I’ve never been a rabid fan of Elton John. As a child, I wanted to hear Jeremy Irons’s queen Scar sing about revenge more than Elton caterwaul about feeling the lion love tonight. As an adult, I rolled my eyes in exhausted disappointment when I saw outlaw country mystery man Orville Peck collaborating with the singer on his awful duets album Stampede. Even as much as I enjoy reveling in the kitsch of the enduring cult of Princess Diana and even as much as our Lady of Southern California Lana Del Rey references it, over and over, in multiple songs, “Candle in the Wind” leaves my eyes dry as a bone. “Rocket Man” reminds me of Kim Jong Un and “Tiny Dancer” makes me think of Trump as the song is a Donnie playlist special as evidenced by it blaring over the Trump Tower loudspeakers during my visit to 45 Wine and Whiskey.

All this to say, when I bought a ticket to Elton John and hubby David Furnish’s photography collection exhibition, Fragile Beauty, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, I wasn’t going with a lot of enthusiasm for John’s (and Furnish’s) immaculate taste. Mostly, I thought, what the hell? I’m here. The promo images for the show also didn’t exactly inspire: a David LaChapelle photo of John himself with eggs splattered on his face rather than his trademark flashy glasses or one of those same old hipster era (now called indie sleaze) Ryan McGinley photographs that I endured quite enough of at the time, thank you very much.

Of course, it should go without saying that collection exhibitions are the height of art world narcissism and suck-upery. Oh, look at all that precious art you’ve acquired thanks to the recommendations of top art advisors! Good for you! Pats on the back all around! Even with my own class hang-ups about collection shows, there is something voyeuristically fascinating about them. They’re akin to scouring through someone’s bookshelves, a nebby pastime I also adore as it says a lot about a person.

So, what did Fragile Beauty say about Elton John and David Furnish? That I should work on casing their home(s)! The hoard was much more covetable than I anticipated. In addition to photo collection standards like Robert Mapplethorpe’s flowers, dramatic fashion shots by Herb Ritts, or, unsurprisingly, some Gilbert & George, John and Furnish’s collection also featured unexpectedly grimier, punkier, and queerer American inclusions from Mark Morrisroe and Nan Goldin, who had so many photographs in the show that she earned her own salon-style inner chamber. While I was glad these two were invited, their work has become a bit too familiar to hold my interest for long. I had eyes on other photographs that my sticky fingers could scamper off with. So much so that I worked on a klepto wishlist while wandering the show.

Even though Fragile Beauty has now closed and I’m no longer in London, what a perfect time to slip in during de-installation week to peruse the works as they’re being wrapped up and shuffle off one or two or eighteen for me. Christmas 2025 is just around the corner!

Norman Parkinson’s Miss Piggy

I mean, obviously. Where else could I start my pilfering list besides this divine photograph of Miss Piggy, which made me gasp in rapturous delight in the museum? Just look at her blonde hair flying in the breeze. Her overly mascaraed unseeing eyes. Those pink feathers shedding off her white silk robe. And that shining heavenly light from behind her! Is Miss Piggy the most glamorous star Hollywood has ever produced? I certainly think so. Move over, Marilyn! Beat it, Bette Davis! Jog along, Jean Harlow! Who cares if she’s a Muppet. This photograph’s presence in Fragile Beauty was the first (but not the last) that made me rethink my years of Elton John rejection. If he can pick THIS sultry swine for his collection, then I can start blasting “Rocket Man” at deafening volume!

John Florea’s Doris Day

Hung right next to Miss Piggy was this vision. I gasped again…nearly passing out from lack of oxygen and aesthetic overload. With that jaunty cap, Doris Day’s chorus girl get-up from her film April in Paris alone is absurdly excessive to belong on my nipping naughty list. But it’s really her herd of colorfully dyed poodles that render this photograph pure, unadulterated camp perfection. I would never tire of this photograph hanging in my apartment, spending day after day laughing at each and every doggie facial expression in the pastel pack. Tag yourself. I’m the pink poodle on the left blinded by its own forehead fuzz.

