Art
How Are Artists Getting Paid?
How are artists who have been systematically denied fair wages and access to basic services like healthcare and unemployment protections gaining access to those things today?
Alexis Clements
Alexis Clements is a writer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. Her first feature-length documentary, "All We've Got", examines LGBTQ women's communities and spaces across the US.
Interview
Revisiting the NEA Four: Tim Miller on the Road
For his portion of the NEA Four residency at the New Museum, Tim Miller will be doing what he’s been doing for a good part of the past three decades — an intensive weeklong workshop with a group of artists, followed by a group performance of the work they develop during that time.
Interview
The NEA Four Revisited: Crossing the Line with John Fleck
Have you ever seen that Naomi Watts film Ellie Parker? In it she plays an Australian actress in Los Angeles, not so different from the real Watts. Much of the film takes place in her car as she shuttles between auditions, intermittently giving herself pep talks, falling apart, and trying to conduct
Books
The Bookish Queer: Locating Queer Literature, Then and Now
How did queer writers and bookish types find queer content in the past and how they do it today, when so many of the past networks would appear to have dispersed?
Interview
The NEA Four Revisited: Karen Finley Talks Sexting
Of the four artists known by history as the NEA Four, Karen Finley is the one whose full name many people remember, even if they know little else about the situation that led to the artists’ lawsuit against the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Books
Rewriting the Story of Shame and Isolation: The Lambda Literary Awards Turn 25
On Monday night the Lambda Literary Awards turned 25. For those unfamiliar, the Lammys are awards given out to LGBT authors in a variety of categories ranging from serious nonfiction to science fiction. They were started in 1989 by Deacon Maccubbin, founder of the now-shuttered Washington, DC, gay b
Interview
The NEA Four Revisited: Holly Hughes Shares Her Thoughts
Holly Hughes was the first of the NEA Four artists to complete her week-long residency at the New Museum this month, and the first of the artists I had a chance to interview as part of this series looking at those four today. She had an eventful week, with events taking place not only at the museum
Art
The NEA Four Revisited: On Arts Funding
The NEA Four, now in residence at the New Museum, were denied National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants in 1990, after Congress passed a "decency clause." How has arts funding changed in the past 20 years? Its current state would certainly "disabuse just about anyone of the idea that pursuing an
Interview
Making Documentaries More Real
In an email, a friend of mine mentioned a show taking place at the Kitchen next week: The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, created by the filmmaker Sam Green, with live music by indie rockers Yo La Tengo. The subject matter seemed like solid geeky/arty fare, but what stood out to me in the event
Books
Reconsidering John Dewey’s Art as Experience
It’s hard to tell how many young Americans know the name John Dewey today. Those who attended New York City’s New School might know of him as a co-founder and one of the minds behind the progressive agenda that formed the intellectual and social foundation of the school’s early years. Others might r
Art
A Clear Set of Demands: How to Be a Constituency of Artists
So far this year I’ve been to two different events that highlight different but related approaches to political organizing among artists here in New York. Just to clarify what I mean by organizing — literally bringing individual artists together into a larger community that can advocate for and crea
Art
Filling in the Gaps: Feminism's Continued Relevance in the Arts
This past weekend I joined the audience for the day of panel discussions at the Brooklyn Museum organized by The Feminist Art Project as part of the annual College Art Association Conference. I was only able to stay for the first three and a half panels, in a day that included five. But in those thr