Sometimes you just need a sexy lizard lady smoking a cigarette with her tiddies exposed or a disembodied donger hanging from a fishing hook. I don’t know about you, dearest Filthy Dreamers, but after a year plus of a pandemic, I can’t stomach depressing art anymore. You know, the art that seems dead set on … Continue reading
As Minneapolis burns to a crisp after the murder of George Floyd by four homicidal cops (charge and arrest, and then, convict and sentence all of them already!), cities across America see police forces violently spiraling out of control at protesters, including arresting and shooting beanbag rounds at journalists, Trump goes to war with Twitter … Continue reading
If I could turn back time…whoa! What’s that? Oh, I’m just fantasizing about time traveling back to 1990s San Francisco, after being inspired by Magic Ben Big Boy, a current exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery. A product of a specific time and place, the show centers around a recreation of Vincent Fecteau’s cat, eggs and … Continue reading
“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
Selfies are usually accompanied by an automatic groan. Dismissed as superficial and vapid, selfie-taking is often seen as too close to Narcissus staring adoringly at his reflection for comfort. However, for marginalized people, selfies can be a way to create visibility where there is none in dominant, mainstream culture. Ryan McGinley’s current show Mirror, Mirror … Continue reading
After laughter comes tears. At least that’s what Wendy Rene sang in 1964 and over fifty years later, those lyrics still ring true in our farcical age. Of course, “After Laughter (Comes Tears)” is just one of many songs that take up crying as its subject, joining others like “The Weeping Song,” “96 Tears” and “Crying,” which was … Continue reading
“I’ll never forget the humiliation of bringing my portfolio up to Carmel Snow’s office at Harper’s Bazaar and unzipping it only to have a roach crawl out and down the leg of the table. She felt so sorry for me that she gave me a job,” writes Andy Warhol in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: … Continue reading
There are no words to describe how much I adored Adrian Piper’s retrospective at MoMA, but not for the reasons that seemed to preoccupy everyone else’s mind. Like with many art shows featuring Black artists at the moment, the white institution obsesses over artists of color who can “teach us” about gender, racism, and xenophobia. … Continue reading
Why hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams readers, and welcome to our latest installment of GIF reviews. This time, I’m focusing on Carlos Reyes current exhibition West Side Club at Bodega. In his show, Reyes created a series of sculptures out of wood salvaged from the former sauna at Chelsea’s still open West Side Club. I know, … Continue reading
Why hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams readers! Are you ready for another installment of our GIF reviews? This time, we’re looking at Alex Da Corte’s current exhibition C-A-T Spells Murder at Karma. Inspired by R. L. Stine’s novel Cat from his Fear Street series–the older and trashier pulp fiction version of his Goosebump books, C-A-T … Continue reading