Juergen Teller’s Joan Didion, Celine Campaign Spring Summer 2015, New York

Sure, I respect Joan Didion as a writer and journalist, but that’s not why I want to struggle and shuffle out of the Victoria and Albert Museum with this oversized Juergen Teller photograph. With her all-black ensemble, enormous bug-eyed sunglasses, and pop of gold necklace, 80-year-old Didion looks like an elegant mummy. I’ll hang it in my bathroom, if I can find a wall big enough, to remind myself of how I plan to look in 40-ish years.

Guy Bourdin’s Charles Jourdan Advertisement Campaign, 1979

Shouldn’t all fashion photography look like violent crime scenes straight out of a Brian De Palma flick? I certainly think so, which is why I’m tiptoeing away with one of Guy Bourdin’s pics. While his bloody-nosed naked murder victim in Pentax Calendar is enticing, especially with her vivid fluorescent pink blush-dominated early 1980s makeup, my pinching pick is the more baffling, and thus compelling, Charles Jourdan Advertisement Campaign, which features a pair of disembodied legs stuffed into silky sheets. What happened to the rest of the body? Do those nyloned legs standing in front of the bed in ruby red heels belong to the murderer? Did she kill the former limb owner over that garish choice of carpet? And is she now, post-chop, considering exactly how to stage the scene for its big dramatic reveal? Or is this an unlucky roommate stumbling on limbs tucked in as if they’re taking a nap? So many possibilities!

Lew Allen’s Elvis Presley Kiss, Cleveland Arena Concert, 23 November 1956

Would there even be a point to a thievery trip anywhere WITHOUT nicking something related to the KING?! A few of my illegal wish lists have included Presley prizes, from Nashville’s Country Music Museum to Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition to the Whitney Museum’s Warhol show. Why should Fragile Beauty be any different? Though it’s easy to gaze, green with envy, at the women who got to plant a big one on Elvis’s smooth cheeks, I’m particularly fond of the surly man in the background, staring daggers into the smooching threesome. Is he jealous of Elvis? Or of the girls?!

Terry O’Neill’s Frank Sinatra in Miami Beach

Look. I’d be a bad Colucci if I didn’t take this one for my people. What are these pale doughy British people doing with our Italian American heroes?!! Frankie isn’t for YOU!! Other than ripping it straight from the wall in a fit of Guido pride, I’m tickled by Frankie Blue Eyes’s entourage, which includes, according to the wall label, both bodyguards and body doubles. Except that none of these men look all that much like Sintra. Who are you fooling, Frankie?! And why is this boardwalk so tiny?!

Peter Hujar’s Divine at the Metropolitan Museum Russian Opening (III)

“I’m so fucking beautiful I can’t stand it myself!” Divine rails as juvenile delinquent turned crime-is-beauty anti-heroine, Dawn Davenport, in her electric chair-winning performance in Female Trouble. That statement has never been more accurate than in this Hujar photograph with the glittering garbage star swaddled like a giant baby in white fabric. Who knew Divine was invited to swanky Met soirees in the mid-1970s?! Why does the invite list for the Costume Institute now consist solely of Ozempic-juiced snoozy bores? Unfair! I’m going to snatch this photo and use it as inspiration to demand more filth at the Met Gala. More filth, less filler! MORE FILTH, LESS FILLER!! Plus, this photo would make for a perfect porcine pairing with Miss Piggy.

Diane Arbus’s Mae West in a chair at home, Santa Monica, Cal., 1965

I could say that Diane Arbus turned Mae West into one of her many freak subjects in this photo, but Mae was a freak already. Even more so here, with her blonde bouffant, shock eyebrows, slick of liquid eyeliner, and curiously defiant expression. With that sassy pose, her hand on her hips, Mae doesn’t seem all that impressed with Arbus. Or she’s just acting. Either way, Mae comes off as a kind of drag queen herself, which is why the Victoria and Albert Museum’s placement of the photo alongside Hujar’s Divine was an inspired choice. It is also hard for me to see this 1965 photo without thinking that only a few years later Mae would make her triumphant return to the big screen with notoriously and (I believe) much unfairly maligned, so-bad-it’s-exquisite stinker Myra Breckinridge as “queen of the casting couch,” Leticia Van Allen. Since that shelved masterpiece is impossible to find on streaming, I’ll swipe this instead.

