Having a body can be a burden. Perfume Genius knows this all too well. Through numerous albums, the musician documents the frustration of having a body from Too Bright’s nihilistic “My Body” (“I wear my body like a rotted peach. You can have it if you handle the stink”) to the more uplifting yet no … Continue reading
“We are surrounded by everything you ever want,” purrs artist Andrew Logan, inviting viewers of homotopia.tv into the Glasshouse, his studio in London.[i] The Glasshouse resembles a Technicolor tumble through the looking glass if Alice sniffed poppers. His Pee-Wee’s Playhouse-esque studio is filled with giant eggs, regal tributes to Pegasus, and sculptures dedicated to outrageous … Continue reading
“There are few things raunchier than a centerfold of ‘nothing,’” quips critic Bruce Hainley speaking to our preeminent filth elder John Waters in Art: A Sex Book. “The imagination can go wild.” Even with his purposeful witticism, Hainley is right. Sometimes just fractured glimpses of body parts–a hand, a silhouette, a mouth–amidst a sea of … Continue reading
What would happen if we looked back–past the contemporary Western civilization that we know? Past governments that try to regulate use of bathrooms depending on the biological sex written on birth certificates? Past governmental restrictions on who can be served at what establishment? Past rigidly constructed sexual and gender identities based on science, law and religion? Past, as Foucault described, biopower and biopolitics? What would happen if we looked back to cultures where there were no identities only acts? Continue reading
This week, I was told that I write from a “contrarian personal sensibility,” and you know what, they’re right. I believe in bad taste and bad bars, in Russ Meyer and John Waters, in terrible kitsch and even worse camp. I was weened on contrarians and outlaws like Kathy Acker, Lydia Lunch and Dennis Cooper.I believe in transcendence through transgression, trash, humor, shock and filth, which brings me to the subversive cinema of Nick Zedd. Continue reading