You may not know this, dearest Filthy Dreams fanatics, but I’ve occasionally been accused of being long-winded. Rambling. Exhausting. Draining. Just a tad wordy. In a culture where we have writers and editors tweet-advising us to make articles shorter and more palatable for readers, I tend to do the opposite. I don’t care who likes … Continue reading
Your job, Genesis, is to short-circuit control,” once said the preeminent literary gentleman junkie William S. Burroughs to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge who, as much as we obsess about h/er on Filthy Dreams, needs no introduction (or shouldn’t!). And short-circuit control s/he did. I mean, what socially imposed and regulated norm of living didn’t Genesis shatter, … Continue reading
Ho Ho HooooooooWHOAA! Hello there, cheeriest Filthy Dreams Christmas cookies! What’s that? What am I doing? Well, I’m just making a list and checking it twice. No, not my shopping list! Planning is for fools! And who wants to plot too far in advance about the gifts you’re giving to OTHER people this holiday season?! … Continue reading
Can shoes become sacred objects with the addition of other symbolic matters? Do shoes already contain a transformative strength? Certainly, nobody will dismiss the sexual domination of a stiletto. Continue reading
In Brown: The Last Discovery of America, Richard Rodriguez articulates the particularities of brownness, partially based on his own queer Chicano identity. “Brown,” he writes, “bleeds through the straight line, unstaunchable–the line separating black from white, for example. Brown confuses. Brown forms at the border of contradiction (the ability of language to express two or … Continue reading
If Cosey Fanni Tutti’s life and work could be summed up in a quick sound byte, it would be, “My Life Is My Art. My Art Is My Life” (115). From her performance art and musical work in COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle, Chris & Cosey, and Carter Tutti to her solo performance work and her … 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
Spirituality is a curse word in the art world. Just mention spirituality and watch most curators run for the hills. Despite building elaborate white-walled shrines to worship art rather than omnipotent beings, much of the contemporary art world would like to conveniently forget that the centuries of art acting as devotional objects far surpass our current understanding of art as a commercial product for collectors. Continue reading
Why hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams readers and fellow filth fanatics! It’s about the right time to announce what your co-founder Emily Colucci and intrepid contributor Osman Yerebakan have been working hard on since December 2013. As you know, Filthy Dreams was originally conceptualized as a sleazy bar before we lowered our expectations and started … Continue reading
Similar to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s articulation of the “amazingly full and kaleidoscopic adventure” of finding transgressive books in smut shops, artist Scott Treleaven’s large-scale abstract drawings in his current exhibition Animal Chapel at Invisible-Exports reflect the possible transformative power of the hidden, the coded and the concealed. Continue reading