Sep
09
2019
ABOVE: Happy birthday to the sexier Duke.
BELOW: Blake Griffin trashes Caitlyn Jenner, Sarah Palin D-I-V-O-R-C-E, Buttigieg's HIV plans and more ...
441 posts categorized "ART"
Sep
03
2019
ABOVE: Something came between him and his Calvins.
Aug
26
2019
Aug
06
2019
Andy Warhol seemed ancient to me when I was first obsessing over him in my high school days; hard to believe he was only in his fifties, with that white mop of (fake) hair. He could feasibly have been alive to this day, and turning 91, had his health not betrayed him. It was long thought he died under suspicious circumstances, but if you haven't read it, check out this semi-recent New York Times piece on why Warhol's death shouldn't have been surprising at all.
Aug
05
2019
ABOVE: Good for Gus, but, like, I never really pictured him as a guy who wore cologne.
Bunny, Misstress Formika, Sweetie, Anna Conda & Tabboo! at the Pyramid Club, 1992 (Image via TheDragExplosion.com)
Linda Simpson, who has been in drag longer than she's been out of it, is hosting The Drag Explosion, an exciting encore of her narrated slidedshow on the history of NYC drag.
She took all the photos herself — and thank Cher someone in those situations did. It wasn't cellphone times, ladies, so Linda's snaps are a true record of some interesting drag history.
It goes back to the '80s, when Lady Bunny was in her eighties!
WHAT: The Drag Explosion presented by Linda Simpson
WHEN: Tuesday, August 13, 2019
WHERE: The Wild Project, 195 East 3rd St., New York
ADMISSION: $10. Pay at door or buy in advance at TheWildProject.com
I wore a nice polo shirt to gaze upon this. (All images by Matthew Rettenmund)
If you pay any attention at all to the annual Met Gala, you know that the show it celebrated this year is entitled Camp: Notes on Fashion (May 9-September 8, 2019).
Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!
The exhibition takes Susan Sontag's seminal 1964 essay “Notes on Camp” as its foundation, drawing on over 250 objects from the 17th century through the present in an ambitious effort to visually define camp — that thing you can't define, but know when you see it.
With friends like these, who needs genitals?
It's a perilous undertaking! I remember seeing my beloved Debbie Harry and John Waters on a talk show more than 20 years ago attempting to illustrate camp, and the best Debbie could come up with was her shoes. It ... left a mark on me.
She's got great cans.
Camp Warhol
Thankfully, as famous quotes about camp read by Rupert Everett are pumped in overhead — some insightful (“Camp is a holiday for consenting adults”, some not “Camp is ... Josephine Baker”) — Camp: Notes on Fashion, draped in Pride-rainbow colors, unfolds like a smile, touching on camp's frivolity, as well as its subversion. And it's all within the air-conditioned safety of the Met, no Vera Vice around to poop the party.
The example on top is modern. The bottom (of course) is Judy Garland's from the '30s.
There are still shoes, by the way, but we're talking about incredible, rainbow-under-her-feet wedgie sandals worn by Judy, so they get a pass.
Who is she? Who was she? Who does she hope to be?
How's it hangin'? See for yourself.
I've always leaned toward the charm-school of thought that the truest camp is unintentional, and I'm surprised the concept even works today, when non-binary people freely roam the streets in dresses to express joy, not to induce laughter, but the show takes for granted that intentional camp, as so much of the fashion it flaunts is, more than counts.
The Paul Cadmus is smooth sailing, but why such a restrained Tom of Finland for a show about camp?
Regardless, I'd love to turn the curators loose on a larger, less fashion-bound show, to see how they'd do defining camp without the sartorial cheat sheets that are Lagerfeld, Versace, Gaultier, Bob Mackie, Richie Rich and a slew of others whose threads were conceived as outrageous.
Versace + “Vogue” + a reflection of Malcolm McLaren's “Deep in Vogue”
Taking that into account, the show is breathtakingly all-encompassing, giving off the heat of a thousand Project Runways.
Don't miss this, Mary. It's good, in spite of the fact that it isn't awful.
You know what they say — keep reading for more is more ...
Jul
15
2019
(Image by Harry Bush)
Celebrating former heartthrob Willie Aames inching toward 60 with this vintage Harry Bush image. Most of Bush's work was lost or deliberately destroyed (by him), or exists only in an archive. I am pleased to own one of his sketches — but wish it was this!
