Lana, Ava, Judy & Lena

The MGM  stars of the Hollywood goldenen era: Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland and Lena Horne were all very close girlfriends in the 1940s while under contract to Metro.  Lana & Ava even shared husbands, but what few people know about was that these great stars were also saaphic sweeties as well as close confidants.  Just one of those little tidbits of historical lore that I’m throwing out to ya!

Got mentioned in this blog called Weird Sisters as one of 2015’s best bloggers.  See for yourself with this link that came to me courtesy of the famous Love Camel aka: Andrea Novarin in the UK:

http://weird-sister.com/2015/12/17/top-10-2015-feminist-zineschapbooksblogs/#more-5134

Attention all you true philanthrapists out there and not those rich ungenerous idiots that only give money to see their name on a building or museum wing.  Please give mucho moula$$$$ to support Lia Gangitano and Participant Inc. Gallery the only not-for-profit gallery that promotes left field work in New York City.  Lia has sacrificed everything and continues to daily go against the odds in presenting challenging work that no one else would dare touch.  Lia is art personified and is a New York treasure.  I have known and worked with her for way over 20 plus years and she always keeps me surprised and invigorated with her sassy smarts and genius glamour.   Read her little missive below and click on the contribution section and make haste and send her gobs of filthy lucre.  Its an easy rule for kids to follow.

Friends,

Last week we joined our heroes, and family members -- Martin Wong, Johanna Fateman, Vaginal Davis, James Son Ford Thomas -- among the New York Times Best of 2015. It's YOU who make it happen.

Help us be our best by making a year-end, tax-deductible contribution. 


"It defied definition."
--Emre Hüner on Greer Lankton, LOVE ME, Best of 2015, Artists' Artists
Support from our community allows us to produce this and other unprecedented projects such as A.K. Burns, A SMEARY SPOT; Doveman and Tom Kalin, My Silent One (In the Sweetness of Time), and our current El Mirage by Martin Gustavsson, which hosts Stanley Love Performance Group in residence to produce a new work this January, Tapestry Truths; and Ephemera Office Enterprises: Martin Wong, organized by Olga Dekalo in conjunction with Martin Wong: Human Instamatic at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Your gift goes a long way. Thanks for your support.

With our gratitude, and warm wishes for the new,
Lia
PARTICIPANT
***

The Magic Flute project at 80 WSE Gallery and Come on Daughter Save Me at Invisible-Exports Gallery were hugely successful with tons of press, below are some of the links from Art Forum, The New York Times and The New Yorker Magazine.  It was a lot of work and great fun collaborating with a group of wonderful talented people.  Of course I am now on to the next project as there is no rest for perennially wicked.

-- The New York Times, Dec 2015

• -- The New Yorker, Dec 2015
• -- Artforum, Dec 2015

• -- The New York Times (The Magic Flute), Dec 2015
• -- New York Magazine, Fall 2015
• -- Vice Magazine, November 2015
• -- Bedford & Bowery, November 2015
• -- aqnb, November 2015
• -- A Shaded View on Fashion, November 2015

