The Legacy of Derek Jarman
October 28, 2014
Derek Jarman died in 1994 from an AIDS-related illness. When asked if the iconoclastic British filmmaker has any contemporaries, Nellie Killian, curator of the new retrospective “Queer Pagan Punk: The Films of Derek Jarman” at BAMcinématek, was at a loss.
The Fabulous Punk Rock Girls
May 6, 2014
The identities forged through punk rebellion make up the subjects of Punk Rock Girls, an 11-film series starting tonight at BAMcinématek in Brooklyn.
Safe House Takes Risks
April 16, 2014
Safe House USA is a Brooklyn-based bedding and homeware company that is anything but safe.
What’s New: Isolde, Again
April 11, 2014
What would you do if you lost your memory? How would your life and relationships change if access to the standing record of you was abruptly limited without warning or consent? Such is the catalytic crisis of Isolde, the new play by lauded experimental director and playwright Richard Maxwell.
Discovery: Trash Fire
November 21, 2013
Goals might be overrated. At least, this is what we’re inclined to consider after listening to Seattle punk band Trash Fire, whose singer and bassist, Jonah Bergman wails, “I traded my ambition for a trash life” on the title track of the band’s latest EP, Trash Life, released today on cassette tape.
Andrew Gilchrist’s Story from the Sea
October 10, 2013
When Brooklyn-based filmmaker Andrew Gilchrist asks you how you are, he asks how the hell you are.
Exclusive Song Premiere and Interview: ‘Interrupt,’ The Garden
July 16, 2013
The Garden is a lo-fi noise band from Orange, California with only two members: 19-year-old twins Wyatt and Fletcher Shears, who look like the androgynous love children of Lou Reed or Iggy Pop, and who happen to be the latest muses of Saint Laurent Paris’ creative director, Hedi Slimane.
Amy Lawless Brings Up Her Dead
March 15, 2013
On the refrigerator of poet Amy Lawless’ East Village apartment are a picture of her nephew, a photo-booth strip of friends, a small chart of this year’s moon cycle, and a postcard that reads, “Don’t Worry About Death.”
The Many Layers of Anna Telcs
March 5, 2013
Anna Telcs is a Seattle-based clothing and costume designer currently showing her work in the context of art in order to encourage a historical dialogue about textiles, form, methods of garment production, and ritual.
Parenthetical Girls Are in a Different Class
February 19, 2013
The lead singer and lead creative of Portland band Parenthetical Girls, Zac Pennington is an alternate pop star in the same vein as Kurt Cobain, Morissey, Jarvis Cocker, and Damon Albarn—the sort of musician with an unconventional sexual swagger that necessitates a double take regardless of the onlooker’s sexual orientation.
The House of Von Macramé and the Horrors of Fashion
February 8, 2013
Unlike the over-the-top characters of his new play, The House of Von Macramé—a pop operetta that encompasses both runway shows and a camp horror-movie plot—playwright Joshua Conkel is a sweet, smart creative who is slowly but surely getting what he wants.
Flowers for Saint Genet
January 29, 2013
French author and playwright Jean Genet opened his 1949 novel A Thief’s Journal with the assertion that “there is a close relationship between flowers and convicts,” comparing the fragility of the former with the brutality of the latter. Fittingly, when the Seattle-based, avant-garde performance company Saint Genet reinterpreted the trials of Charles Manson as part of their performance Transports of Delirium at The Lawrimore Project in Seattle last September, a mound of flowers—blood red carnations, dazzling white lilies, and wild daisies—was placed onstage.
Trinidad James’ S.A.F.E. Haven
December 4, 2012
The aesthetics of rapper Trinidad James are worthy of obsession: gold Chanel chains, velvet Versace slipppers, bikes spray-painted gold with flat tires… and puppies.
Discovery: Crypts
November 9, 2012
Crypts are a band with a penchant for mischief. The cover of their new self-titled LP, which features synth and drum machine impresario Bryce Brown crawling on the roof of a car in the dead of night with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, is a perfect representation of the band’s impish spirit.
Eraas Take Their Time
September 4, 2012
You can take the boys out of New England, but you might have a hard time taking the dark and weird vibes out of the New England boys—unless they’re filtering them directly into their music. Case and point: Robert Toher and Austin Stawiarz, the evil geniuses behind emerging band, Eraas.
Exclusive Song Premiere: ‘Cocoon House,’ New Villager
August 14, 2012
“Womb, strictures, domesticity”: these are the ideas outlined by New Villager’s Ross Simonini in a dialogue about our track of the week, “Cocoon House” from the band’s newest, self-titled album.
Discovery: Champagne Champagne
July 13, 2012
Seattle, Washington has produced some of the past year’s most buzzworthy hip-hop acts: Sub Pop’s Shabazz Palaces, TheeSatisfaction. On the verge of the same fate is Champagne Champagne, a three-piece comprised of lead MC Pearl Dragon, his inimitable sidekick Sir Thomas Gray, and beat wizard extraordinaire DJ Gajamagic (also known as Mark Gajadhar, former drummer of proto-hipster-hardcore band, The Blood Brothers).
The Ever-Growing Daisies
July 5, 2012
VÄ?ra Chytilová’s 1966 film Daisies was banned by the government after its release—explicitly for its imagery of its two heroines, Marie I and Marie II, wasting food; implicitly for its lack of narrative and the artistic, yet frivolous and defiant, actions of its heroines.
Lourdes Portillo Looks Inward
June 25, 2012
Born in Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, much of Lourdes Portillo’s work looks at Latin American, Mexican, and Chicano culture through a reflexive lens. Known for films such as the 1985 documentary Las madres de la Plaza de Mayo, Portillo’s work is of a rare emotional caliber.
Built to Spill
September 25, 2011
This month, multi-media artist Aleksandra Mir’s 16-minute film The Seduction of Galileo Galilei opens at the Whitney.