Bert Stern’s Marilyn Monroe, The Last Sitting

While most of my wishlist consists of photos that amuse me, how could I resist Norma Jean’s aching vulnerability in her last sitting photographs with Bert Stern? So gorgeous. So fragile. So cracked Americana. AND IT SEEMED AS IF YOU LIVED YOUR LIFE LIKE A CANDLE IN THE WIND!!!! *Ahem* I’m going to go watch Blonde again.

Bruce Davidson’s The Supremes preparing for a show at the Apollo Theater, New York City, USA

This photograph would be worth illegally owning just to wake up every morning to young Diana Ross’s unwavering stare reflected in the mirror. Who needs coffee?! Beyond Ross’s hard glare, I’m drawn to this photo because it reminds me of some of my favorite cinematic dressing room moments, namely in Showgirls and Zola (both decidedly trashier than The Supremes at the Apollo, of course).

Bruce of LA’s Larry Eix (man with red feather duster)

A large central section of Fragile Beauty was dedicated to male nudes (or nearly nudes), many of which shared a dreamy and fantastical quality such as James Bidgood’s luscious technicolor camp from Pink Narcissus or George Platt Lynnes’s Garden of Eden hunks. If I only could nab one, though, I’m selecting beefcake photographer Bruce of LA’s feather duster stud as it’s both hilarious and a double fantasy in which a muscle man finally cleans my ceiling fan. Where do I call to hire him?!

Fakir Musafar’s Perfect Gentleman, Self-Portrait

Someone who I didn’t expect to run into in an Elton John (and David Furnish) art collection show was extreme body mod pioneer Fakir Musafar. I don’t associate dangling from hooks pierced through nips with the guy who wrote “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” But here is Fakir, fresh-faced and dressed for either a corporate board room or a fetish club, sinched, squeezed, and crammed into an itsy-bitsy corset. Now, THAT is a snatched waist! Who needs Wegovy when you can pull yourself together in that contraption?! The date also boggles my mind–Fakir was doing this in 1959. Imagine wearing that to a meeting with Roger Sterling!

Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait in Drag

I’ve often rambled about how David Bowie, despite being an icon of androgynous allure, makes for one of the ugliest drag queens I’ve ever seen in the music video for “Boys Keep Swinging.” He’s all gangly angles and startling coke-hardened cheekbones. Yet, even Bowie looks downright fishy when compared to the shock value of Warhol in drag. Made in collaboration with Christopher Makos, Warhol’s drag Polaroids, no matter how many times I’ve confronted them, mostly at Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, always make me recoil in terror. With his undead pallor, corpse-like gaunt face, and that electrified scare wig from Spirit Halloween plopped on his head, the utter velocity of this daily jumpscare would be better than setting a wakeup alarm.

Robert Mapplethorpe’s Jack Walls

Robert Mapplethorpe is boring. Sorry! I can’t look at any more precisely posed black-and-white snaps of whips hanging out of bungholes, dicks dangling from zippers, or flowers. I’ve seen it all and I’ve seen enough. Or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when I found a Mapplethorpe that I both hadn’t seen before and wanted to tear right from its high hang on the wall: a dramatic silhouette straight out of Genet’s Querelle or one of famed gay tattoo artist, pulp erotica writer, and filth elder Sam Steward aka Phil Andros aka Phil Sparrow’s inked Navy men. Hello, Sailor!

Don Herron’s Peter Hujar, Photographer, New York (in tub), 10 January 1979

Only the brave dare to bathe in New York City bathtubs. Ok, the brave, the stupid, or the naive. While my apartment only has a standing shower now, I’ve previously been unlucky enough to rent and witness some of the grodiest, black-encrusted, hard water-reddened, grout-munged, speckled tub disasters in the city. Immersing yourself in one of these mold monstrosities means not only inviting an unusual infection but also living in some fantasy world in which you’re not pruning in decades of other tenants’ filth. This greasy, grungy soak is why I adore Don Herron’s Tub Shots series, which exposes famed artists in their similarly grotesque New York tubs. While bougie Robert Mapplethorpe’s San Francisco tub looks relatively clean, New York artists like Keith Haring and Peter Hujar aren’t so lucky. Sure, Keith’s bathroom is at least spruced up with his own dogs and babies covering the walls. But, Peter Hujar’s pad in the East Village isn’t so aesthetically playful. In fact, it’s downright depressing with tile peeling right from the walls, which is why I will yank this photo from the lot. I need to remind myself that I don’t have it THAT bad living a few blocks away! Don’t catch yourself on that tile, Peter, or you’ll need a tetanus shot!