Confidence Games

The akshunist aspect of our New York CHEAP and 80 WSE Gallery adventure of The Magic Flute is over.  From Dec 1-5  we did three performances a night that began at the site specific location of the Lindsey Lohan Museum Project Space on Prince Street where I held court ala Madame DeFarge in the overture room.  The audience then was led by pretty Miss Rebecca who also did my hair and make-up to the 80WSE Gallery to experience the 5 other tableaux vivant.  After the last three shows I would quickly change from my costume and join the invited guests as it was such a pleasure to behold the splendour of our talking Greek chorus in the Totalitarian Structure, The singing choir of the New York Choral Society led by David Hayes and the Horkheimer Arkestra aka:  The Julliard Orchestra.  I loved the reveal when the audience discovers that all the music and singing is coming from a conducted live body. Jamie Stewart is a maestro beyond maestros whose original music score was utterly sublime.  The New York Choral Society members were a sheer delight and extremely talented whose boundless energy and charisma was godhead.  The crème de la cream of New York society and distinguished guests came to the performances which we renamed open rehearsals.  Amoung the dignitaries:  Deidrich Diederichsen, Stuart Comer & Thomas Lax  of MoMa, Uzi Parnes, Ela Troyano, Carmelita Tropicana, Glenn Belverio, Douglas Crimp, Leo Bersoni, Nancy Brooks Brody of Fierce Pussy, Ulrich Baer, Peter Russo of Triple Canopy, Heather Love, Anthony Tommasini the New York Times opera critic, Thatcher Keats, Dr. Jennifer Doyle, Barbara London MoMa’s video curator, Erich Deidrich,Noel Anderson, Lynn Gumpert, Ann Pelligrini, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ben Hatcher and Damien Davis of NYU, Karen Shimakawa Grey Art Gallery, Janine Tang &Ann Butler of Bard College, Alex Jovanovich of Art Forum Magazine who did a lovely  video interview with Susanne and I, artist Neil Goldberg, scholar Jonathan Flatley and wife Danielle, Lisa Darmes of the Fales Library, Marc Arthur of Performa, Elizabeth Beer of Project 8 who designed Roger Grants costume in the 4^th tableaux, Hunter O Harian and Cynthia “Social Lies” Powell of Lindsey Lohan Museum, Scott Cameron Weaver the independent curator, Dustin Foster, Michael Stickrod who is assisting Michel Auder with the Magic Flute film, Rona Yefman, the glamorous Lynn Cooke, Pam Grossman, Wenzel Bilger and Hannah of Goethe Institut, Malik Gaines and Alex Segrade of My Barbarian, Will Heinrich of Hyper Allergenic Magazine, famous art fotog Zoe Leonard, Bob Nichas,Mark Morgan Perez,Lauren “Nurse Pain” Pine, Michelle Handelman, Bruce Benderson, J. Hoberman, Slava Mogutin, Billy Miller, the dapper  and wonderful Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Holland Cotter who came up to me after the performance, introduced himself and said some very sweet and encouraging things about the piece and Amy Taubin who gave an honest and heartfelt critique that I thought was divoon that our version of The Magic Flute was better then being held hostage by terrorists in the subway.  I love Amy she is the best!!!!
During the Michel Auder filming one of my cute and cuddly Totalitarian Greek Chorus members Zach told me the sad news of Holly Woodlawns death.  My first time of meeting the great gorgeous legend was when she worked with Gorilla Rose on Melrose Avenue in the 1980s at Wacho and Soap Plant.  I worked across the street at Retail Slut.  She was always sweet and deliriously funny and was still the true star when she sang so poignantly with my CHEAP kollectiv colleagues kJohnny Blue and Daniel Hendrickson the Scandinavian Muzlim back in 2010 at Camp/Anti-Camp-The Queer Guide to Everyday Life which was curated by Marcuse Siegelstein and CHEAP fearless leader Susanne Sachsse.  This sometime evil world has experienced a colossal loss of magic and whimsy with the great lady healers death.

New York One!

Hey my darlings. Things have been progressing quite lovely with the Magic Flute project. Hector Martinez, the infamous mariachi warrior auf Edendale via Lago de Plata has come to New Yorika to help me and provide the doll with backup singer energy and support. Also our incredible lighting designer Jackie Shemesh of Israel via London is here to make everyone beautiful and of course our great 80 WSE staff of collaborateurs including juicy Jess Garcia, macho man Ben, lothario Hugh and female studkin Sawyer Mitchell and so many others including Patricio, Damien Davis, Jessie Bransford, and Daniel of the Moon.

I am really missing Berlin, but it was great to experience Thanksgiving dinner provided by the first family of New York art The Bergers-- the amazing parents of Jonathan Berger whose Columbia University adjacent compound off of Riverside Drive was warm and welcoming. Fearless leader of CHEAP Susanne Sachsse got to experience Turkey day for the first time. I hadn’t had a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Macy’s with all the trimmings in over ten years. Hector and I wound up walking all the way from 103rd to 14th Street to get rid of our baby bumps.

