avant garde

panty doodles \/\/ an interview with lucy white

December 5, 2009
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panty doodles \/\/ an interview with lucy white

Lucy White grew up in a house with a lawn and a mother who took care of the house and father who took care of the lawn. These might be the perfect conditions for producing a laid back landscapist, but they didn’t. Lucy White’s politically centered pop art has zero to do with capturing the ephemeral beauty of the changing seasons, and everything to do with sex, violence, and commodities. Lucy White’s aesthetic is bubbly like soda pop and hot like a bullet. She makes thongs with cheeky prints of female artists on them, and (sometimes sentimental) portraits of handguns. She uses bright, hot, and vivid colors and applies her paint using band aids. When I first saw her work, I really connected to its blunt force seriality and sly references to current events. lucy’s panty doodles I met Lucy on Facebook, which seems apropos. She happily engaged with our theme of boredom, and sent us some pics of what she does when she’s bored. It turns out that Lucy is a compulsive listmaker and napkin doodler. But these fidgety meanderings, instead of being left behind on the bar, evolve into extended projects. I was really excited to talk to

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dogface boy \/\/ cute baby bunnies vs. big ugly rednecks

November 27, 2009
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dogface boy \/\/ cute baby bunnies vs. big ugly rednecks

“…The law-abiding citizen is entitled to own a rifle, pistol, or shotgun. The right, put simply, shall not be infringed…” ” SAD.” me. D ll ll Disgustipated ” TOOL “ And the angel of the lord came unto me. snatching me up from my place of slumber, and took me on High, and higher still until we moved through the spaces betwixt the air itself. and he brought me into a Vast farmland of our own midwest. and as we descended, cries of impending doom arose from the Soil. one thousand, nay, a million voices full of fear. and terror possessed me then. and I begged: ’angel of the lord, what are these tortured screams? ’ and the angel said unto me: ’these are the cries Of the carrots. the cries of the carrot. you see, reverend maynard, tomorrow is harvest day, and to Them, it is the holocaust.’ and I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat with the tears of one million Terrified brothers and roared: ’hear me now, I have seen the light. they have a consciousness! they Have a life! they have a soul. damn you! let the rabbits wear glasses. save our brothers. can I

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art-destruction as holiday gift \/\/ warhol stocking stuffer

November 26, 2009
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art-destruction as holiday gift \/\/ warhol stocking stuffer

Books make great holiday gifts. They’re not usually very big or expensive, though they can be both. And they can signal a regard for the receiver’s interests, intelligence, and aesthetic sense.  This sort of multi-level communication is very much in vogue these days. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again (1975) is maybe the easiest book to give, at least in my library. Everyone loves it.  So many people that it almost cuts down on the specialness of the book as a gift.  Except for that it is an incredibly intimate piece of writing.  Not exactly in the sense offered by the latest Kitty Kelley biography, which imagines the uncovering of salacious gossip as some kind of final or conclusive knowledge about its protagonist.  And Warhol loved every porny detail, don’t get me wrong. The thing is this is a “philosophy”: a warm, funny, charismatic, and full view of the world, its workings and its workers. The chapters alternate between a transcript of a telephone dialogue between “A” and “B,” and loose collections of anecdotes and aphorisms. Both genres are longtime staples of philosophical writing: Plato and Rousseau wrote dialogues, Pascal and Nietzsche wrote aphorisms. In

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dogface boy \/\/ ……in case you were wondering.

November 20, 2009
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dogface boy \/\/ ……in case you were wondering.

.. . Antony Hegardy o Is the reason ghosts love the rain. “The Lake” Edgar Allen Poe Reinterpreted by Antony Hegardy In youth’s spring, it was my lot To haunt of the wide earth a spot To which I could not love the less So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound And the tall trees that towered around But when the night had thrown her pall Upon that spot as upon all And the wind would pass me by In it’s stilly melody My infant spirit would awake To the terror of the lone lake My infant spirit would awake To the terror of the lone lake Yet that terror was not fright But a tremulous delight And a feeling undefined Springing from a darkened mind Death was in that poisoned wave And in it’s gulf a fitting grave For him who thence could solace bring To his dark imagining Whose wildering though could even make An Eden of that dim lake But when the night had thrown her pall Upon that spot as upon all And the wind would pass me by In it’s stilly melody My infant spirit would awake To the

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grunge is dead \/\/ a treatise on “grunge” performance

October 28, 2009
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grunge is dead \/\/ a treatise on “grunge” performance

Grunge is dead. My grandmother is dead. Jackson Pollock is dead. The implications are as follows: Music that was labeled "grunge" can never again be made, my grandmother will never again pinch my cheek, and there will be no new works of art by Jackson Pollock. This is as it should be.

