riveting story of queer, artistic, and cultural history through the exploration of Fakir’s art practice and philosophy. Featuring never-before-seen archival images and interviews in 16mm film from A BODY TO LIVE IN, join us for a night that foregrounds intergenerational dialog, questions cultural responsibility, and provokes larger ideas about the drive to transcend the limits of the body.

Artwork by Fakir Musafar and Angelo Madsen will be on view at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries in the exhibition NEED ME, or, (de)mystifying the myth of the modern primitive (February 25–June 27, 2026). Attendees are encouraged to view the exhibition and its materials before or after the program by visiting ONE Archives. Visit their website for more information on the exhibition and open hours.

Content Warning: This event and trailer contain imagery and discussions of piercing, suspension, and nudity. Viewer discretion advised.

Bios:
Quetzal Arévalo (they/them) is the Getty Marrow Emerging Professionals Curatorial Assistant at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries. They are the curator of NEED ME, or, (de)mystifying the myth of the modern primitive (opening at ONE Archives February 25, 2026), the first public exhibition to present the western renaissance of body piercing as definitively queer history rooted in the sexual underground. They were a co-curator of Sci-Fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation (Aug. 2024–Mar. 2025); The Space We Take: Portraits from the Archive (Jun. 2025–Jan. 2026); and Robert Andy Coombs: No Content Warning (Jun.–Sept. 2025). Before their curatorial fellowship at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, they received their BA in History of Art from UC Berkeley with a departmental citation award and highest university honors. Their current research at ONE explores body modification, kink, subculture, and their enchanting intersections.

Ron Athey has been working at the vanguard of performance art for 25 years. Self-taught, he developed his work out of post-punk/pre-goth scenes, beginning with Premature Ejaculation (PE), an early-1980s collaboration with Rozz Williams. Their approach to performance art was informed by the club actions of Johanna Went, the formulation of Industrial culture, and the idea of psycho/neuro acoustics in sound performance. In the 1990s, Athey formed a company of performers and made Torture Trilogy, a series of works that addressed the AIDS pandemic directly through memorializing and philosophical reflection. In the 2000s, Athey developed genre-stretching theatrical works like Joyce and The Judas Cradle, and a series of major solo performances such as The Solar Anus, Sebastiane, Self-Obliteration Solo, and Incorruptible Flesh. Currently, Athey is presenting Acephalous Monster, a performance with projections, readings, lectures, appropriated text, and sound.

Angelo Madsen (previously known as Madsen Minax) is a filmmaker, visual artist, and educator. His projects consider how human relationships are woven through personal and collective histories, cultures, and kinships. Madsen’s works have shown at Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, HotDocs, BAM CinemaFest, Art of the Real, BFI, Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Leslie Lohman Museum, Outfest, Newfest, Frameline, and dozens of LGBT film festivals internationally. His film North By Current (2021) aired on season 34 of POV (PBS) and won both a Cinema Eye Award and an IDA Award for Best Writing. A New York Times Critics Pick, North By Current has been called “A beautiful, complex wonder of a film” by Rolling Stone. Madsen teaches video art at the University of Vermont and is a Queer|Art Mentor, a United States Artists fellow, and a Guggenheim fellow.

Related Event:
A Body To Live In
Director’s Behind the Scenes and Exhibition Tour
Friday, February 27, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
ONE Archives at the USC Libraries
For more info, click HERE.

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by Quetzal Arévalo (ONE Archives at the USC Libraries), Luka Fisher (Curatorial Studies), and Alexis Bard Johnson (ONE Archives at the USC Libraries).