SAN FRANCISCO — Can the stories of queer soldiers being marginalized, brutalized, and disenfranchised in the United States be considered dreams, or would it be more appropriate to call them nightmares?
Author Archives: Alexander Cavaluzzo
Alexander Cavaluzzo is a Pop Poet, Cultural Critic and Sartorial Scholar. He received his BS in Art History from FIT and his MA in Arts Politics at NYU. His interests focus on the intersection of fashion, art and pop culture.
Consummating the Erotic Art of Two Souls
Invisible-Exports’ current show represents the agglutination of two transgressive, visionary, and carnal artists born 50 years apart in the 20th century.
Picturing the Transfigurations of Fashion
“Fashion” can be characterized as many things: a business, a craft, a lifestyle. At its core, though, it’s a visual culture that embodies one very important quality: transfiguration.
Calling the New York Underground Your Playground
Many of us probably remember our formative years sitting in class, taking the SATs and trying to lose our virginity. Few of us probably spent that time hanging out with Debbie Harry, playing Max’s Kansas City, or finding success in an underground band.
Yves Saint Laurent’s Tortured Life of Fashion
Very few figures in fashion have embodied the archetype of the talented and tortured artist like Yves Saint Laurent.
A Fashion Mag with Beauty and Brains
There will always be fashion magazines that instruct readers which silk faille caftan is appropriate for lounging on a yacht over Memorial Day weekend, but what about one that traces the sartorial origins of the safety pin as an accessory?
Transcending Trends: Charles James at the Anna Wintour Costume Center
Charles James is probably not a name that is as instantly recognizable in fashion as Coco Chanel or Christian Dior, but as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibition, Charles James: Beyond Fashion shows us, his work and legacy transcend the zeitgeist and ushers us back to a period of supreme, magnificent decadence in American fashion.
Nuclear Wintour at the Metropolitan Museum
It’s clear that money is the ticket to fame and success in the world of culture, even — OK, maybe especially — if you’re not an artist. Cue the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s renaming of the newly renovated, soon-to-be-opened Costume Institute as the Anna Wintour Costume Center.
The Utopian Vision of Jean Paul Gaultier
Sailor stripes, corsets, and men’s skirts are not just the cheeky trademarks of a brilliant designer, but tools for a deeper excavation of culture.
The Art of Nightlife, or Debauchery as Social Practice
“One point of art is that it’s forming something we don’t have the language for yet,” observes Jake Yuzna, Director of Public Programs at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), in discussing the FUN Conference on Nightlife as Social Practice.
Subversive Style, Straight Out of the Closet
“Through clothing, an inner phantom self becomes visible,” quoth FIT Professor of Art History Anna Blume on a plaque before one of her sartorial signifiers: a relaxedly tailored suit, white shirt and tie.
They’re Here, They’re Queer, Get Into It: Dirty Looks
This July, the monthly film series Dirty Looks mounted the second installment of their “On Location” program, an ongoing presentation of art interventions that encroaches everywhere from bars to galleries to the television sets of everyone in the New York area. The series takes on guerrilla tactics of presenting queer experimental underground films.