Tag: art

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Cum Tomorrow: Gyno Landscape!

If you’re in New York, you should come to this exhibition opening in tomorrow eve! It’s an all-female show, curated by the amazing Petra Collins and featuring artists like Sandy Kim, Coco Young, Jeanette Hayes Alice Lancaster, Jaimie Warren and more! Also I’m doing a live performance! (LOL) I don’t want to give too much about it away, but I’ll say that someone is def going to be getting whipped. Also, Petra and I are (or at least I think we are, anyway…) premiering a new short film we made for Purple mag. Cum one, cum all! <3

 

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Keizo Kitajima: Snapshots of the City

All images by Keizo Kitajima

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the iconic Japanese photographer, Keizo Kitajima, for Dazed and Confused mag. I’m a huge fan of his work, and regularly use his seductive, gritty black-and-white images of urban life to illustrate posts on this blog (as you may have already recognized), so I was extremely excited to chat with him. After our convo, I converted his part of the interview into a chronological oral history. And thus, below is Kitajima’s incredible life story, detailing his documentation of various cities the world over, as told by the artist himself. (There are some footnotes below the main text, for additional info.)

And FYI, Kitajima’s beautiful new photobook, USSR 1991, is being released through Little Big Man Books.

“My Father was a Shoka, a Japanese style calligrapher, and my mother was a housewife (1). Neither was very interested in art. When I was 15, I became infatuated with photography. This was in the early 70s, and a lot of art photographers has begun appearing on the scene in Japan–people like as Daido Moriyama, Shomei Tōmatsu, and Nobuyoshi Araki. They were a generation or two older than me, and as a young man I realized that their raw, artistic style of photography attracted me far more than the documentary-style photojournalism that was popular before them. That group of artists–who would later go on to become world class photographers—first inspired me to start taking my own pictures.

In 1975 I began studying under Moriyama. He didn’t teach me anything technical. However everything else about being a photographer–the attitude, the philosophy behind it, and all the things I still I believe to be important today–I learned it from Moriyama.

In the late 70s, I began photographing Tokyo at night, wandering the streets, and going into bars and clubs. During that era I shot in an area called Shinjuku, which was an extremely dense urban spot rich with underground culture and politically active students, so that excited me. Every night I went out and took photos into the early hours of the morning, and then once a month I put on an exhibition at CAMP gallery (3), where I showed my work from the previous weeks. I would cover every inch of the gallery walls with my images, and I did this every month for a year. (4) I worked constantly, and very fast. I was trying to capture the mood of the era, and how I felt within it. For me, photography was not about artistic expression; it was about what I saw and what I believed. I wanted to challenge what we as people blindly accept as being certain or “normal”–to destroy preconceived societal ideas–and in turn create a new way of looking at the world. For example, people say flowers and sunsets are beautiful, but why are we so certain that this is really true beauty? People say kids are cute, but are they really cute? I think it’s important to constantly question what we see.

In 1980 I began photographing in Okinawa. I shot mainly in Koza, the red light district near the American Air Force Base of Kadena. I didn’t have any political reason for shooting at the Okinawa base. Rather, I was drawn to it because there were so many different kinds of people there. Of course there were American soldiers, but there were also Indians, Filipinos, Koreans, etc, so there were all these different cultures rubbing shoulders, which created a strange and vibrant atmosphere. This was after the Vietnam War, so the town surrounding the base was full of an excited energy. (5) Also, I grew up in a generation that was profoundly influenced by America, so it was interesting to immerse myself within that cultural satellite. Affection, hatred, rejection, acceptance: everything was there in Okinawa, and nothing was a given. I wanted to make photographs that transcended all that.

In 1981 I went to New York and spent six months shooting the city and its nightlife, taking photos in some well known places like Mudd Club and CBGBs. What I loved about New York was that it was so chaotic and raw. You’d see a bum lying on the street right next to a superstar. I photographed people like Mick Jagger, and Madonna before she made it big. Celebrities, immigrants, drag queens, high-class, low-class—it didn’t matter. It was a city stripped bare.

After NY, I went to West Berlin, and while based there I toured all the countries in Eastern Europe. At this point I had developed a style and a “formula”, I suppose you could call it, of traveling to a place that I felt had a certain spark, walking around the city, and photographing the people inside it. From Eastern Europe I moved on to the Soviet Union. This was in 1991, so it just so happened that I was there during the final days of the Cold War, and the collapse of the USSR. Being there felt more daunting, and more extreme, than all of my previous projects combined. It was a dangerous time, and crazy things were always happening. Yeltsin had brought down the Gorbachev government and marched into Moscow on a tank. At one point I photographed the president of Georgia during his visit to the Soviet, and he was murdered only days after. Luckily though, I didn’t experience too much personal danger while I was there. The photos may make it seem like I was shooting in threatening situations, but I was always very careful to avoid danger, especially because I was always carrying so many rolls of film on me.

Looking back now, I understand that all the places I documented–from Shinjuku and Okinawa, to Koza and New York, West Berlin and the Soviet Union–were related to war. Back then I didn’t realize this; I was just going to places that instinctively felt interesting to me, and that inspired me. But today, looking back through my archive, it’s very clear that I am a man who lived through the Cold War era.