Steve Schapiro’s The Worst Is Yet to Come, New York

Fragile Beauty’s selection of photojournalism was much too grim for my shoplifting tastes, even as an avowed ghoul. Sure, some photographs are undeniably iconic, but do you want imagery of Kent State, September 11th, or January 6th in your home? That’s bad juju. The real shocker was the presence of Richard Drew’s The Falling Man plummeting from the World Trade Center. While I’m not above going down a macabre Internet rabbit hole and staring into the abyss of 9/11 jumper photos, I don’t need that trigger hanging on my walls or I’ll never leave the 911Archive subreddit. That’s why the only photojournalism pic on my shopping list is this optimistic and lighthearted morning read. No, I’m not going to turn this description into some tired angry rant about Donnie’s upcoming inauguration like this is Facebook (which is now entirely furious political posts). I’m practicing, as my favorite comedian Doug Stanhope describes in his new special Discount Meat, “radical apathy.” You will never get a harangue out of me. But I’m tickled by this doomer headline, which pairs perfectly with the one John Waters slipped into Pink Flamingos, “People Around You Can Make You Sick!”

Taryn Simon’s Church of Scientology, Screening Room, Celebrity Centre International, Hollywood, California

I only visited Los Angeles once, but one of my strongest memories of the trip is of the blank-eyed Scientology members roaming around the stifling smog of Hollywood Boulevard looking for new recruits to hold the cans. I didn’t bite, though it was tempting. I’m fascinated by L. Ron Hubbard as yet another bizarre and pathological American figure who seemed to latch onto some Teddy Roosevelt-like adventurer schtick to gain a following (highly recommend Russell Miller’s Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard). Not to mention Philip Seymour Hoffman’s *wink wink* fictionalized interpretation of a similar leader in the much-underappreciated The Master. Pig FUCK! Yet, fixation or not, I’ll never step foot in a Church of Scientology, let alone meander around the Celebrity Center in Hollywood. Which is why I need this photo by Taryn Simon to do the wandering for me. Just imagine who watched some goofball Dianetics propaganda here! Is there a permanently reserved seat for Tom Cruise? Please don’t stalk my home now that I’ve written about Scientology!

Jerry Berndt’s The Combat Zone, Boston, MA

Another unexpected find in Fragile Beauty was evidence of Boston’s now-disappeared red-light district The Combat Zone. Even though the sleaze landscape of porn theaters as captured in Christian Walker’s The Theater Project is absent, how can you not revere this anonymous fur coat-wearing icon whose fierceness reminds me of Crystal LaBeija in The Queen? I’ll take this one. Thank you!

Gregory Crewdson’s Untitled

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! Does Grandma need assistance? Did she lose a contact lens? Is she feeling regret, gazing into the middle distance near that not-so-subtle carpet square that may hold the squirreled-away remains of her murdered husband under the floorboards? Or is she proud of her homicidal mania?! Something about this ambiguous nicotine-stained suburban scene reminds me of the possessed alienation of Laura Palmer’s mother in Twin Peaks: The Return. I can just picture Granny here taking off her face after ordering a Bloody Mary at a dive bar. Helloooooooo!

David Levinthal’s Untitled #78, from the series Barbie

And, last but certainly not least, I grew up playing with my mother’s impeccably graceful, cat-eyed, Tonya Harding crispy-banged, pinched-faced original Barbie doll who still stands inches above the rest in my humble doll-loving opinion. Yes, even more than cock ring Ken. And you can fuck right off, Malibu Barbie! This explains why I need–no, deserve–this catty, sweater-sporting lesbian duo who look like they’re glaring at someone just off to the side in this nebulous Barbie-pink world. I want to harshly judge with them, don’t you?