The inventor Nikola Tesla had a proclivity to give himself electrotherapeutic shocks. According to biographer Richard Munson, Tesla suffered debilitating depression, and it was not unusual at the time to deploy mild shocks to treat such an ailment. Each morning he would disrobe and stand naked upon his “vitality booster,” gradually administering higher doses. Michael … Continue reading
The Brooklyn Museum’s latest offering Studio 54: Night Magic, curated and designed by Matthew Yokobosky, Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture, could, for some discerning spectators, be alternately called Studio 54: Lite. The curatorial focus is, of course, on fashion and design, so adjust your expectations as such. It’s about meticulous attention to lavish … Continue reading
Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, forthcoming from Verso Books, describes “glitch” as both an error, a “failure to function,” and thus an area of opportunity as well as an undoing. In this conversation, we attempt to flesh out parts of the whole for Filthy Dreams… Jessica Caroline: Your first chapter GLITCH REFUSES begins with … Continue reading
“Doing things, similar things…” These are the vague yet salient words extracted from Trump’s predictably maladroit national emergency address, unwittingly evoking the bracingly confrontational and unnerving self-portraiture of our inadvertent queen of self-quarantine: Finnish artist Iiu Susiraja. As we bunker down in our contaminated cities, fantasizing about remote escapes, and “cancel culture” takes on a … Continue reading
When we think of the world, we tend to think of it in terms of endings and deaths rather than beginnings. Only a very select few could make the case that they have the capitalism they want and yet, as writer/teacher/influence-peddler McKenzie Wark has continued to wager over the years since A Hacker Manifesto, Molecular … Continue reading
It was a quiet Sunday afternoon of perusing exhibitions around the Lower East Side, and somewhat of a synchronistic moment to meet the artist Martin Wilner in midst of his current exhibition The Case Histories at Pierogi. Wilner invited each of the gallery’s artists to produce their own “responsa” to his dialogue with them, each … Continue reading
I don’t mind today but the everyday makes me barf. There’s no such thing. Puking would put something on the sidewalk of the everyday so it might begin to be now. —Eileen Myles, Sorry, Tree, 2007. I continue to find this statement perplexing, even after a day that finished hurling on the pavement of an … Continue reading
Mystics are having a welcome moment of resurgence, from Hilma af Klint’s Painting for the Future at the Guggenheim, to Leonora Carrington’s Magical Tales at The Contemporary Art Museum of Monterrey, to Leonor Fini’s overdue first survey in New York at the Museum of Sex, Theatre of Desire, 1930-1990, curated by Lissa Rivera. This is … Continue reading
How many imaginary dialogues with dead poets have you had lately? Multidisciplinary artist Félicia Atkinson recently orchestrated an experimental performance in dialogue with Francis Ponge’s “The Candle (La Bougie)” from his collection Le Parti Pris des Choses (Siding with Things) at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn. An incantation of sorts, Atkinson’s sonic dreamscapes are haunting … Continue reading
“It was the opposite of nihilism, it was more a case of too much care-ism,” quipped my friend as we stepped out onto Park Avenue, having just been exposed to Australian director Simon Stone’s adaptation of Yerma, based on Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca’s play of the same name, which debuted in 1934. … Continue reading