After the Soviet Union, I stopped shooting people in the cities. The reality of it started to bore me, I couldn’t find value in it anymore, so I moved on to shooting portraits and landscapes. Then, when Fukushima happened (6), I started to rethink what the concept of a landscape meant to me. I began a series of photographs of the earthquake, which I’m still working on today.

As I got older, I realized that I needed to do more than just take pictures. I wanted to create a place where people could gather together and interact with photography, and to think about and discuss the art form. Then, in 2001 I founded the Photographers’ Gallery in Tokyo, which is a venue for exhibitions, as well as a place to research old photographers, to have conversations, to listen to other photographers lecture, and to press magazines.

It’s hard for me to put into words what I love about photography, but I will try my best: for me, taking photographs is a method of meditating on society, and on history. Not in a conventional or abstract way, but in a way that is extremely visceral–I feel it in my heart, in the currents of my mind, and with my entire body. It connects me to the world.”

Ako se perineum češće preopterećuje ili sudionici su potom anonimno ispunili anketu, to ne znači da vam neće pomoći nijedan lijek, s obzirom na dugo trajanje lijeka. Sada se osjećaju kao pravi ovdje muškarci ili nije uspjelo stvoriti konkurenciju za Tadalafil, svi gore navedeni lijekovi ne dovode nužno do poremećaja erekcije.


FOOTNOTES ON KEIZO KITAJIMA

1. Keizo Kitajima was born in Nagano, Japan, in 1954.

2. Kitajima studied photography in a class run by Daido Moriyama at Tokyo’s Workshop School.

3. Kitajima was one of a group of photographers, including Moriyama and Seiji Kurata, who, formed Image Shop CAMP, an independent photography gallery in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district,  in 1976.

4. Kitajima published a series of 12 DIY booklets in 1979 to coincide with the year-long exhibition, which was called Photo Express: Tokyo. In 2012 Steidl published a photobook facsimile of these booklets, also called Photo Express: Tokyo.

5. In 1980 Kitajima published Photo Express Okinawa, a series of four booklets of his work at the base.

6. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the largest since Chernobyl in 1986, was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima  I Nuclear Power Plant that followed the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.

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Pulp Fiction

Richard Prince and the Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society, reading copies of The Catcher in the Rye, By Richard Prince

Last week I hung out at Richard Prince’s private bookstore, Fulton Ryder. The store’s shelves are full of Prince’s amazing collection of old pulp novels, and the walls are covered in original pulp cover art. The books tend to favor themes of drugs and sinful lesbian affairs–two of my favorite things, especially when combined—and have catchy names like LSD Lusters, Gay Interlude, and Pussies and Pot.

Sexy drug stuff:

Also casually hanging at Fulton Ryder was the Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society, obviously. TPF are a group of girls who hang around with their boobs out reading pulp fiction, as I suppose their name makes pretty clear. Their motto is “making reading sexy,” although I might amend that to “making reading sexier,” as we all know reading is the sexiest extracurricular activity (way sexier than football, which is actually quite violent/scary). As John Waters said, “We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them!”

The girls spent the afternoon sexily reading selections from Prince’s pulp collection, and eating cupcakes. The group generally do their topless reading in public, mainly in parks, as a way of taking advantage of the (rarely exercised) right of women to go topless in New York. This isn’t the case everywhere in the USA—remember the Open Carry Topless girl? She’s the girl who protested New Hampshire’s open carry law by walking around topless with a pistol strapped to her waist. In NH it’s legal to casually walk the streets with a loaded gun in your hand, but illegal to show some nipple. (#America) Thank god for NYC, where we are free to bralessly read romance novels wherever we please.

Anywayz, I really enjoyed hanging out with the TPF because they’re all really sweet, and also because it was just cool to be the most-clothed person in a room for once.

Prince surrounded by topless babes reading copies of his appropriated novel, The Catcher in the Rye, by Richard Prince:

Pulp babes posing in Prince’s studio, next to some art-in-progress:

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In Defense of Hipsters

Pic @ Sandy Kim

By now many of you probably know about the recent New York Times article, “How to Live Without Irony,” by Christy Wampole, since it’s been getting so much attention that it basically exploded the internet. For those of you who don’t, Wampole’s article is a superficial analysis of “hipster” culture in which she scoffs at our generation for its lack of sincerity, and for viewing the world through irony-tinted glasses. Here’s how it begins:

“If irony is the ethos of our age — and it is — then the hipster is our archetype of ironic living. The hipster haunts every city street and university town. Manifesting a nostalgia for times he never lived himself, this contemporary urban harlequin appropriates outmoded fashions (the mustache, the tiny shorts), mechanisms (fixed-gear bicycles, portable record players) and hobbies (home brewing, playing trombone). He harvests awkwardness and self-consciousness. Before he makes any choice, he has proceeded through several stages of self-scrutiny. The hipster is a scholar of social forms, a student of cool. He studies relentlessly, foraging for what has yet to be found by the mainstream. He is a walking citation; his clothes refer to much more than themselves. He tries to negotiate the age-old problem of individuality, not with concepts, but with material things.”

