Ryann Donnelly

The Legacy of Derek Jarman

October 28, 2014

Derek Jarman died in 1994 from an AIDS-related illness. When asked if the iconoclastic British filmmaker has any contemporaries, Nellie Killian, curator of the new retrospective “Queer Pagan Punk: The Films of Derek Jarman” at BAMcinématek, was at a loss.

The Fabulous Punk Rock Girls

May 6, 2014

The identities forged through punk rebellion make up the subjects of Punk Rock Girls, an 11-film series starting tonight at BAMcinématek in Brooklyn.

Safe House Takes Risks

April 16, 2014

Safe House USA is a Brooklyn-based bedding and homeware company that is anything but safe.

What’s New: Isolde, Again

April 11, 2014

What would you do if you lost your memory? How would your life and relationships change if access to the standing record of you was abruptly limited without warning or consent? Such is the catalytic crisis of Isolde, the new play by lauded experimental director and playwright Richard Maxwell.

Discovery: Trash Fire

November 21, 2013

Goals might be overrated. At least, this is what we’re inclined to consider after listening to Seattle punk band Trash Fire, whose singer and bassist, Jonah Bergman wails, “I traded my ambition for a trash life” on the title track of the band’s latest EP, Trash Life, released today on cassette tape.

Andrew Gilchrist’s Story from the Sea

October 10, 2013

When Brooklyn-based filmmaker Andrew Gilchrist asks you how you are, he asks how the hell you are.

Exclusive Song Premiere and Interview: ‘Interrupt,’ The Garden

July 16, 2013

The Garden is a lo-fi noise band from Orange, California with only two members: 19-year-old twins Wyatt and Fletcher Shears, who look like the androgynous love children of Lou Reed or Iggy Pop, and who happen to be the latest muses of Saint Laurent Paris’ creative director, Hedi Slimane.

Amy Lawless Brings Up Her Dead

March 15, 2013

On the refrigerator of poet Amy Lawless’ East Village apartment are a picture of her nephew, a photo-booth strip of friends, a small chart of this year’s moon cycle, and a postcard that reads, “Don’t Worry About Death.”

The Many Layers of Anna Telcs

March 5, 2013

Anna Telcs is a Seattle-based clothing and costume designer currently showing her work in the context of art in order to encourage a historical dialogue about textiles, form, methods of garment production, and ritual.

Parenthetical Girls Are in a Different Class

February 19, 2013

The lead singer and lead creative of Portland band Parenthetical Girls, Zac Pennington is an alternate pop star in the same vein as Kurt Cobain, Morissey, Jarvis Cocker, and Damon Albarn—the sort of musician with an unconventional sexual swagger that necessitates a double take regardless of the onlooker’s sexual orientation.

The House of Von Macramé and the Horrors of Fashion

February 8, 2013

Unlike the over-the-top characters of his new play, The House of Von Macramé—a pop operetta that encompasses both runway shows and a camp horror-movie plot—playwright Joshua Conkel is a sweet, smart creative who is slowly but surely getting what he wants.

Flowers for Saint Genet

January 29, 2013

French author and playwright Jean Genet opened his 1949 novel A Thief’s Journal with the assertion that “there is a close relationship between flowers and convicts,” comparing the fragility of the former with the brutality of the latter. Fittingly, when the Seattle-based, avant-garde performance company Saint Genet reinterpreted the trials of Charles Manson as part of their performance Transports of Delirium at The Lawrimore Project in Seattle last September, a mound of flowers—blood red carnations, dazzling white lilies, and wild daisies—was placed onstage.

Trinidad James’ S.A.F.E. Haven

December 4, 2012

The aesthetics of rapper Trinidad James are worthy of obsession: gold Chanel chains, velvet Versace slipppers, bikes spray-painted gold with flat tires… and puppies.

Discovery: Crypts

November 9, 2012

Crypts are a band with a penchant for mischief. The cover of their new self-titled LP, which features synth and drum machine impresario Bryce Brown crawling on the roof of a car in the dead of night with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, is a perfect representation of the band’s impish spirit.

Eraas Take Their Time

September 4, 2012

You can take the boys out of New England, but you might have a hard time taking the dark and weird vibes out of the New England boys—unless they’re filtering them directly into their music. Case and point: Robert Toher and Austin Stawiarz, the evil geniuses behind emerging band, Eraas.

Exclusive Song Premiere: ‘Cocoon House,’ New Villager

August 14, 2012

“Womb, strictures, domesticity”: these are the ideas outlined by New Villager’s Ross Simonini in a dialogue about our track of the week, “Cocoon House” from the band’s newest, self-titled album.

Discovery: Champagne Champagne

July 13, 2012

Seattle, Washington has produced some of the past year’s most buzzworthy hip-hop acts: Sub Pop’s Shabazz Palaces, TheeSatisfaction. On the verge of the same fate is Champagne Champagne, a three-piece comprised of lead MC Pearl Dragon, his inimitable sidekick Sir Thomas Gray, and beat wizard extraordinaire DJ Gajamagic (also known as Mark Gajadhar, former drummer of proto-hipster-hardcore band, The Blood Brothers).

The Ever-Growing Daisies

July 5, 2012

VĂ„?ra Chytilová’s 1966 film Daisies was banned by the government after its release—explicitly for its imagery of its two heroines, Marie I and Marie II, wasting food; implicitly for its lack of narrative and the artistic, yet frivolous and defiant, actions of its heroines.

Lourdes Portillo Looks Inward

June 25, 2012

Born in Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, much of Lourdes Portillo’s work looks at Latin American, Mexican, and Chicano culture through a reflexive lens. Known for films such as the 1985 documentary Las madres de la Plaza de Mayo, Portillo’s work is of a rare emotional caliber.

Built to Spill

September 25, 2011

This month, multi-media artist Aleksandra Mir’s 16-minute film The Seduction of Galileo Galilei opens at the Whitney.