Throughout my years of writing about art, I’ve, of course, encountered many, many terrible press releases, filled with impenetrable jargon, effusive yet meaningless artspeak, and so much liminality, relationality, materiality, and space. I’ve rolled my eyes. I’ve sighed. I’ve cackled. Yet, it wasn’t until recently, with the overwhelming AI sloppification of NYC art galleries’ written … Continue reading
I cried in disbelief listening to Madonna’s “I Feel So Free.” Not at first. When I initially sampled the rip of the old-school radio (yes, radio!) premiere of the first track from her upcoming album Confessions II, “I Feel So Free” came off to me as generic gay bar fare, perfect for a Hell’s Kitchen … Continue reading
I’m not often impressed by visual art, or at least institutionally accepted artsy-fartsy art, that engages with artificial intelligence. Most AI-related art fails to outshine or even match the wackadoo aesthetics of naïve AI slop produced by the Internet, whether heartfelt Charlie Kirk memorials showing the Turning Point guru paling around with Abraham Lincoln and … Continue reading
An idiotic U.S. president launches a disastrous, poorly considered, escalating war in the Middle East that neocon sickos have been dreaming about since 1996’s Clean Break memo got Bibi Netanyahu all hot and bothered for Greater Israel. The United States’ hubris, short-sighted stupidity, and limitless taste for con artistry plunge the entire globe into economic … Continue reading
Can receiving the stigmata be a sex act? It is surely intimate and sensual, not to mention penetrative. This is a question that I’ve been musing on ever since fixating on Giovanni di Paolo’s shimmering, submissive 15th-century panel painting, Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata, on view in the Met Cloister’s heroically horny and … Continue reading
A black screen, a void, then the calming sounds of ocean waves. Keith Richards’s guitar punctures the roiling relaxation, as sea-green ocean waves brighten the screen. Merry Clayton woos over the opening riff of The Rolling Stones’ Vietnam-era anthem, “Gimme Shelter,” as a drone shot flits over a sandy beach and a pool deck with … Continue reading
I love fan fiction. While I never wrote it as a confused teen (No, I’m not covering up a secret, long-dormant account on Fanfiction.net. I’ve never been good at fiction), I love it nonetheless. Fan fiction is an art form born out of obsession, raging hormones, and pent-up wayward desire projected through favorite fictional characters … Continue reading
I’m obsessed with the Epstein files. Completely obsessed. Any time I get a spare moment, my fingers unconsciously wander over to my permanent Jmail tab to take another gander. Some days, I unblinkingly click through the police-produced Zillow tour of Epstein’s 71st Street townhouse, homing in on deranged bathroom décor, like the chummy caricature of … Continue reading
On January 24, distracted as usual by the unavoidable pull of the endless scroll, I took a quick breather from writing a review of A New Love in Tokyo, Banmei Takahashi’s delightful and depraved sex worker buddy romp. I opened X and watched Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti wrestled to the ground and shot numerous … Continue reading
Being buried under precarious, emergency-surgery-threatening heaps and heaps of snow, ice, and slush is the perfect opportunity for obsessive movie-watching. Not schlepping around to galleries, climbing over the road gritty, dog-and-human shit-covered ice mountains that collect at the edge of every sidewalk in New York, to gaze disappointingly at mostly bland art (Not to mention … Continue reading