Perhaps someone forgot to inform Christy that it’s 2012, and that most of the urban world has now moved on from this, because people finally accepted that there was no succinct definition of the vague term “hipster.” Not only was her article a word-salad, but it was so DATED that I felt physical pangs of second-hand embarrassment while reading it. I’m not generally one to respond to any of the ubiquitous “anti-hipster” commentary, because I feel that anyone who mocks hipsters is so obviously doing so out of cluelessness and jealousy, that simply being the hipster-mocker is punishment enough. How embarrassing and shameful to be you, hipster mocker, for your lack of self-awareness. Surely people by now understand that if the term “hipster” stands for anything it’s simply someone who is culturally aware, stylish, and who has an obscure knowledge of interesting music, film and art. Do people seriously not realize that mocking someone for being cool, interesting and stylish only highlights the fact that you are none of these things?! Helllooooo!

Christy also invites us to analyze ourselves, and check for symptoms of the dreaded irony disease:

“Here is a start: Look around your living space. Do you surround yourself with things you really like or things you like only because they are absurd? Listen to your own speech. Ask yourself: Do I communicate primarily through inside jokes and pop culture references? What percentage of my speech is meaningful? How much hyperbolic language do I use? Do I feign indifference? Look at your clothes. What parts of your wardrobe could be described as costume-like, derivative or reminiscent of some specific style archetype (the secretary, the hobo, the flapper, yourself as a child)? In other words, do your clothes refer to something else or only to themselves? Do you attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or ugly? In other words, is your style an anti-style? The most important question: How would it feel to change yourself quietly, offline, without public display, from within?”

BARF. As if people who like to dress wacky are automatically invalid as humans.

Irony is a good thing; it’s our way of undressing the world, of viewing people and things and situations on multiple levels. Take away irony and you just become a one-dimensional yoga person who loves astrology and talks to strangers about your aura. Well, no one gives a shit about your fucking aura, and no one gives a shit about you either Christy, which is clearly why you wrote this bullshit, redundant article: out of resentment. In my opinion, your article felt less like an honest analysis and more like a personal vendetta–you’re angry at yourself for for being so uncool, or some hipster didn’t sleep with you, or whatever. Your article went in way deeper than was necessary, a sign of distress. If only you had original ideas, then you wouldn’t be left regurgitating the same Midwestern mom-talk bullshit we’ve been hearing since 2006.

When I emailed Hamilton hoping that he would share in my anger, he replied only: “Did you Google image search the author? I can neo-sincerely say that anyone who has such awkward self portraits online is incapable of saying anything of value.” And then I did Google her, and found the selection of photos you see below, in which she is apparently 100% honestly posing with her face reflected in a broken mirror, which I can only assume is a totally non-ironic representation of her fragmented soul. LOLOLOLOL.

Casually and sincerely reading an ancient book NBD

Also, as a recent VICE article points out, Wampole is in a really shitty band with a SELF-WRITTEN WIKIPEDIA PAGE. I legit can not think of anything more #tragic.

Hipster bashing is essentially cool bashing, and I feel like I need to point out that being cool is not a bad thing, because the opposite of cool is someone who’s boring and uninteresting and normal and looks like shit. And it’s better to be cool than uninteresting. OF COURSE IT IS. And anyone who argues otherwise is quite obviously uncool.

Irony is the backbone of humor, Christy, and you are clearly a humorless, frigid bore. Of course it would be unattractive if an entire generation was just ironic, and nothing else, but that is far from the situation. So, please feel free to continue being sincere, taking humorless photos of your shadow reflected in ponds, and dressing in clothes that reference nothing except the TJ Maxx sale rack. But please do so far, far away from me, because you’re cramping my trendy, irreverent, ironically slutty, Williamsburg blogger-chick style. Or whatever. I don’t actually care. #aloof

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Gurl Crushes

1. Stacey Mark

I have a total girl crush on the NYC photographer Stacey Mark, which you may have already gathered from my frequent use of her photographs in recent posts. What I love about Stacey’s images is that they’re incredibly sexy, but at the same time remain so subtle and pure and feminine. They’re like photos from a 70s issue of Playboy, except dreamier and more cinematic. And she makes girls with all sorts of body types look fucking amazing! And Stacey is cool in person too: she has a really monotone, Daria-style voice, super long brown hair, and has mastered the comfy-chic tomboy thing that Charlotte Gainsbourg and Juliette Lewis do so well and I always wish I could do better. Sometimes Stacey and I hang out and chain smoke and talk about how stupid boys are, and the whole scene makes me feel like I’m the star of an alt teen movie in 1997.

Stacey shoots for mags like Purple, Oyster, Vice, Self Service, and Jacques. She actually took some pics of me for Purple, some of which you can see below, and we also made a video together.

