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
Category Archives: Fashion
Soon All This Will Be Picturesque Products: The Nauseating Fashion Week Commodification Of David Wojnarowicz
“I feel a vague nausea stroking and tapping the lining of my stomach,” writes David Wojnarowicz in his essay “In the Shadow of the American Dream: Soon All This Will Be Picturesque Ruins.” I don’t think I ever quite understood the feeling of David’s nausea until this past week. It took everything in me not … Continue reading
Do Clothes Liberate Our Bodies Or Restrict Them?: Confusion And Potentialities In “Life And Limbs”
The politics of liberation are essentially corporeal. The struggle for free will—for subjecthood—is defined by the ease and unease of the body. The fear of hunger is physical; the wretched horror of deprivation is one of bodily need. All emotional despair is felt as corporeal absence or excess. If I am so wretchedly miserable that … Continue reading
The Met’s Tacky And Tasteless “Camp: Notes On Fashion” Gift Shop Is More Camp Than The Show
I love museum gift shops. I know, I know–this isn’t too much of a surprise after I’ve continually admitted my undying love of the worst of late capitalism, including yes, corporate Pride. But unlike that rainbow colored free-for-all, which comes around only one month a year to tickle my frantic shopping spree fancy, museum gift … Continue reading
Money Can’t Buy You Camp: Why I Love That The Met’s Camp Gala Was A Failure
If Charles Ludlam thought Susan Sontag did a number on camp, I can’t imagine what he would have thought witnessing the camp tragedy that occurred on the pink carpet (pink being, apparently, the color of camp) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday. Whew! Mary! It was a camp catastrophe, a camp calamity, a … Continue reading
“Little Ladies: Victorian Fashion Dolls and the Feminine Ideal” Needs More Than Just Beautiful Objects
Little Ladies: Victorian Fashion Dolls and the Feminine Ideal, on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art until March, is a curious show that seems to be trying to navigate between two opposing poles. On the one hand, Little Ladies is clearly meant to delight, drawing on the museum’s permanent collection to showcase the incredible … Continue reading
What The Hell Is The Met’s Costume Institute Going To Do To Our Beloved Camp?: A Filthy Dreams Plea
On Tuesday, I received a promotional email in my inbox (one of many I tend to ignore) announcing the theme of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute 2019 exhibition. To my shock (and horror), it was a theme familiar and close to my black little heart: camp! As a long-time denizen of camp, I … Continue reading
Filthy Dreams GIF Review: “Pink: The History Of A Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color” At The Museum at FIT
“I glow pink in the night in my room,” opens Mitski’s dreamily atmospheric song “Pink in the Night” off her new album Be The Cowboy. Crooning her obsessive yearning, Mitski uses the color pink as a symbol for a type of solitary blossoming. Of course, this is not the only understanding of the wildly overdetermined … Continue reading
Gay Shame Is In Fashion At Bjarne Melgaard’s “The Casual Pleasure Of Disappointment”
You can’t argue with the immediate shock of a video depicting a burning rainbow flag. Or, for that matter, a sign that reads “Never Trust A Gay Man” and “Every Gay Man Is A Disappointment,” which echoes a self-loathing but (at least I read) tongue-in-cheek sentiment aired by Milo Yiannopoulos on Real Time With Bill Maher … Continue reading
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real): Warhol, Halston and the Importance of Queer Friendship
Examining the interconnected lives of these two creative forces, the Andy Warhol Museum’s current exhibition Halston and Warhol: Silver and Suede makes the unquestionably important argument that Warhol and Halston’s close friendship, similar artistic sensibilities, and collaborations drove their respective art. Continue reading