Performances

    In 1972 I began a series of art actions which bear resemblance to rites, in that they mirror stages of my developing psyche. Art performance can include any material, from stones to videotape, or any subject, from childhood memories to cosmic co...

  September 1974 - February 1975 Columbus, Ohio and Boston, Massachusetts I shaved my head of hair in alignment with the split between the logical left and intuitive right hemispheres of the brain. For half a year I did performances examining...

September 1974 High Street, Columbus, Ohio I exhibited a billboard of my face.

November 11, 1974 Red Line, Boston, Massachusetts I took an hour long ride on the subway going from one end of the line to the other with a self-portrait in the ad slot.

February 2, 1975 Copley Square, Boston, Massachusetts I passed out leaflets with my face on them, asking people to step on my face or be my friend and call me for dinner. Some people did call, but when they found out we would each pay for our own...

February 17, 1975 Museum School, Boston, Massachusetts I ate a plate of spaghetti and then cut my hair onto the empty plate. I placed a human brain onto the hair, took the universal antidote, Syrup of Ipecac, and vomited the spaghetti onto the brain....

May 20-25,  1975 North Magnetic Pole, Resolute Bay, Canada Studying the polarities on earth and in our bodies, I learned that our brains and hearts emit magnetic energy as does the earth.  The North Magnetic Pole is the place from which we gauge o...

May 28, 1975 Boston, Massachusetts After I returned from the North Magnetic Pole, flat broke, I realized that my performances were an exhaustive desperate search for "something." And although I called myself an agnostic existentialist, I challenged...

October 1-2, 1976 Rooftop, Boston, Massachusetts For two hours each night I suspended myself inside a pyramid. Both my hearing and vision were eliminated by means of sensory isolation gear. The work was done before an audience, on the roof of an...

October 20, 1978 Helen Shlein Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts A group of about twenty-five people joined me in an evening of events intended to stimulate awareness of our united energy fields. In the first half of the presentation we held hands in...

May 7, 1982 Vehicule Art, Montreal, Canada performed with Allyson Grey Mr. and Mrs. X were on their way to dinner when they were surprised by a nuclear blast. With their faces and clothes scorched and bloody, they arrive in hell at a dinner table...

April 4, 1982 P.S. 1 Gallery, Queens, New York Palm Sunday afternoon I sat behind a black desk dressed as a soldier and stamped hundreds of people's hands and foreheads with the number of the Beast (Satan), 666, as set forth in Revelations of the...

April 17, 1982 Overland Theatre, Boston A special gasoline powered circular drive vehicle was created for the Human Race performance. The base at one end of the device was bolted into the concrete floor with lead anchors. There was a wheel at the...

February 15, 1983 University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst performed with Allyson Grey In Tibet, prayer wheels are used by monks and laity to increase the power of their meditation. Carved or printed on all prayer wheels is the mantra...

October 15, 1983 Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago For three hours Allyson and I lay motionless on the ground with our eyes closed. Red votive candles balanced on our chests. Surrounding us were hundreds of roses and two thousand apples arranged in...

March 26, 1983 Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut This performance consisted of three sculptures activated by fire. The first was a photo mural of my face, behind which was a praying skeleton with a propane torch coming out of its third eye....

August 1989 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York City Allyson and I, with the help of friends and passers by, laid out 5,500 apples in the shape of the Goddess. Then Allyson sat at the heart center of the Goddess nursing daughter Zena while I performed...

May 15, 1998 - May 30, 1999 paint, rope, silk, roses, gold, neon, rocks, skeletons, stained glass, and soil, 10 X 60 X 8 ft. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland Allyson and I created an alchemical healing piece called Heart Net at...

2003, Sweet's Ballroom, Oakland, CA Alex, Allyson and Zena Grey with Kenji Williams Worldspirit is a prayer for the realization of our integration With the web of creation And for the transformation of our species From one gripped in fear...