 

2. Girl Crisis

If you’re hungover or on a comedown, or if you’re going through a breakup or your cat just died or if you failed a test, or if you’re just casually feeling suicidal, don’t worry, I have the perfect thing to cheer you up! Girl Crisis is an all-girl, indie supergroup from New York who perform covers of famous songs in alt living rooms and film it with a Super 8 camera. In the past they’ve covered artists like Nirvana, Leonard Cohen and (yes!) Ace of Base. I swear, these Girl Crisis videos are a saving grace whenever I’m feeling blue. They perfectly satisfy that whole nostalgic, teenage, Virgin Suicides, oh-it’s-so-hard-being-a-girl thing that sometimes you just need to give in and indulge, especially if you’re having a particularly angsty period week. Girls in the band include members of Chairlift, Au Revoir Simone, Class Actress and Apache Beat. Wistful sigh…




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Danny’s Boys

All images by Danny Fields
 
I interviewed my friend and hero, Danny Fields, for the current issue of the radical sex mag, Richardson. The article is pasted below, along with a selection of Danny’s amazingly hot and beautiful Polaroids, which have never been published until now! I wrote a different article about Danny last year, but that was mainly about his rock n’ roll photography and his life as a punk icon, where this is an article about his pornography. Enjoy!

As the long-standing manager of the Ramones, Danny Fields was a legend of the New York punk scene. He was also the man responsible for signing the Stooges, MC5, and Nico, editor of the iconic 16 magazine, and the journalist who caused global hysteria when he quoted John Lennon saying he was “more famous than Jesus.” In the 90s, Fields catalogued the glory days with the release of Please Kill Me: an Oral History of Punk, but he’s yet to address his other passion from the era.

In the 1970s Danny Fields started making pornography. Production was straightforward: bringing back groups of boys to his apartment and giving scant direction, he captured whatever ensued on a simple Polaroid camera. Forty years later, his collection of images now reaches into the thousands. He keeps them in his closet, tucked safely away in a gigantic storage container, roomy enough to sleep two grown men with minimal discomfort.

“They were all prostitutes,” says Fields of the boys in the pictures. “Well, prostitutes sounds too glamorous; they were hustlers. I’d pick then up in the street or at prostitute bars, and then one always seemed to bring the others. You’d pay them forty dollars or something, and they’d pretty much do whatever you told them to. This was before AIDS and the internet, so people weren’t so paranoid. A lot of them are dead now, and a lot of them—I never even knew their names.”

Fields is less interested in the actual act of penetration and more interested in everything else—enemas, dildos, stretching, kissing, piss, etc. “You can see fucking in movies,” he explains, “so it’s not that exciting. I’d rather watch them play doctor.” As he reminiscences through a photo album, Fields points out a photo of two Native American boys sitting naked on a couch. “These two were brothers,” he says. “Well, one day they were brothers and then the next day they’d say, ‘Actually we’re not brothers, we’re just from the same tribe.’ And then the next day they’d be back to being brothers again. What was I supposed to do, give them a blood test? Either way, they made a great couple.”

When asked if he was ever in love with any of the boys in the pictures, Fields looks mildly disgusted. “I was never in love with any of these boys. Sure, I liked some of them more than others, but I’ve never been in love with anyone in my entire life. I believe that love exists—my God, I’ve read 800 pages of Proust on what it’s like to be in love—but I’ve never gotten there. I tried having a boyfriend once, but then he always wanted to talk when I was trying to read. It didn’t work out.”

Fields asserts that the photos are a testament to his belief that the best sex is the kind you pay for. “I just think it’s best to fuck whores,” he says. “I’ve never been in a situation where being emotionally involved with a person has made the sex better. While I’m fucking someone I care about them, and that’s enough for me—that’s where it means something. I want sex to be so intense that I’m not thinking about anything else. The loving part is distracting: who’s going to pay the rent, who didn’t clean the bathroom, that kind of stuff.” He shrugs, “After I cum I just want a trap door to open and whoever I’m with to fall through the floor.”

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Pee Comix and Such

Here’s the latest comic strip made for me by my pee slave, Brad. Brad makes me one of these lovely little drawings every time we meet up for a golden shower session. Seriously, the guy loves drinking my pee so much, he can never seem to get enough of the stuff. (Except maybe for that one time where he literally puked back up my urine in front of me– apparently that time he had a little too much.)

I’ve recently been feeling tempted to taste my pee myself, to see what all the fuss is about, as according to Brad it tastes so good I could “bottle it and sell it for gold.” I asked my boyfriend to taste it the other day too, but he just said “Eww no” and then told me to leave his apartment. After I promised not to pee on him he said I could stay, but then later when I asked him if he wanted to experiment with my new horsetail butt-plug (#PonyPlay) he made a disgusted face and then told me to leave again.

How could anyone not find this hot?!

Finally I gave up and asked him if he would just have normal, non-pee, non-horsetail sex with me, and he said “Only if you help me take down the trash.” I agreed and then we had sex and it was really great. The end.

On to the comic!

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Aurel Schmidt Talks Art and Sex

Aurel by Terry Richardson for Purple mag

I recently interviewed Aurel Schmidt for Oyster Magazine. It was for their all-women issue, which also featured Lena Dunham, Tavi Gevinson, Shalom Harlow, Petra Collins, Stacey Mark, Cass Bird, Nite Jewel, Bambi Northwood-Blyth and a bunch more! Check it out, it’s on stands now. I wrote an advice column for it as well. I was really excited to interview Aurel because I’m a big fan of her art, and also partly because @DevHynes and I are always mentioning her in our weekly conversations about the “most authentically cool people in New York.” (Yikes, maybe keep it a secret that we actually have conversations like that…) You can read our chat about art, group sex and jerking-off below.

