(Video shot by Susan M. Kirschbaum, front row bench shot; Please credit accordingly)
In 1991, a procession from St. Brigid’s Church marched in protest through Tomkins Square Park to respond to police offensives to close the park, enforce curfews, and clear out hundreds of homeless people, drug addicts, and skinheads who hung out there.
In 2009, this past Saturday, the artist and provocateur Terence Koh whitewashed a group of volunteers to re-stage a peaceful protest in the East Village park, as part of Performa’s arts festival. What Koh’s white knights did not expect: the little black boy who mistook them for Ku Klux Klan. In the video above, listen closely at the outset to hear the kid say, “Are you supposed to be the KKK?” Then he won’t relent in his questioning as he comes around the front. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”
Koh trained them well. Not one flinched. The kid’s got real balls of fire, especially if he thought these guys were promoting white power. GUTSY. GENIUS.
R-L: Julie Ragolia with designer Frank Tell (in original Kanzai Yamamoto jacket) and some of Tell’s Spring 2010 designs
(Left photo, shot by Susan M. Kirschbaum at Frank’s birthday;other pix from runway shots)
This week Sophie Theallet won the top $20o,ooo prize from Vogue for the CFDA Fashion Fund. I don’t get it because Theallet’s designs look like boxy caftans. You’d never know she worked over a decade for slink master Azzedine Alaia. But alas, probably her provenance with Alaia, a one of a kind, and her friendship with sensational cosmetic prince Francois Nars got Anna Wintour to anoint her despite (in my humble opinion), a lack of talent to make a woman look sexy or desirable.
Wink and turn the other way, specifically at Macau restaurant last Wednesday, and you’d spy ingenue Frank Tell boogying down to the Strokes with stylist Natasha Royt and other lovelies who LOVE him. Not without cause. Yes, it was Scorpio Frank’s mere 23rd birthday, but the boy obviously adores a woman’s body. His leather legging feel like second skins and the fitted jackets scream VA VA VOOM! The kid’s here to stay. Wake up Barney’s and sign him up. This self taught kid who apprenticed with Sue Stemp and ThreeAsFour could use some funds and push. He knows enough to invest and wear a Kanzai Yamamoto jacket (Kanzai wardrobed David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour.) Hot chicks love Tell. Leave the frumpsters to the provenance…..
Meanwhile, the art world’s picking pranks as Creative Time — the organization that funds public works by artists — threw a fundraiser slumber themed party at the ACE Hotel. Will Cotton, the artist known for his paintings of pin up girls surrounded by creamy tarts, designed some cotton pj’s with cupcake graphics ($150 a pop through Creative Time.) Or you can catch Cotton at Partners and Spade this Sunday from noon to six, where he’ll be frosting cakes for sale. PartnersandSpade
Quite interesting in challenging economic times to note the difference between how fashion picks its winners based on A list popularity, then to see the art crowd gassing around half dressed.
CURIOUS: Vogue Fashion Fund winner Sophie Theallet hides women’s bodies
CLICK MORE LINE! FOR PEEK AT GINA NANNI AND WILL COTTON’S CUPCAKE PAJAMAS…..
Designer Valentino Garavani waves goodbye for the 80th time! Ciao belli!
Just like Cher, Barbra Steisand, and other performers who threaten the “final show,” couture and pret a porter designer Valentino Garavani made his upteenth appearance the other night at a party at the Standard Hotel. Since retiring from his eponymous line a couple years ago, I have seen this man circling the buffet at Lever House parties, hanging out with fashion hens in cocktail filled living rooms, rightfully attending all the premieres of his documentary film, “Valentino, the Last Emperor,” but then co-hosting a reprise screening event with Gwyneth Paltrow only several days ago. Now he’s feting the DVD release at the Boom Boom Room. Please, Madonna, socialites, and all you who claim to love him, take pity on this guy. He’s BORED AS HELL. Convince him to start designing again. I’d rather see him appear every blue moon for a collection then at every open bar in the city. HE’S NOT NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY. HE’S A TREASURE. LET’S KEEP HIM THAT WAY.
New work by artist Paul McCarthy
(**All words and photos by Susan M. Kirschbaum)
Paul McCarthy is nothing if not controversial. He started (surprisingly) as a performance artist notorious for covering himself in ketchup and sticking a Barbie doll up his ass. Yet McCarthy has proven himself ten fold as a gifted sculptor of animals, including pigs who sometimes double as politicians, and Snow White with a bunch of dirty dwarves, a perennial favorite. His etchings of Ms. White, the dwarves, princes, and clowns in fellatio and other turn ons (or offs, depending on your perspective) reveal McCarthy to possess a gifted detailed hand that draws you into the action, like it or not.
Last night’s opening uptown brought out noted artists like video master Tony Oursler, painters Rita Ackermann and Hope Atherton, Nate Lowman and exacting photographer Roni Horn. McCarthy’s an artist’s artist, respected for a no holes barred interpretation of fantasy, sexuality, and the subliminal, which under a lesser creative talent would come off as cheap.
When I broached McCarthy about his subjects — all objects of fetish, whether Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, KOOL cigarettes, big penises, or Snow White — he paused a moment. “I don’t know if they’re fantasies.” He said, his eyes alighted under a shock of white hair and a beard that makes him look like one of the dwarves himself. “Well, you do use objects of our idolatry.” I said, suggesting he was attempting to knock `em down a peg. He replied. “I thought about them as above and unreal. So maybe it is about taking them down.”
But without McCarthy’s talent as a skilled interpreter, he could be mistaken for a sheer pervert. I find it exciting to see something so honest yet perfectly executed with wild abandon. It’s much less predictable than porn or reality TV and a helluva lot more fun. (Paul McCarthy, White Snow, Hauser & Wirth New York, 32 East 69th Street, Tuesday through Sat, 10 am – 6 pm, through December 24th)
**I GUEST EDITED THIS MONTH’S PILFERED MAGAZINE. CHECK IT OUT: WITH MUSIC CLICK HERE, PILFEREDWITHSOUND OR SILENT VERSION, http://www.pilferedmagazine.com/
Snow White and the Prince take a piss side by side… by Paul McCarthy
Stars in drag and all that jazz…
( All text and photos by Susan M. Kirschbaum, meteoric video rhythm by the fabulous Baron Von Fancy)
Nobody brings in Halloween with equal depravity and abandon as New Yorkers. A glance at the “in crowds’” weekend rosters included the botoxed bunch dressing up like Madonnas in the Village; the Proenza Schouler boys and Barney’s Fashion Director Julie Gilhart holding fort on 28th Street; Sean Lennon and his band rocking out at the Wooly, the exclusive private party only Woolworth basement; and beauties, rockers, and those who love them at Thomas Hayo’s party at the Boom Boom Room, where I resided. Hayo– a consummate host dressed in lederhosen with his brother Peter — shared the bill with the Last Magazine, whose co-founder, Magnus Berger pulled off a remarkable Edward Scissorhands. Check out the slide show above. See if you can spot Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O as a blonde cheerleader (I pulled on her pom pom nipples!); R.E.M’s Michael Stipe as caviar; and kissing bandits Purple Mag’s Olivier Zahm and Andre from Le Baron in Paris. Actor Keifer Sutherland — probably too frightened to set near the Proenza Schouler fete after breaking designer Jack McCullough’s nose — popped into Boom Boom wearing a red clown nose. He wasn’t pretty or scary enough to photograph. Tant pis.
