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
“Now Orpheus, crawl, O shamefaced fugitive, crawl back under the crumbling broken wall of yourself, for you are not stars, sky-set in the shape of a lyre, but the dust of those who have been dismembered by Furies!” –Tennessee Williams “Orpheus Descending” In his ongoing Q&A newsletter The Red Hand Files last week (#20 if … 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
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
Nick Cave’s thoughts on time have stuck with me long after witnessing his deeply upsetting grief-strewn film One More Time With Feeling. Directed by Andrew Dominik, One More Time With Feeling is an all-encompassing look into the recording of the Bad Seeds’ album Skeleton Tree in the wake of the death of Nick’s son Arthur … Continue reading