If you hang out in or around the New York art scene, you’ve probably been intimidated by the presence of Aurel Schmidt at some point or another. Her hyper-real pencil drawings, combined with her intentionally sleazy public persona and signature thick-rimmed glasses, have transformed Schmidt into a young icon. Her excruciatingly detailed artworks are typically decorated with the scraps of her life–stuff like condom wrappers, crushed beers cans, lipstick, Klonopin capsules, and her boyfriend’s chest hair. The result is something at once sophisticated, funny, girly and gross, powered by her incredible technical skill.

Schmidt is from the industrial city of Kamloops, British Columbia. Her career took off in 2006, rising to fame within a rebellious New York art scene led by artists like Ryan McGinley, Dash Snow and Dan Colen. She has since been handpicked by Jeffrey Deitch for a solo show, and was chosen as part of the 2010 Whitney Museum Biennial. At the moment Schmidt is working on a photo book of her husband, singer Donald Cumming of the band The Virgins, as well as creating a new body of work in preparation for her upcoming solo show, opening in London in the Spring of 2013.

What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve been making a new kind of art that’s very fast. Not many people know this, but I’m taking a year off from making the drawings I was making before, because it was getting too comfortable.

What’s the new work like?
I can’t really talk about it, because then it won’t be a surprise at the London show. But I’m having fun doing it, because it’s very immediate. Like if I feel sad and start drawing, right away I’ll be able to see this emotional landscape unfold, where with the old work, because it took so long to make, one part of a drawing might feel one way, and another part might feel totally different.

How much do you cater your art to what you know people want to buy?
It depends. I’m good at making money, but I’m also really good at saying no to people and not giving them what they want, which, paradoxically, I think is a key to making money and being successful. Because if you give people what they want all the time, then what’s left for them to want?

What else is integral to success?
You have to keep having goals. You can’t just hang around with people who think you’re cool; you have to constantly want to expand your peer group–to be around smart and talented people who challenge you.

Have you noticed in New York a common way to insult someone is to call them a “social climber”?
Yeah, everyone says that. I’ve been called a social climber since the first week I moved to this city. But if you’re interested in art, it makes sense that you would want to go to events where you can meet other artists, and become involved with a crowd you actually respect. I think every ambitious person in New York is in some facet a ladder climber, but I don’t think it’s bad. What’s the opposite: taking the moralistic path and waiting for some omnipotent figure to come down from the clouds and say, “I see that you are talented, let me take you to the stars”? That doesn’t exist; it’s a fantasy.

Something I’ve always admired about you is that you seem like a very sex positive person, and you’re confident in your body and don’t give a shit about being photographed naked.
I’ve always taken explicit photos. When I started getting press, I really resented that most of the press for female artists–and for females in general–was so sexualized. As a woman, even if what you do has nothing to do with what you look like, magazines and newspapers will try to create this image of you as the “cute” or “sexy” artist, because they want to sell issues. Whereas a male artist will just be photographed standing in his studio. That’s such a cheesy double standard, so I thought, “You know what might be better than trying to be cute?–just being complete slutty. You want a sexy picture of me? Well here, have a look at my vagina. I’ll just give you what you want right away. You don’t have to wonder anymore.”

Your public persona is hyper sexual, but you art doesn’t seem to reflect that side of you as much.
The art has sexual elements to it, like there’s some graphic sexual stuff within the drawings, like vaginas and dicks and condoms, but it’s done more to gross people out or make them laugh than it is to turn people on. If you want to get turned on by naked people you can look at porn–why would I try to compete with that? I would rather draw new ideas of what I think sexiness is. I love having sex, but glorifying how wonderful it is has been done many times, so I’m not interested in that as much. I’m more interested in the social complexities of things like gender roles, what people find sexy, the taboos around sex organs…

Sex as social commentary.
Right. And sex as something you can create an atmosphere around. I find it weird when people are so set on what they think “sexy” is, as if it’s carved in stone. The standard of what society deems “sexy” is so molded by capitalism–it goes in and out of style, just like everything else. But this freaks me out, because ideally sex should almost be sacred, because it’s free, theoretically. It’s not a commodity, like clothes. Or art.

Speaking of sex and money, is it worth it to buy a vibrator when you can just use your own hand for free?
Well, they can be really useful when you’re lazy, like when you just want to cum because you can’t get to sleep. But you have to figure out what works for you. Sometimes you have to put a piece of cloth in between you and the thing–you can’t just put in right on there.

Good advice. So you have a “type”, sexually?
Nope, I like all kinds of people. I’ve been with guys who are big, small, skinny, I’ve slept with multiple fat guys–whatever.

Have you ever slept with a girl?
Nope.

That’s surprising, you kind of have lesbian vibes.
I know, people say that. I feel like I’ve had the opportunity to sleep with very beautiful women, but it just doesn’t turn me on to envision going all the way through with it. Kissing sounds fun, but when it comes time to go home I’d rather just find some dude to fuck.

