There’s something spectacular about failure. Of course, it’s no surprise that I think that. As most of you faithful Filthy Dreams readers know, I have a soft spot for failure, from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ atrocious album Nocturama, David Bowie’s unbearable pirate song “Red Sails” to Tennessee Williams’ putrid paintings. Even our blessed … Continue reading
“Part of the thing about secrets is that they have a certain kind of mystery to me. A dark secret, I don’t want to see something so clearly that it would destroy an imaginary picture…secrets and mysteries…provide a beautiful little corridor where you can float out and many, many wonderful things can happen,” vividly describes … Continue reading
“I’m a man learning how to be a man’s man man,” growls Casey Spooner, finishing off the sleazy club anthem “Everything Is Just Alright,” which began with the description, “I smell the smoke, I smell the piss, I smell the anger,” an apparent reference to Nowhere Bar (I can attest–it fits). While a deceptively short … Continue reading
In her essay “Video Remains: Nostalgia, Technology and Queer Archive Activism,” Alexandra Juhasz discusses the importance of “queer archive activism” in preserving the lives of queer folks. Speaking in reference to her own documentary Video Remains, Juhasz explains, “It is not our suffering that is compelling but our willingness to name and record it, and in so doing, make communal and move into the present” (328). Continue reading
“Writing & Drawing Are Sister Arts,” announces banners flowing from an old-timey quill pen on a drawing in Nayland Blake’s solo exhibition #IDrawEveryDay at Matthew Marks Gallery. Even though this proper, decadent illustration, culled from a book of 19th century penmanship exercises, seems at odds with the bulls, bears and bunnies in the surrounding drawings, the work, titled 6.1.15, acts as the show’s manifesto. As with the sister arts of writing and drawing, Blake reveals how daily drawing practice can record a visual memoir. Continue reading
A girl in KISS makeup, a hillbilly, a computer nerd, a couple of witches and four Black women walk into a singles’ mixer. Although it reads like the start of a hack joke, Mike Kelley’s sculptural and multichannel video installation Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #8 (Singles’ Mixer), currently on view at Luhring Augustine’s Bushwick gallery … Continue reading
“I feel kind of bad for AbEx…It’s vulgar, it’s the phallocracy, it’s nothing but an empty trophy, it celebrates bourgeois subjectivity, it’s a cold-war CIA front, and well, basically expression’s really embarrassing. A dandy wouldn’t be caught dead doing something as earnest as struggling, or channeling jazz with his arms. An old-style dandy, at least,” … Continue reading
This week, narcotic songstress Lana Del Rey, a Lynchian romantic favorite here at Filthy Dreams, released a dramatic trailer to announce her new album Lust For Life. In the black and white video, Lana, with doe-like eyes and big hair, purrs about cooking up new songs for “the kids” as telephones, moons and other objects … Continue reading
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
Childhood is weird. Not exactly a deeply analytical statement, I know, but it’s true. It’s hard to put a finger on childhood–that amorphous, scattershot of memories we form mainly as adults, adding meaning to the various stages of our development. In her book The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century, Kathryn Bond … Continue reading