For those of you in Berlina who are looking for something fantastische to see please check out this event of experimental film guru Wilhelm Hein and his lady love the art photog Annette Frick:

S0NNTAG 29.11.2015 ab 18 UHR CASABAUBOU

LAST CALL

HEUTE: SONNTAG 29.11.2015 CASABAUBOU AB 18 UHR



SECOND SNOW



SPECIAL GUESTS:

FILIPA CORDEIRO

ANDRE TRINIDAD

ALEXANDRE ESTRELA

RIU MATOSO & TEXTS

WITH ZINES AND ART FROM LISSABON



JUST BACK AT CASABAUBOU

MAD ANGUS THE FAMOUS !!!



LIVE APPEARANCE OF RUI MATOSO

READINGS BY SISSI TAX AND FILIPA CORDEIRO

NEW FILMS NEW VIDEOS NEW TEXTS NEW AND OLD FACES



CASABAUBOU - BERLIN - WEDDING - SEESTR: 107 - U6 SEESTR.



herzlichst

Wilhelm Hein

Annette Frick

Come on Daughter Save Me

Can’t believe the large amount of people who came out to my solo visual art exhibition at Invisible-Exports Gallery. I put the finishing touches of nail polish on the 16 frieze sculpture panels early morning November 20th. The exhibit also features 10 special edition acetate records with a recorded manifesto text and abstract make-up painting on Vaginal Davis stationary. Some collectors even bought some of the sculptures and the records at the opening. Prices aren’t inflated so run down to the gallery and get your New York bargain.

I asked my gallerists the lovely Risa Needleman and handsome Benjamin Tischer to give me the hoedown on who was there as I stayed in the gallery office in a corner holding court. Here is the celebutant guest list: The sexy Gala Tischer, craft artisan Dean Holdiman, Michel Auder of the Zanzibar Film movement who is directing the movie version of our Magic Flute production, Lia Gangitano of Participant Inc. and juicy lover T, Doug McClemont of the mega Marlborough Gallery who use to be the mortician to the stars with his lovesexysweet young muscular well endowed Nubian lover,the incredibly stylish Art Forum writer extroidinaire Alex Jovanovich, the mega hunky artiste Jeff Ono with his beautiful baby boy, Egypts prettiest choreographer Adham Hafez the artistic director of the HaRaKa Dance Development and Research Company with his fab posse of Cindy Sibilsky (the fierino redhead sculptress turned Broadway producer of the musical version of Xaviera Hollander’s 'Happy Hooker' whilst working closely on it with Ms. Hollander herself!!! Dr. Graeme Reid, the South African professor of masculinities, gender, and politics from Yale University, gorgeous Charlene Ava, who's a New York Egyptian singer, songwriter, filmmaker and performance artist, fashion scriblette Glenn Belverio with the Diane Pernet Fashion Blog with Andrew Russeth, that glamazon Bibbe Hanson and her young husband Sean Carrillo,art collector and Vaginal Davis archivist Tret Tierney the grandson of Golden era Hollywood star Gene Tierney, power attorney Norman von Holtzendorf my old pal from Choate prep school in Wallingford, Connecticut, Azo, poet and Francois Hardy doppelganger Katie Degentesh, performance and filmmaking auteur Marc Arthur and beau, tyro artist Delia Gonzalez, the insane Maynard Monrow, independent curator and man of desire Billy Miller of STH, Angela DiCarlo,Russian art shtar Slava Mogutin,Paul Gabrielli, Karen Heagle,Nao Bustamante who leaves her job teaching in Troy, New York for a fab position at USC with her new dean Erica Muhl, Brooklyn legendina and activist Viva Ruiz,my former Chicago Art Institute student Ektor!who is now going to graduate school at Columbia, David Getsy of the School of the Art Institute, youthquaking Max Steele,members of the rock band Disclosure, multi-media artist Paco Cao,Magic Flute design crew Jesse Bransford, Jonathan Berger, Damien Davis,Jess Garcia,Joshua Lubin-Levy, Izzy Cohan, Jacqueline Gallo and her precious step daughter, Hugh W. O’Rourke and Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu.

The after party was held at Bengala West on scenic West 10th Street in a spacious flat that housed Leonard Bernstein in the 1940s, Mark Twain, Emma Lazarus, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp who lived down the block to be near the Chess Club which is still there. The Womans House of Detention that housed Angela Davis when she was the FBI’s most wanted is also on this street. Of course I had to leave my own party early so that I could wake up early and be at the 80 WSE Gallery at 9am to prepare for the NY Choral Society and the Horkheimer Arquestra who would be coming in for their first big rehearsals. No rest for the exceedingly wicked.