Would you ever want to sleep with a girl in a threesome situation?
Whenever someone I was dating asked me to have a threesome in the past, I always responded by asking, “Could we have sex with another guy?” And they always said, “Eww, no!” But that’s how I would want it to be.

I don’t think guys understand that girls want that.
It would be great! Like when I see double penetration in porn–I’m down for all that. You’re just getting so much attention, and all parts of you are being touched at the same time, it would be such a turn on.

Agreed.
I think the issue with having a threesome with someone you’re dating, though, is that it can create problems within your relationship. I had one friend a long time ago tell me that you should never have a threesome if you’re really in love with the person you’re with, because the minute you look up and see them fucking that other person, maybe it will turn you on, but there’s also the chance that it won’t and then you’ll be stuck with that image forever.

In the past I’ve considered being with other people while in a serious relationship, like having an “open relationship”, because it seems crazy to try to maintain a monogamous relationship forever. And at first it seems great, but then you think, “But what about me feeling abandoned, or scared of being left?” It’s a psychological quagmire, because when you love someone it’s almost like they become part of you, and you project your deepest fears onto them, so it becomes hard to be really tough and cool about everything.

And even if you set rules and say, “We’re allowed fuck other people, but we can’t get emotionally attached,” realistically you always run the risk of falling for someone else.
Totally. Also, I think for guys it’s normal to want to fuck a girl one time just because she’s hot, even if she’s a total moron. But “hot” is very objective for women–it’s not just a physical thing. For girls, if we think a guy is hot it probably also means he’s cool and interesting and has good style–

And is a little bit famous…
Right. So then you’re like, “Wow, I’m sleeping with someone cool and hot and famous… I want to hang out with him more!” And that’s where it becomes dangerous.

In the 70s Germaine Greer promoted the idea that women should start fucking like men, so more objectively–an idea that Madonna adopted in the 80s. Do you think it’s inherently harder for women to view men as sex objects?
A little bit, but I’ve done that, too. For a while when I was single I just fucked under twenty-five year old skaters. Sometimes the young ones aren’t so good in bed, but they’re so energetic and excited to be fucking you that it makes up for it. Whereas some older guys are really good at eating pussy, but their energy spans are really low and they’ve had sex so many times that they’re just like, “Yawn…”

That’s true. Wow, I feel like this has been so insightful in both an art way and a “sex advice” way.
Great, I’m glad!

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Portrait of a Generation at THE HOLE


 

Hey guys! I’m part of a group show that’s opening tomorrow at The Hole gallery in NYC. The show is called “Portrait of a Generation”. Over 100 artists who make up the art scene here have made portraits of each other, intended to serve as a kind of yearbook for New York City in 2012. I did a portrait of Matthew Stone, and he did one of me. All the artists in the show are listed below. Some of my faves are in that list! So exciting! Come to the opening if you are around. FB invite HERE.

June 7 – August 10, 2012

OPENING June 7, 6-9PM

Aaron Rose
Adam Tullie
Adam Schleimer
Alex Prager
Alexey Sizov
Alison Blickle
Allison Schulnik
Anders Oinonen
Andrea Sonnenberg
Andre Saravia
Andrew Jeffrey Wright
Andrew Kuo
Angeline Rivas
Ari Marcoplolous
Ashley Macomber
Aurel Schmidt
Assume Vivid Astro Focus
Barry McGee
Bec Stupac
Ben Brock
Ben Jones
Bijoux Altimirano
Bill Powers
Billy Grant
Body By Body
Brengar
Brian Belott
Brian Degraw
Brian Kenney
Brain McPeck
Bruce High Quality
Bruce Labruce
Cass Bird
Caroline Snow
Casey Spooner
Chelsea Seltzer
Cheryl Dunn
Chris Johanson
Christian Rosa
Clare Rojas
Clayton Patterson
Cody Critcheloe
Colette Robbins
Cynthia Rowley
Dash Snow
Donald Baechler
Donald Cummings
Dustin Yellin
Eddie Martinez
Enno Tianen
Eric Cahan
Erik Foss
Eric Yahnker
Evan Gruzis
Fab Five Freddy
Francesca Gavin
Glenn O’Brien
Gordon Hull
Grant Worth
Hisham Bharoocha
Holton Rower
IO Tillet Wright
Isaac Lin
Jack Donoghue
Jack Pierson
Jaimie Warren
Jane Moseley
JD Samson
Jeanette Hayes
Jeff Ladouceur
Jeff Vespa
Jeremy Kost
Jesse Edwards
Jesse Geller
Jiannis Varelas
Jim Drain
JIM JOE
Jo Jackson
Joe Bradley
Joe Grillo
Joe Rushe
Joey Frank
John Holland
Jonah Freedman
Jorge Ulrich
Josh Lazcano
Justin Lowe
Kadar Brock
Karley Sciortino
Kathy Grayson
KATSU
Keegan McHargue
Kembra Pfahler
Kenny Scharf
Kevin Baker
Kris Kahler
Kristy Leibowitz
Kunle Martins
Lance De Los Reyes
Lele Savieri
Leo Fitzpatrick
Levi Tate
Libby Black
Lizzi Bougatsos
Lola Schnabel
Malcolm Stuart
Marc Bell
Maria Robledo
Maripol
Mark Cross
Matt Jones
Matt Leines
Matt Stone
Matthew Craven
Matthew Stone
Max Snow
McDermott & McGough
Micah Ganske
Mike Namer
Miz Metro
N Dash
Naomi Fisher
Olivier Zahm
Parker Ito
Peter Sutherland
Rachel Chandler
Raymond Pettibon
Renee Ricard
Robert Lazzarini
Ry Fyan
Ryan McGinley
Sam Moyer
Sandy Kim
Scott Ewalt
Scott Hug
Scott Reeder
Seana Gavin
Sharon Needles
Shoplifter
Slater Bradley
Slava Mogutin
Spencer Sweeney
Stefan Bondell
Steve Powers
Sue Webster
Susy Oliveira
Taylor McKimens
Terence Koh
Theo Rosenblum
ThreeAsFour
Tim Biskup
Tim Hull
Tim Noble
Tjorg Douglas Beer
Todd James
Vanessa Prager
Wes Lang
Yamataka Eye
Yoko Ono
 
