The National Endowment for the Arts funded a March 5, 1994, performance of Ron Athey at the Fifth Annual Minneapolis/St. Paul Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Film Festival. Athey's performance, as described by Mary Abbe of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, caused one member of the audience to pass out: "Athey, who has AIDS, pierced various parts of his body with hypodermic and acupuncture needles, sliced a design into the back of fellow performer Darryl Carlton, passed bloodstained towels over the audience on clotheslines, and drummed while two female assistants danced until bells sewn to their skin broke free and blood oozed out." At one point in the show, Athey pierced his head with acupuncture needles and wrapped a wire around them to create a "crown of thorns," to signify that homosexuals and AIDS victims suffer the same persecutions as did Jesus.

Many among the audience were unprepared for such a message. One spectator described a scene in which "people knocked over the chairs to get out from under the clotheslines," noting that the bloody towels appeared to be paper and "looked like they were going to drip or fall apart." However, preperformance publicity warned of "erotic torture" and "bondage and discipline technique," adding that "viewer discretion is advised."

Kathy Halbreich, director of the Walker Art Center, where the performance was held, defended Athey's show. "You can describe any action out of context and make it seem sensational and without meaning," she said. Rich Danilla, supervisor of AIDS epidemiology at the Minneapolis County Health Department, added that there "would be no risk unless the cloth was dripping with blood and then dripped into your eye or mouth." As for Athey himself, he calls the reaction further proof that society is "extremely homophobic" and "extremely AIDS-phobic."

[Ed.: Athey, who has metal bolts in his nipples, commented on other forms of piercing, "I don't like d*** piercings too much, because if you're giving head to people who have them, the metal bangs against the back of your throat."]

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