On location of the 59th Venice Biennale Arte Preview for Filthy Dreams! In the next weeks, I’ll post an in-depth review of the main exhibition, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani with anecdotes about accompanying national pavilions. First impression: EXTRAORDINARY! GROUNDBREAKING! But first, a FASHION REPORT: It’s impossible to see/experience this year’s Biennale … Continue reading
What if the artist who spent most of his career seeking to “be a machine” never really nailed it? That’s the central question of the aggravatingly flawed but incredibly moving Netflix docuseries The Andy Warhol Diaries, directed by Andrew Rossi. This expansive six-part series uses Warhol’s posthumously published diaries—or really his compulsive daily telephone ramblings … Continue reading
Sometimes I think I hate art. Ok. It’s a little more than sometimes recently. Sure, realistically, I know I don’t hate art entirely. There are many artists I love and admire and I’ve devoted a significant amount of time and effort to art over the years. Lately, though, I’ve felt a little less driven, a … Continue reading
You might want to spare a whole day, or better yet two, to get through the overload of video works currently on view at the New Museum. For the museum’s main event, Lynn Hershman Leeson, pioneer of cybernetic personae, has at long last been dignified with a retrospective, Twisted, which for some may conjure memories … Continue reading
Do you find scaffolding ghostly and poignant? Do you see construction sites as evocative of memory? Do you consider a Porta John a phenomenal addition to public art? Do you think a worthy memorial to an area historically connected to queer people is an ode to a straight artist? If so, then may I suggest … Continue reading
*waves American flag wildly* Well, hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams patriots! What’s that? Why am I feeling just so proud of our fair nation on this 4th of July? Maybe it’s because I finally believe in the American dream again! Sure, we all know that the post-World War II dream of a suburban house, a … Continue reading
As one of those annoying and agendaless hangers-on at the Outsider Art Fair these last few years, I couldn’t resist the additional prospect of artist/socialite Takashi Murakami making time between his mass-market endeavors to oversee a large-scale group exhibition of around two hundred sculptural works by approximately 60 visionary and vernacular folk artists from around … Continue reading
Have you ever seen a painting of a male nude described as “an egregious demonstration of manspreading”? Me neither. Sure, if a dude is sitting on a train or a bus (preferably not nude, but it’s been known to happen), legs akimbo and junk exposed, ignoring the presence of anyone nearby as he takes up … Continue reading
Sometimes you just need a sexy lizard lady smoking a cigarette with her tiddies exposed or a disembodied donger hanging from a fishing hook. I don’t know about you, dearest Filthy Dreamers, but after a year plus of a pandemic, I can’t stomach depressing art anymore. You know, the art that seems dead set on … Continue reading
I wasn’t prepared to hear John Waters speak in tongues. I’m not sure why. What is there left to do after over fifty years of spreading the sordid slime of good bad taste around the globe than falling to your knees where your role model’s testicles were crushed before he was mowed over repeatedly with … Continue reading