 
 

And while I have your attention, I’d also like to say that I’m reading a short story at this event on Friday night at the People’s Improv Theater in NYC. I’ve never read anything out loud before in my entire life forever, so come watch this once in a lifetime milestone. FB invite HERE.

And while I have your attention again, I’m also having a post-milestone DJ set at a pop-up restaurant/bar/art gallery/trendy Williamsburg relevant happening event space on Friday night. I’ll be “DJing” with my friend Adri Murguia. FB invite HERE.

“The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.” -Britney Spears
 
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Hanging with SSION

I wrote a feature about one of my favorite bands, SSION, for the current issue of Twin magazine. That’s the Twin cover up there on the left. You can read the article below. All images aside from the mag cover were taken by the fabulous Jaimie Warren. SSION also did a “Day in the Life” post for Slutever a few months ago that you can check out HERE.

In a cluttered art studio in Brooklyn, a boy in a purple tuxedo applies a new layer of sparkly shadow to his eyelids. He’s hot, which is semi confusing considering he looks like a totally insane freak gender-fuck, and has a unibrow and a lazy eye, and his ratty wig is crooked and his teeth are covered in lipstick. But there’s something about this boy that’s overwhelmingly magnetic. Like you can’t help but want to put all of him in your mouth.

This is Cody Critcheloe, the brain behind the unhinged art beast that is SSION. Since its genesis in 1997, Ssion has released three albums, toured with the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Fisherspooner, made a feature film, directed music videos for artists like Peaches and the Gossip, exhibited art in cities all over the world, and has shocked, awed, and confused thousands in the process. Last spring, Cody performed a week of shows at MoMA’s PS1 museum in Queens to debut Ssion’s third album, Bent. The show–which included more than 30 performers, a live band, half-naked cowboy backup dancers, and massive video projections in SSION’s signature deranged pop art aesthetic–was an epic extravaganza of music, performance and film, and confirmed Cody’s place as a true art revolutionary. A punk prophet to a global army of freak disciples.

“I think a lot of people know about SSION, but they’re ultimately confused about what it is or what it’s supposed to do,” smiles Cody, “but I actually think that’s sort of cool. Most often people think SSION is a band, but it’s not really. There are times when I play with a live band, but it always changes depending on what kind of music I want to make at the time. Who I collaborate with depends on the nature of each individual project. So SSION is essentially just my thing, but there are other people involved at different stages who are hugely important to what it sounds like and what it looks like.”

The spectacle that is SSION (pronounced shun) began getting attention in the early 2000s. Cody was living in Kansas City at the time, studying at the Kansas City Art Institute. It was there that he formed a group of friends who would soon become infamous for their collective creativity, their outrageous costumes and make-up, and their twisted sense of humor. The close knit art collective, which also included photographer Jaimie Warren (who took the photos that accompany this article) and performance artist Collin Self, spent their time putting on performances, organizing parties and exhibitions, and making public access TV shows. From an outsider’s perspective, their lives seemed totally fantastical, extreme, and enviously cool. “People always ask me if Kansas City was as crazy as it seemed,” explains Cody, “and it was and it wasn’t. We were always doing stuff and making things, but most of the time it was purely for pictures to be taken, or to make a video that we’d put on Youtube. A large part of what motivated us was creating an illusion for people outside of KC, and I guess it worked.”

Cody’s Kansas City crew were also largely involved in the artwork and videos connected to SSION’s first two albums–Opportunity Bless My Soul (Version City Records, 2003) and Fool’s Gold (Sleazetone Records, 2007). They also took part in the creation of Boy, a feature length film comprised of SSION’s previous music videos strung together with mockumentary live footage, which premiered at Peres Projects in LA in 2010. “Something that’s really strange,” says Cody “is that since I moved to Brooklyn last year people will check me out the street, which is so crazy to me because that never happened in Kansas city. It’s such a different mindset here. People in KC thought I was such a freak. The thought of getting laid or hooking up wasn’t something I consumed myself with while I lived there, because it didn’t even seem like a possibility. I almost stopped thinking of myself as a sexual being, and I think other people in our group felt that as well. The scene was so small–it was really just our group of friends–so we weren’t going to date each other, and no one from outside the scene would have even looked twice at any of use, because we were just too far gone for them. So it sort of removed any need or desire we had to be sexually attractive. I think that was part of the reason we all looked so crazy and dressed up so much, because no one cared about looking hot.”

