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
Can humor be a form of resistance in our increasingly dystopian era? I certainly think so, as I’ve argued on Filthy Dreams previously (and repeatedly). Recently, though, comedy, mainly stand-up, is being reevaluated due to comedian Hannah Gadsby’s highly emotional and now, greatly hyped special Nanette. Continue reading
“Maybe I can’t find you, Peter,” darkly exclaims David Wojnarowicz, walking through a cemetery in his essay “Living Close To The Knives” (100). While detailing his harrowing and nerve-wracking attempt to find the grave of photographer Peter Hujar, who Wojnarowicz later describes as “my friend…my brother my father my emotional link to the world,” Wojnarowicz’s … Continue reading
“You can’t make this shit up,” repeats the hapless former press secretary and White House Easter bunny Sean Spicer, as his “daily, if not hourly mantra.” This apt line, more articulate than anything Spicer said behind the podium in his months of White House employment, is quoted by Michael Wolff in his new book/American cultural … Continue reading
There’s nothing more convincing of the absolute triumph of a bizarre mixture of surrealism and farce like watching President Donald Trump appear next to a giant bespectacled Easter Bunny that looks positively stunned at the circus surrounding him. Like Bun Buns, I too watched yesterday’s first Trump administration Easter Egg Roll with my jaw dropped and a … Continue reading
This week, i-D Magazine’s Amelia Abraham published a think piece asking, “Whatever Happened To Camp–Does It Still Exist?” Believe me, Mary, just that question made me recoil in horror. How DARE they wonder if camp still exists?! Why, as we’ve frequently shouted into the abyss here on Filthy Dreams, it’s more important than ever! In … Continue reading
Well, it’s been quite a fucking week hasn’t it, dearest Filthy Dreams readers! I feel hungover, terrified and slightly amused. And we’ve only got one week down of our Dear Leader Donald J. Trump. Man, it’s going to be a long four years. And the art world isn’t helping. I find most of the art world’s responses to … Continue reading
Well, I know I promised days ago, faithful Filthy Dreams readers, that I wasn’t going to do a tired old best of list, but Filthy Dreams is nothing if not inconsistent and unpredictable. While I was going to write another “making up for lost time” review of Jordan Wolfson’s show at David Zwirner, I decided … Continue reading
Samuel Beckett seems like a good place to start. After election night on Tuesday, it feels like we’re living in one of his plays. I didn’t really want to write this piece–or any election-related “think piece.” It always seems egomaniacal and self-indulgent. But, I couldn’t find a way to avoid writing about our ominous election of Donald Trump. Continue reading
Finishing his manifesto with a rallying battle cry for the absurd or, as he describes, “instructions for use,” Theatre of the Ridiculous auteur Charles Ludlam writes, “This is farce not Sunday school. Illustrate hedonistic calculus. Test out a dangerous idea, a theme that threatens to destroy one’s whole value system. Treat the material in a … Continue reading