Lydia Lunch has always had a voice able to shake audiences to their core. What was once a grating piercing howl in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks has roughened into a gravel-strewn growl that can be sultry and animalistic in equal measure. In November, I saw Lunch perform at TV Eye in the final show … Continue reading
Pigeons are rarely bestowed a place of prominence in artwork. Doves? Sure. But those mottled rats with wings often get a comparably short shrift. Somewhat understandably. It’s hard to celebrate the pigeon. I almost stomp on one every morning when I run as they stare up at me blankly like they forgot they have wings. … Continue reading
Radical Perverts: Ecstasy and Activism in Queer Public Space, 1975-2000 at the Museum of Sex should come with its own scratch-and-sniff cards. Steal the patented Odorama technology used in John Waters’s Polyester–who gives a fuck. Dean Sameshima’s delightfully clinical series of four public restrooms, Untitled (South Bay Tearooms), which, much like Jimmy DeSana’s early series … Continue reading
Can you be starstruck by a gravestone? Is a headstone just a more permanent headshot? Is an epigraph a forever form of autograph? I certainly believe so, given the thrilled tingle that shot down my spine while squinting at the layered names that cover Scott Covert’s searingly bright, near ocularly painful hot-pink painting, Pink Nancy, … Continue reading
Bearded Amish men creating traffic jams in horse-drawn buggies. Shoofly pies, whoopie pies, and apple butter bake sales staffed by women in plain cotton dresses. Worn farmhouses adorned with painted barn stars. Wooden rockers and star-laden quilts. These are the quaint scenes that immediately come to my mind when considering the aesthetics of Pennsylvania Dutch … Continue reading
There is something existentially terrifying about American big-box grocery stores. Maybe it’s just me. Shamefully, I have melted down in more than a few ginormous supermarkets across the country, sniping at family members over muffins and abandoning shopping baskets in the cereal aisle in a panic. I know I’ve fashioned myself as a supporter of … Continue reading
I’ve recently experienced a religious conversion—become born-again if you will. At least where art is concerned. For decades I avoided Medieval art like the plague due to (what I felt at the time was) its revolting connection to Christianity at its most conservative, a kneejerk response after reading too much Christopher Hitchens as a contrarian … Continue reading
What does a deep-throating, tongue-heavy interspecies make-out session between famed feminist artist, meat writher, and interior scroll yanker Carolee Schneemann and her cat have to do with Pablo Picasso? Is there some tenuous link between Carolee’s hot and steamy pussy-licking, Infinity Kisses II, and Pablo’s looming animalistic Minotaur draftsman cosplay? Are they both aspiring furries? … Continue reading
The muddled, muffled sounds of an indiscernible song fuzzily blasted through a pair of wireless headphones at Vito Schnabel Gallery. Even though the listening experience was akin to holding a tin can full of static to my ear, I got a little choked up, straining to hear a then-new Velvet Underground demo played over the … Continue reading
Late last month, I nearly passed out at a concert. My senses fuzzed blank, dominated by the earsplitting, hypnotic wrath of the droning cacophony erupting from the stage courtesy of Nordra, the solo project/assault of Zen Mother’s disarmingly petite in contrast to her aural fury, Monika Khot, who opened for Zola Jesus (whose band Khot … Continue reading