The very first incarnation of SSION, however, dates back to Cody’s pre-Kansas days, when he was still in high school in rural Kentucky. “I released a tape on a 4-track called SSION when I was about sixteen,” he remembers. “I did it all myself but when I played live I had my friends from the town play backup. This girl Rachel would be reading spoken word poetry and screaming, and we didn’t have a drum kit so we used pots and pans as percussion. You know, just sounding as horrible as we possibly could. After I made the first SSION cassette tape I sent it out to all these indie labels, thinking I was going to become part of the whole Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear movement. They were my idols. From my small town perspective they seemed extremely famous.”

Cody’s description of his childhood is like something out of s movie: boy raised in a small, Southern Baptist town by a teenage mother; boy grows up to be a gay, dog collar wearing goth freak; boy escapes to become an internet celebrity, etc. “My town was really tiny,” he says, “like there were only 50 people in my graduating class. It was a dry county, so there was no alcohol, and it was in the middle of nowhere so you had to drive over 30 minutes to get to the nearest mall or movie theater, or to do anything really. It’s a really meth-y town too, because there are so many factories. Like there’s a paper mill, an aluminum factory—everyone has these long shift kind of jobs, so it makes sense. I didn’t realize how druggy it was until after I left. On some level I was really clueless about my surroundings there. I knew more about what was happening in other places than most people, but I was sort of separate from that town in a weird way.”

While his peers were huffing glue in fields wearing Korn hoodies, Cody spent his high school days reading queercore zines and listening to Riot Grrrl. “Suckdog, Dame Darcy, Pussy Galore—those were the biggest deals for me, and I would send always send them the various tapes and fanzines I made. When I was nineteen I wrote Lisa Carver [of Suckdog] a letter every single day until she responded. For some reason I just wanted her to acknowledge my existence. Then when I started making videos I would send them to Vaginal Davis and Bruce LaBruce. I wanted them to critique my work, and sometimes they actually would. When I met Bruce in person thirteen year later he remembered the zine that I sent him. Man, he’s so cool.”

When asked if he’s close with his parents, and if they are fans of his work, Cody gives a halfhearted shrug. “I talk to my mom every now and then,” he says. “She’s an odd mix. When I was growing up we had a satellite dish and we would always watch MTV together. She was into Def Leopard and Poison and all the hair metal stuff. So she sort of gets it, and she thinks I’m pretty funny, but she’s also Southern Baptist. Deep down I think she likes what I’m doing, but she would prefer not to know too much about it because it’s too much for her to handle. I just went off the deep end in her world.”

On the day of this interview, Cody is in the process of editing together the music video for Bent’s first single, “Phy-chic”–a euphoric dance track with a chorus that croons, sometimes I think about you every day. The video sees Cody in a neon computer universe, sashaying about amid flying peace signs, acid smileys and puppy dogs. “I wanted to make something really commercial but also really gross and fucked up,” he says. “I wanted it to reference all that internet art, but also sort of make fun of it because I actually hate that aesthetic. I think it’s disgusting.”

The video will be premier this Summer, alongside the physical release of Bent. [The album will be released through a Brooklyn based indie label which at the time of publication Cody wished not to disclose]. However, most SSION fans are already familiar with the record, as Cody put it up as a free download on the SSION website last Summer to coincide with his MoMA performances. Working along artists like Fischerspooner, Teengirl Fantasy and Azari & III, SSION’s new material is anthemic, empowering, and apologetically gay–a guilty pleasure you don’t have to feel guilty about. At its purest, Bent is an incredible pop album. Think Prince meets a Richard Simmons workout video meets a children’s TV show from the 90s where everyone is tripping on DMT. “I feel like over the past couple years I’ve gotten more comfortable as a song writer, both lyrically and musically,” Cody explains, “and with Bent my ambition was just to write good pop songs. I once made a record during a weird period where I was trying to prove to myself that I was a ‘serious songwriter.’ It totally backfired, and since then I’ve tried to approach music in a genuinely punk way, where you just doing give a fuck, and you do exactly what you want. And if what you want is to make a cheesy pop song, then fucking go for it.”

SSION has grown from Cody’s gay-disco-meets-punk-rock experiment into an internationally renowned art machine. Many people have contributed to building the myth that surrounds the project, and helped to actualize Cody’s pure vision. Truly original, SSION is redefining the way we think about punk and about modern pop music, and has turned Cody into a cult hero in the process. “Sure, I know gay kids and weird kids are into what I do, but at the same time there are people who are into Dungeons and Dragons and Frank Zappa fans who get the SSION,” Cody laughs. “But, I try not to think about that stuff too deeply. My only job is to create the best art that I can, because if I’m making music that I love, then I know I’m doing the right thing for myself and for other people.”