“So, perceiving culture and society entirely in visuals, and before my eyes, I am up against my limits,” says Ezekiel Hooper Stark, the image-obsessed cultural anthropologist and protagonist of Lynne Tillman’s most recent novel Men and Apparitions (136) Continue reading
“Isn’t sex more erotic when spiced with a sense of danger? But how much danger?” asked music critic Stephen Holden in a review of a Donna Summer album. Those really are the questions, aren’t they? What is the line between eroticism and violence–or at least, threat–and how does one know if they’ve crossed it? Disco … Continue reading
“I’ll never forget the humiliation of bringing my portfolio up to Carmel Snow’s office at Harper’s Bazaar and unzipping it only to have a roach crawl out and down the leg of the table. She felt so sorry for me that she gave me a job,” writes Andy Warhol in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: … Continue reading
Scratch. Scrape. Scratch. Scrape. A chill flies down my neck, ricocheting down my spine. It’s not just the sound of A.K. Burns and Katherine Hubbard’s collaborative video Untitled (shaving performance 2010) that sends multiple senses into overdrive. It’s also the visuals–disembodied hands wielding a straight razor, slicing precariously close to a woman’s bare skin and … Continue reading
There are no words to describe how much I adored Adrian Piper’s retrospective at MoMA, but not for the reasons that seemed to preoccupy everyone else’s mind. Like with many art shows featuring Black artists at the moment, the white institution obsesses over artists of color who can “teach us” about gender, racism, and xenophobia. … Continue reading
You know I love dolls. That’s what John Waters snarled at Marion and me when we dragged our favored doll Carol Anne to meet her Uncle John at a book signing at Gagosian’s Upper East Side bookstore. Though I think of John’s demented doll declaration frequently, his words resonated especially deeply as soon as I … Continue reading
Whew! I don’t know about you, Filthy Dreams readers, but is it hot today or is it just me? *spontaneously combusts* As temperatures rise to 90 degrees outside, apparently they’re even hotter in that art-filled circus tent on the East River. I mean, the Frieze New York art fair on Randall’s Island! Now, I avoid art fairs … Continue reading
