Raw Material

Experimental musician, pioneering performance artist, and general cult phenomenon Genesis Breyer P-Orridge reveals the role of magic in h/er life and artistic practice. S/he describes h/er decades-long mystical work with sigils, chaos magick, sex magick, and the philosophies of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

Image: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge by Ross Simonini

Artists featured in this episode: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Micki Pellerano

A folk musician conducts an ayahuasca ceremony, a performance artist describes her shamanic rituals, and a pioneer of conceptual art communes with animals and inhabits his own unconscious.

Image: Joseph Beuys, I Like America And America Likes Me, 1974.

Artists featured in this episode: Santiparro, Dohee Lee, Joseph Beuys.

A performance artist, a philosopher, a violinist, and a new age composer make art by harnessing unknown forces, deities, and interdimensional beings. An artist at the turn of the twentieth century holds a séance with spirits and gives birth to abstract painting.

Photo of Dohee Lee by Pak Han.

Discover Raw Material, a new arts and culture podcast from SFMOMA, coming October 2016.

Raw Material is a new arts and culture podcast from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Season 1: Otherworld, hosted by Bay Area artist and writer Ross Simonini, documents artists who work with the unknown. Rituals, hauntings, magic — we conjure these topics and more in our six-episode fall season. Coming October 2016.