Fakir Musafar

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Fakir Musafar
Musafar in 1982
Born
Roland Loomis

(1930-08-10)August 10, 1930
Aberdeen, South Dakota, U.S.
DiedAugust 1, 2018(2018-08-01) (aged 87)
Menlo Park, California, U.S.
SpouseCléo Dubois
Websitewww.Fakir.org

Roland Loomis (August 10, 1930 – August 1, 2018[1]), known professionally as Fakir Musafar, was an American performance artist considered to be one of the founders of the modern primitive movement.[2][3]

Life

Fakir Musafar.

Born Roland Loomis, at age four he claimed to have experienced dreams of past lives which, along with his anthropological studies, influenced his interests in body modification.[4][5] He served in the army during the Korean War,[5] and was first married for a short time in the 1960s.[5] In 1966 or 1967 he first performed a flesh hook suspension, inspired by his viewing of anthropological works.[6] In 1977 he gave himself the name Fakir Musafar.[5]

In the 1985 documentary Dances Sacred and Profane he was shown walking while wearing a device that pressed many small skewers into his upper body, and hanging from a tree by hooks in his chest, in his modified versions of other cultures' sacred ceremonies.[5] He was an extra ('Man in hotel room') in Die Jungfrauen Maschine (The Virgin Machine) in 1988,[7] and in 1991 he appeared in My Father Is Coming as Fakir.[8] He was featured in the 1989 book Modern Primitives,[5] which documented, propagated, and became influential in the modern body modification subcultures.

In 1990 he married Cléo Dubois.[5] From 1992 until 1999 he published the magazine Body Play and Modern Primitives Quarterly,[9][10] which focused on body modification topics such as human branding, suspension, contortionism, binding,[11] and modern piercing culture.[12] He led "Fakir Intensives" training workshops on these topics in San Francisco.[13]

Illness and death

In May 2018, Loomis announced on his website that he was suffering from terminal lung cancer.[14] He died on the morning of 1 August 2018.[15] His death was initially announced in a public Facebook post by his wife Cléo Dubois, and later confirmed by an obituary in Artforum.[1]

Tributes

The Leather Archives and Museum, founded in 1991,[16] has a Fakir Musafar exhibit as a permanent exhibit.[17] In 1993, he received the Steve Maidhof Award for National or International Work from the National Leather Association International.[18] In 2019, he was inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame,[19] and he is also an inductee of the Society of Janus Hall of Fame.[20]

Bibliography

  • Fakir Musafar: Spirit + Flesh, Arena Editions, 2004, ISBN 1-892041-57-X

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Fakir Musafar (1930–2018)". ArtForum. 2 August 2018. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
  2. ^ Gauntlet – decorating the Modern Primitive Archived 2007-05-20 at archive.today
  3. ^ "Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology - Stephen Wilson - Google Books". Books.google.ca. Retrieved 2020-04-24.
  4. ^ Voices from the Edge (1997), David Jay Brown & Rebecca McCLen Novick
  5. ^ a b c d e f g "Fakir Musafar: passion for piercing, tattooing and corseting". Smh.com.au. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  6. ^ Vale, V. and Andrea Juno (1989) Modern Primitives. RE/Search, San Francisco. ISBN 978-0-940642-14-0
  7. ^ "Die Jungfrauen Maschine (1988)". imdb.com. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  8. ^ "My Father Is Coming (1991)". imdb.com/. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  9. ^ "leatherarchives.org". Leather Archive & Museum. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  10. ^ Daniel E. Slotnik. "Fakir Musafar, Whose 'Body Play' Went to Extremes, Dies at 87 - The New York Times". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  11. ^ "Bodyplay.com". Body Play Magazine's Website. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  12. ^ Body Play #4, 1992, "The Unique Piercings of Erik Dakota"
  13. ^ Voices from the Edge (1997), David Jay Brown & Rebecca McCLen Novick
  14. ^ "Farewell from Fakir". www.fakir.org. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
  15. ^ Slotnik, D. E., "Fakir Musafar, Whose ‘Body Play’ Went to Extremes, Dies at 87", The New York Times, Aug 13, 2018.
  16. ^ "About the LA&M - Leather Archives & Museum". Leatherarchives.org. Retrieved 2020-04-24.
  17. ^ "Exhibitions - Leather Archives & Museum". Leatherarchives.org. Retrieved 2020-04-24.
  18. ^ "List of winners". NLA International. 2019-03-14. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  19. ^ "> Inductees". Leatherhalloffame.com. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  20. ^ "Society of Janus". Erobay. 2019-07-20. Retrieved 2020-04-21.

References

External links

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