K8 Hardy Documents Her Revolutionary Costumes for Today in “Outfitumentary”
Art / Film

K8 Hardy Documents Her Revolutionary Costumes for Today in “Outfitumentary”

K8 Hardy’s Outfitumentary should be a mind-numbing watch. About an hour and twenty minutes of the artist and filmmaker showing off her eccentric outfits in head-to-toe shots almost daily for over a decade on a crappy lo-fi mini-DV camera, the delightfully and perfectly titled 2016 film, directed, produced, photographed, and edited by Hardy, could easily … Continue reading

No Twerk Zones: Tirzah and Henrike Naumann at SculptureCenter
Art / Music

No Twerk Zones: Tirzah and Henrike Naumann at SculptureCenter

The Tirzah exhibition at SculptureCenter is as basic and enchanting as Tirzah’s music, which would perhaps be best described as mellow melancholia with spasms of grunge. If you weren’t already enamored with Tirzah, you’d probably walk into the exhibition, comprised of just two modestly scaled screens displaying music videos, all of which are readily available … Continue reading

God Is on the Dance Floor in Joseph Liatela’s “Nothing Under Heaven”
Art

God Is on the Dance Floor in Joseph Liatela’s “Nothing Under Heaven”

I don’t think I’ve ever come closer to seeing the face of God than when listening to Sylvester’s manic, soaring gospel cry, “Take Me to Heaven.” It’s not a fluke. Sylvester, too, saw his music in religious terms. In the biography The Fabulous Sylvester, Joshua Gamson reveals that after a particularly transcendent show, Sylvester, along … Continue reading

Fear and Loathing at MoMA: A Conversation on Wolfgang Tillmans and Meret Oppenheim
Art

Fear and Loathing at MoMA: A Conversation on Wolfgang Tillmans and Meret Oppenheim

To look without fear. That’s the title of Wolfgang Tillmans’s current dizzying retrospective at MoMA. But this begs questions, namely, who is supposed to be looking without fear? Tillmans? The audience? If it’s the viewers, what are we bravely confronting? Berlin clubs? Photographs of Frank Ocean, Kate Moss, and Chloë Sevigny? A whole lot of images … Continue reading

Worshipping at the Feet of Greer Lankton’s Sacred Stilettos, “JESUS’S CHA-CHA HEELS”
Art

Worshipping at the Feet of Greer Lankton’s Sacred Stilettos, “JESUS’S CHA-CHA HEELS”

I fell into Greer Lankton’s exhibition DOLL PARTY at Company—or more precisely, I stumbled. I don’t mean I stumbled upon the show at random. I actually caught myself before I went tumbling off the bottom step of the steep staircase that led to the dim black-walled gallery space, stabilizing my unsteady legs before my joints … Continue reading

Is That You Mo-Dean?: Esther Pearl Watson’s “Guardian of Eden”
Art / Filthy Dreams Bite-Sized

Is That You Mo-Dean?: Esther Pearl Watson’s “Guardian of Eden”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, dearest Filthy Dreams readers, but I have a tendency to be a little, um, WORDY. Because we all need a break sometimes from my unending (draining) gush of thoughts and because there are shows closing soon still worthy of our attention, I thought we’d try something different: brevity! So … Continue reading

Lipstick-stained Teeth and Americana Altars: Walter Pfeiffer’s Perfect Shots at the Swiss Institute
Art

Lipstick-stained Teeth and Americana Altars: Walter Pfeiffer’s Perfect Shots at the Swiss Institute

Two sultry gazes stare sightlessly from a weathered window or a picture frame as if stolen from the bedroom wall of a fanatical teenage girl in 1955. James Dean and Elvis Presley, icons of mid-20th century rebels without causes. Ripping it up, hip thrusting, jailhouse rocking, Vampira attracting, drag racing, they are double martyrs to … Continue reading