Fear and Loathing in New Yorika

As World War III morphs into WW4 and beyond its strange to be in this raging metropolis staging a performative installation of the Magic Flute. Fearlesss leader of kollektiv CHEAP Susanne Sachsse and I have been working seven days a week with an outstanding crew of young talented and lovesexy artists. I am completely exhausted at all times, but what can I do? Had a break from Magic Flute when invited by Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies to give a formal lecture. A nice warm day to take a train out of the city to enjoy the magnifi views of the Hudson River Valley with my companions the illustrious Lia Gangitano of Particiant Inc. Gallery and the legendary downtown figure of John Kelly. So nice meeting the handsome foreign born center director Tom Eccles, Deutsch socialite Marieluise Hessel of the Hessel Museum, delightful Ann Butler who is the directrix of Bards Library and Archives. The students were all just lovely. Our train was delayed by almost two hours in returning back to Manhattan so we occupied our time in a bordello looking bar enjoying Asian fusion snacks and drinks with the ever joyous Ms Gangitano and Mr. Kelly.

I made my first appearance to NYU’s Performance Studies Dept since the death of Jose Munoz. Performance Studies is a place where I have a lot of magical memories that go back over 20 years. Susanne Sachsse and I were in conversation with professor Tavia Nyongo of the famous Kenyan Nyongo family that produced the Oscar winning actress Lupita. Tavia had just got back to New York from London so the poor dear was completely jet lagged and out of it, which was cute in a nutty professor kind of way. Tavia had taken us for a festive dinner at the incredible Mexican boite Papatzul on the day he arrived to town. At our presentation Susanne showed for the first time in Amerikkka clips from various CHEAP projects like It Happened to Me, CHEAP Blacky and Communist Bigamist---- the audience seemed to be quite interested in what we’ve been doing in Germany for the past 14 years. Scene and heard in the audience and later enjoying a wino reception: Karl McCool (from Dirty Looks) Dance Professor and writer Barbara Browning with her music collaborator Imre Lodbrog, downtown legendina Carmelita Tropicana, Robert Campbell, hunkster Malik Gaines of My Barbarian, art goddess Lia Gangitano and lover T, juicy professor Joshua Lubin-Levy, beautiful Aliza Shvarts aka: Prinzessin Pamina in the Magic Flute, Damien Davis the handsome and stately grandson of Sammy Davis Jr. and Altovise, art collector stud Mark Morgan Perez,Kalle Westerling (the blue eyed Swedish aristocratic cutie)Maria Katharina Wiedlack who I first met at a queer art conference in Oldenberg Germany who gave me a copy of her new book Queer-Feminist Punk-An Anti-Social History which I can’t wait to read, Brandon Fischer, Patrick Sweeney and The Psycho Geography Initiative, Robin Alex McDonald of the Turbines Curatorial Collective in Kingston Ontario Canada and Dan Rosen the deliciously young and perfect lover of Tavia Nyongo.



Susanne and I had only one day where we had a few hours to ourselves so we attended an exclusive cocktail party at the Chelsea Hotel of the fashion designer and creator of the Mermaidpunk TM look the delightful and sexy Nile Cmylo. Also invited to the intimate soiree fashion scribe Glenn Belverio and humpy art collector Mark Morgan Perez. Ms. Cmylo is downtown royalty, she dated Dee Dee Ramone and has worked with every known celebrity. She has lived in the Chelsea Hotel which is currently under renovation since the 1980s and was mentored by the legendary designer Charles James who also lived in the Chelsea. The fab Ms. Cmylo is a New York treasure with a gifted mind who not only understands fashion but also politics and is an enchanting storyteller and just the most fascinating woman in New York. The gossip she told us cannot be repeated here its just too scandalous. Plus she mixes some stiff cocktails that really left me mamma say knock you out! Love that New York moxy!

My solo visual art exhibition opens 2nite at Invisible-Exports Gallery at 89 Eldridge on the lower east side 6pm so stop by and say hey!