ART!
This weekend was really really good to me.
On Monday, I had found out that the Brown Derby Series was back last weekend (one weekend only shows every time), and they were doing Xanadu! As I have a love it-love it relationship with Xanadu, and a OMG, LOVE relationship with Brown Derby, I knew this was a match made in heaven. IO re-watched Xanadu on Thursday, when I came to two realizations. 1) The movie seems like it is 4 hours long. 2) The movie is really a series of music videos strung together by a non-plot.
So, even though I was exhausted, Friday night, I went to the Brown Derby re-enactment of Xanadu, which was really good, especially the second act. I loved that Olivia Newton John was played by a guy with a deep voice whose character they named Carl. The soundtrack was spot on (lyrics to Don't Walk Away, "And now they've turned into FISH. FISH. What the fuck, they just turned into fish?!"), especially when they eschewed Suspended in Time for Grease's Hopelessly Devoted ("And, here is where Olivia Newton John sings a song that is terrible. Even in the movie it really just doesn't work. So, we've replaced it with a song from Grease.") And, all in all, one is left to wonder...when your schtick is to gay up a movie, how does one gay up an already gay movie? I mean, besides turning Gene Kelly into a weird old gay creep. And, the answer is, you really can't, so you might as well critique the movie ("Come on, let's get this plot moving finally" or, regarding Magic, "And, here is where we get a song that is just really strange. It doesn't move the plot along, build the characters, or anything. It's just there. So, we included it.").
Saturday night, I went and saw mstegosaurus perform for PANK magazine. His performance (with Fiddleback) was really good. Some of the best stuff I've seen him do in ages. And then went out with him and Adams as well as their friend whose name escapes me now, and talked the night away while a lot of people went to The Cuff for the 19th anniversary which sounded all too packed and supposedly had entirely too much Brandon. By which I mean any at all.
Sunday, was the crowning achievement of this arty weekend was going to Tacoma for their display of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in Portraiture. Now, you guys on the west coast had a display of this in Brooklyn and at the Smithsonian, and if you missed it, shame on you. It was the most fascinating, funny, and haunting, show I think I've seen. Romaine Brooks' self portrait was astoundingly moody and almost gothic. It's haunting, and just one of the best self-portraits I have ever seen. They say its lesbian encoded, but what I saw was also a lot of hiding and moodiness. It made me sad, and after I went through the whole gallery, I went and sat by this self-portrait.
Unfortunately, we didn't get Romaine Brooke's portrait of Carl Van Vechten which was AMAZING in the book they left out. It cast Van Vechten as an old white dude sitting on a high backed chair that had black boy's faces peering out of it, a commentary on VV's hetero marriage but well-known tendency to get escorts from uptown.
The two other great paintings were Thomas Eakins' Salutat and which was, quite frankly, HILARIOUS (late 1800s and the guy paints a kid wearing practically nothing going off to box showing off his assets and hetero guys clapping for him), and Paul Cadmus' What I Believe which was kind of like one of those children's picture mystery novels. It had clues upon clues upon clues in the tiniest details. The clouds formed a question mark, and there was a zombie coming out from the ground, there was a self-portrait. It was amazing.
The thing I noticed is that after we came out of the closet, the art started getting more and more encoded even though it was getting gayer and gayer. It was like we abandoned one set of codes for another. The meanings of the art started getting enshrouded in satire, repetition, irony and pop culture. Yes, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Mapplethorpe were there. And, I loved Johns' work, more and more. But, none of it compared to what had happened before in the encoding. Some of the more straightforward, post-AIDS, work was breathtaking. AA Bronson's Felix, an over-oversized painting of an AIDS patient after he died after wasting away is immediately tearjerking.
Anyways, if you're in the Seatac area, you need to see it...if you're not, the National Portrait Gallery has a decent website that offers a brief look at the portraits, and The Stranger has been showcasing some of the art not included on the NPG site, (some of which I mentioned here).
And, to top it off, Monday I watched two documentaries, "The Thin Blue Line" which was frustrating about how people can lie to save their own skin and not care about the other. And, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Exit Through the Gift Shop is a lark that is both awesome and infuriating. Its about the white portion of street art (post co-option...since it never mentions the origins as it isn't in the scope of the film). It is also either about a crazy dude who made himself into an overnight success by co-opting EVERYBODY's work if it is true, or one of the greatest business cards for a commercial art factory if it isn't. The subject of the film is Mr. Brainwash, who would be best known to most of you for doing the cover of Madonna's Celebration Greatest Hits collection. No, really. This was after he did an art showing by hiring artists and printing art...which was 6 months after giving up filmmaking. But, his work is derivative crap...and the artists seem to know it, but he made it. Did I say derivative crap? It's well done derivative crap. One of the more frequently shown work series in the film is a series of Warhol-esque screens of new famous celebrities in Marilyn Monroe's hair. John Waters did this already, by doing a series of serious movie moments and putting Farrah Fawcett hair on the frame (my favorite being the Wicked Witch of the West). MBW commodified it. In Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy points out that Andy Warhol took iconic images and made them meaningless through repetition; Mr. Brainwash, he charges, has made such images even more meaningless. It's brilliant. GO WATCH.
