Soon All This Will Be Picturesque Products: The Nauseating Fashion Week Commodification Of David Wojnarowicz
Art / Fashion / Rants and Raves

Soon All This Will Be Picturesque Products: The Nauseating Fashion Week Commodification Of David Wojnarowicz

“I feel a vague nausea stroking and tapping the lining of my stomach,” writes David Wojnarowicz in his essay “In the Shadow of the American Dream: Soon All This Will Be Picturesque Ruins.” I don’t think I ever quite understood the feeling of David’s nausea until this past week. It took everything in me not … Continue reading

Your Silence Will Not Protect You: “VOICE = SURVIVAL” At The 8th Floor
Art

Your Silence Will Not Protect You: “VOICE = SURVIVAL” At The 8th Floor

“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you,” warns Audre Lorde in her paper The Transformation of Silence Into Language And Action. In this essay, Lorde argues for speaking–the voice–as an essential, if not the most essential, activist tool. She concludes, “The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break the silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken” (44). Continue reading

You Are Invited To–Party Out Of Bounds: Nightlife As Activism Since 1980
Art

You Are Invited To–Party Out Of Bounds: Nightlife As Activism Since 1980

  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

Losing Ourselves In The Language Of Movements At ACT NOW: Perspectives on Contemporary Performance and HIV/AIDS
Art

Losing Ourselves In The Language Of Movements At ACT NOW: Perspectives on Contemporary Performance and HIV/AIDS

Last week, the New Museum, in collaboration with Visual AIDS, hosted an engrossing and important panel ACT NOW: Perspectives on Contemporary Performance and HIV/AIDS, tackling questions about the role of performance and the artist’s body in preserving, discussing and embodying the history, legacy and the current AIDS crisis. Continue reading

How Do We Make Them Listen: Thoughts on (re)Presenting AIDS: Culture & Accountability
Art

How Do We Make Them Listen: Thoughts on (re)Presenting AIDS: Culture & Accountability

Visual AIDS and the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History hosted a public forum, (re)Presenting AIDS: Culture & Accountability, to discuss the responsibilities of museums, galleries and other institutions when mounting exhibitions about HIV/AIDS. Organized in part due to Pop Up Museum of Queer History’s Hugh Ryan’s insightful New York Times editorial “How To Whitewash A Plague,” the forum was designed to, as moderator Ann Northrop described, create a space for “productive thinking for future work,” as well as understand the way the community interacts with cultural institutions. Continue reading