The McDonald’s-colored, yellow-roofed/red-bodied plastic Fisher-Price “Little Tikes” Cozy Coupe was one of the most ubiquitous toys of my millennial childhood. Who among us didn’t shuffle along our parents’ driveways like tiny Fred Flintstones, making vroom-vroom noises and trying not to seethe with envy at the luckier kids who got fancy-schmancy motorized convertible Barbie cars? Fuck … Continue reading
The most remarkable, equally elegiac and absurd, profound and berserk inclusion in Somerset House’s Holy Pop!, an exhibition dedicated to extreme acts of fanatical devotion to filth elders, was not Dot Alma’s bedazzled “Freedom” pew and kneeler, set in front of an altar to the Holy Father (Figure) George Michael and Hampstead Heath hookup trees, … Continue reading
“He likes hot chicks! With big tits! He likes hot chicks. I like hot rats!” sneers Tayler Lee, one half of my favorite musical gruesome twosome, Genre is death, on their cataclysmically cacophonous Zappa-referencing song, “Hot Rats,” from their debut album Talk. But what if you didn’t have to choose between hot chicks with big … Continue reading
When I traveled to Nashville in 2023, I spent most of my time running in and out of country music-themed gift shops—or really, one gift shop in particular. Sure, I also perused the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline T-shirts at their conjoined museums. But it was the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum store … Continue reading
I haven’t curated an exhibition since 2019. It’s not for lack of trying. I was months into a show about nightlife with Fotografiska before they picked up their museum and left the city. More recently, I submitted a proposal for a trash aesthetic exhibition, an idea that made me so excited I buzzed my way … Continue reading
I’m not often impressed by visual art, or at least institutionally accepted artsy-fartsy art, that engages with artificial intelligence. Most AI-related art fails to outshine or even match the wackadoo aesthetics of naïve AI slop produced by the Internet, whether heartfelt Charlie Kirk memorials showing the Turning Point guru paling around with Abraham Lincoln and … Continue reading
I’ve always been drawn to darker, more seductive, and, in some circles, taboo imagery, particularly in formats more readily available to a non-fine art audience, such as books or magazines. The more risqué, the better. It is exciting when people find community within their niche tastes, where open sexuality is not just celebrated but encouraged … Continue reading
Can receiving the stigmata be a sex act? It is surely intimate and sensual, not to mention penetrative. This is a question that I’ve been musing on ever since fixating on Giovanni di Paolo’s shimmering, submissive 15th-century panel painting, Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata, on view in the Met Cloister’s heroically horny and … Continue reading
On January 24, distracted as usual by the unavoidable pull of the endless scroll, I took a quick breather from writing a review of A New Love in Tokyo, Banmei Takahashi’s delightful and depraved sex worker buddy romp. I opened X and watched Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti wrestled to the ground and shot numerous … Continue reading
I wish I hadn’t purposefully visited Christopher Gambino’s window installation, The Christmas Show at Below Grand. Not because I wish I could erase it from my mind, but I dream of stumbling upon this festive furniture crime scene by happenstance. A momentary look to my right while walking down Orchard Street. A glance at a … Continue reading