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re-inventing alexander mcqueen \/\/ a/w 09

March 18, 2009
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re-inventing alexander mcqueen \/\/ a/w 09

What happens when Amanda Lepore, MC Escher, and the ghost of McQueen season’s past collide on the runway? Duh, magic. Absolute and total magic. It looks like a car crash gone terribly terribly right, and I can’t get enough of it. Okay, so I’m actually pretty sure that Ms. Lepore herself was not in attendance at the show, but her lips are everywhere, on every model, black and bold, and cartoon hot. MC Escher printed fabrics and the ubiquitous houdstooth abound. Silhouettes so ruffled and flounced and corseted they could only be McQueen. The theme of McQueen’s A/W 09 collection is reinvention, and while I think of him as a designer who is constantly revising and reprising his own work diligently, the idea of renewal was definitely underscored here. Models paraded against backdrop of destroyed car parts with spraypainted soda cans in their hair. It wasn’t just Mr. McQueen’s ideas that were being recycled and reused, it was everything. Photo Credits: fashionologie

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by popular demand \/ gareth pugh for men

March 14, 2009
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by popular demand \/ gareth pugh for men

So, I neglected to mention that Gareth Pugh also released his first-ever menswear collection for A/W 09, and it is every bit as swoonworthy as the women’s collection. With baited breath, I wait for a world in which all men dress like this. This leather jacket on the right is so effing hot, it’s black, metallic, quilted, and delicious. I’m totally nuts for the boots with that jacket, as well. To the knee, leather with studded straps? Yes, please. Are you shitting me with this jacket collection. I want every single one of these. I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this structured, belted vibe in leathers starting now. Check a video of the runway show from The New York Times. Photo Credits: Raras Coincidencias Neoyorquinas

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oh my goth \/\/ rick owens f/w 09

March 10, 2009
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oh my goth \/\/ rick owens f/w 09

Remember in 1992 when Marc Jacobs sent all those ripped apart, layered looks down the Perry Ellis runway? The ones that simultaneously spawned nearly a generation of plaid-clad youth and also got MJ fired? Well, back in those days my all black, leather and lace aesthetic was deeply influenced by that grunge runway, and I have recently developed a deep nostalgia for those goth days. Nothing has hit a nerve more deeply than the Rick Owens F/W 09 line.   Whatever I actually looked like in my youth, this is what I was going for. I love the funnel neck leather jacket atop the black satin minidress atop the white cotton minidress atop the ribbed grey leggings with the always exquisite Rick Owens boots. I also love the sparse pale grey and black color palette that dominated his runway. It is my deepest wish that this is the runway that spawns a generation of admirers and teenage copycats. I mean, seriously, what would be cooler than a high school full of kids that look like this?   Photo Credits: fashionologie

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the avant guardian still loves you…

March 8, 2009
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…it’s just busy working for other people right now, and flouting its cultural responsibility to represent interesting design. it will be back when the workload lightens, someone backs it financially, or the world needs it just a little bit more…

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where was i? oh yes, tom binns stole my heart and it took me over a month to recover

January 7, 2009
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where was i? oh yes, tom binns stole my heart and it took me over a month to recover

Tom Binns designs jewelry with trashy class and a little punch of punk rock flash. Maybe you’ve heard already, since his Faux Real line has been making waves all over the fashioniverse for months now. Think rusted junk store relics mixed with precious gems in a haphazardly amazing sort of way.  Chunky pieces like this one are what he’s coming to be known for. Who, praytell, can tell the real from the faux on this one? Binns is probably also the driving force behind the trend of neon metal and gemstones, now appearing at a TopShop near you, and soon to be seen at every mall in America. By the time it gets there, it will probably lack all of the subversive deliciousness of Binn’s over-the-top designs, so maybe you should think about getting in on the ground floor? Personally, I prefer the badassitude of his Tough Chic line, which combines chain and skull motifs with lustrous pearls and rhinestones. A southern girl never goes anywhere without her pearls, especially when they’re strung up with skulls. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find many of the pieces from Tough Chic anywhere, including eBay, but then again, it would take more than

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