On Monday, I had found out that the Brown Derby Series was back last weekend (one weekend only shows every time), and they were doing Xanadu! As I have a love it-love it relationship with Xanadu, and a OMG, LOVE relationship with Brown Derby, I knew this was a match made in heaven. IO re-watched Xanadu on Thursday, when I came to two realizations. 1) The movie seems like it is 4 hours long. 2) The movie is really a series of music videos strung together by a non-plot.
So, even though I was exhausted, Friday night, I went to the Brown Derby re-enactment of Xanadu, which was really good, especially the second act. I loved that Olivia Newton John was played by a guy with a deep voice whose character they named Carl. The soundtrack was spot on (lyrics to Don't Walk Away, "And now they've turned into FISH. FISH. What the fuck, they just turned into fish?!"), especially when they eschewed Suspended in Time for Grease's Hopelessly Devoted ("And, here is where Olivia Newton John sings a song that is terrible. Even in the movie it really just doesn't work. So, we've replaced it with a song from Grease.") And, all in all, one is left to wonder...when your schtick is to gay up a movie, how does one gay up an already gay movie? I mean, besides turning Gene Kelly into a weird old gay creep. And, the answer is, you really can't, so you might as well critique the movie ("Come on, let's get this plot moving finally" or, regarding Magic, "And, here is where we get a song that is just really strange. It doesn't move the plot along, build the characters, or anything. It's just there. So, we included it.").
Saturday night, I went and saw mstegosaurus perform for PANK magazine. His performance (with Fiddleback) was really good. Some of the best stuff I've seen him do in ages. And then went out with him and Adams as well as their friend whose name escapes me now, and talked the night away while a lot of people went to The Cuff for the 19th anniversary which sounded all too packed and supposedly had entirely too much Brandon. By which I mean any at all.
Sunday, was the crowning achievement of this arty weekend was going to Tacoma for their display of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in Portraiture. Now, you guys on the west coast had a display of this in Brooklyn and at the Smithsonian, and if you missed it, shame on you. It was the most fascinating, funny, and haunting, show I think I've seen. Romaine Brooks' self portrait was astoundingly moody and almost gothic. It's haunting, and just one of the best self-portraits I have ever seen. They say its lesbian encoded, but what I saw was also a lot of hiding and moodiness. It made me sad, and after I went through the whole gallery, I went and sat by this self-portrait.
Unfortunately, we didn't get Romaine Brooke's portrait of Carl Van Vechten which was AMAZING in the book they left out. It cast Van Vechten as an old white dude sitting on a high backed chair that had black boy's faces peering out of it, a commentary on VV's hetero marriage but well-known tendency to get escorts from uptown.
The two other great paintings were Thomas Eakins' Salutat and which was, quite frankly, HILARIOUS (late 1800s and the guy paints a kid wearing practically nothing going off to box showing off his assets and hetero guys clapping for him), and Paul Cadmus' What I Believe which was kind of like one of those children's picture mystery novels. It had clues upon clues upon clues in the tiniest details. The clouds formed a question mark, and there was a zombie coming out from the ground, there was a self-portrait. It was amazing.
The thing I noticed is that after we came out of the closet, the art started getting more and more encoded even though it was getting gayer and gayer. It was like we abandoned one set of codes for another. The meanings of the art started getting enshrouded in satire, repetition, irony and pop culture. Yes, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Mapplethorpe were there. And, I loved Johns' work, more and more. But, none of it compared to what had happened before in the encoding. Some of the more straightforward, post-AIDS, work was breathtaking. AA Bronson's Felix, an over-oversized painting of an AIDS patient after he died after wasting away is immediately tearjerking.
Anyways, if you're in the Seatac area, you need to see it...if you're not, the National Portrait Gallery has a decent website that offers a brief look at the portraits, and The Stranger has been showcasing some of the art not included on the NPG site, (some of which I mentioned here).
And, to top it off, Monday I watched two documentaries, "The Thin Blue Line" which was frustrating about how people can lie to save their own skin and not care about the other. And, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Exit Through the Gift Shop is a lark that is both awesome and infuriating. Its about the white portion of street art (post co-option...since it never mentions the origins as it isn't in the scope of the film). It is also either about a crazy dude who made himself into an overnight success by co-opting EVERYBODY's work if it is true, or one of the greatest business cards for a commercial art factory if it isn't. The subject of the film is Mr. Brainwash, who would be best known to most of you for doing the cover of Madonna's Celebration Greatest Hits collection. No, really. This was after he did an art showing by hiring artists and printing art...which was 6 months after giving up filmmaking. But, his work is derivative crap...and the artists seem to know it, but he made it. Did I say derivative crap? It's well done derivative crap. One of the more frequently shown work series in the film is a series of Warhol-esque screens of new famous celebrities in Marilyn Monroe's hair. John Waters did this already, by doing a series of serious movie moments and putting Farrah Fawcett hair on the frame (my favorite being the Wicked Witch of the West). MBW commodified it. In Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy points out that Andy Warhol took iconic images and made them meaningless through repetition; Mr. Brainwash, he charges, has made such images even more meaningless. It's brilliant. GO WATCH.
