“Seductive Subversion: Women In Pop Art”

By Chelsea Spear

Exhibit at The Aidekman Center for the Arts
Medford, MA

Free association: When I say the words “Pop Art,” what comes to mind? Screen-prints of Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans, Ben-Day dots on comic-strip women, cartoon collages. And pop artists? Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, maybe Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Like most art movements, Pop Art is considered to be a boys’ club. “Seductive Subversion” seeks to turn this misconception on its head.
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Portrait of a Reputation: The Woodmans

By Chelsea Spear

The early months of 2011 find artist Francesca Woodman in the spotlight. After numerous solo shows throughout the United States and Europe, the photographer will be the subject of a career retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her work changes hands for hundreds of dollars. Established photographers like Cindy Sherman and Photoshop illustrators such as Rosie Hardy cite Woodman’s ethereal self-portraits as a key influence.
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The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Sleep It Off and Doll In The Box by Cristina

By Chelsea Spear

Picture it: the Lower East Side, early 1980s. ZE Records had become the hot indie label, renowned for their tweaking of the nascent disco and no wave genres. The label incubated up-and-coming talent like James Chance and Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and helped spur the Waitresses on to trivia-question status with both of their hits.

While all of these artists have remained in the spotlight, one of the most interesting and peculiar talents got lost in the shuffle: Cristina. This one-named wunderkind of Brechtian disco pastiches, Lieber and Stoller covers and later, an album worthy of comparison with Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, all but disappeared after her second album, Sleep It Off, barely got released in the States. A few years ago, the reformed ZE reissued Cristina’s discography. How does it stand up, after thirty years?
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The Adventures Of Miss Flitt: Q&A With Designer Beth Hahn

By Chelsea Spear

In the late 2000s, knitwear designer Beth Hahn took the knitting world by storm with her series, The Adventures of Miss Flitt. Blending steampunk-friendly Victorian style, elegant knitwear designs, and an addictive narrative, the series follows the adventures of Emma Flitt as she traverses 19th century Brooklyn to find her sister. Her travels take her to seedy vaudeville theaters, pickpockets’ dens, and—in the most recent edition—to a most spooky séance. Ever the master storyteller, Hahn weaves her story through a series of simple-yet-gorgeous and thoroughly wearable cardigans, berets, overskirts, and other accessories.

On a chilly weekend in early January, I took virtual tea with Beth Hahn to find out more about her knitting endeavors.
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Jim Sullivan, UFO Reissue

By Chelsea Spear

As with so many other albums, the reissue of Jim Sullivan’s UFO came complete with a compelling back-story.

Sullivan, a purveyor of folk-inflected pop, spent the 1960s playing in LA nightclubs, making time with outlaw movie stars like Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper, and appearing on The Jose Feliciano Hour and in the movie Easy Rider. In early 1970, he recorded the album UFO with the Wrecking Crew, which his friend Al Dobbs released as a private pressing on his Monnie Records label. When the album failed to gain traction with those in the industry, Sullivan attempted a move to Nashville to work as a professional songwriter. He mysteriously disappeared at a stop in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
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Sarah Kirkland Snider, Penelope

By Chelsea Spear

Photo © Murat Eyuboglu

Monday morning, 10 a.m. The sixth floor of the UMass Boston Healey Library, overlooking Boston Harbor. I have been working on this goddamned paper about Marc Hirsch and Billy Collins and the role of the audience in poetry for two weeks now. The words on the page have calcified into incoherence, but I still feel the pressure of academia goading me towards a conclusion that wraps my argument into a tidy bow.

My eyes shift from the eyestrain-inducing computer screen to a small rowboat in the Harbor, by the Corita Kent gas tanks. A tiny woman, clad in an elegant grey wool coat with the shiniest brass buttons, stands at the hull of the boat, lifting her arms to the overcast sky in a dramatic gesture. I can hear her voice—a high soprano, rich in tone and trembling with vibrato—perfectly.
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Five Horror Movies For People Who Don’t Like Horror Movies

By Chelsea Spear

The autumnal season is upon us, and with it, the onslaught of Halloween in all its grease-painted, fun-sized glory. This is great news for the gorehounds and horror-movie fanatics . . . but what of us petite flowers who faint at the sight of blood? You, my friends, are in luck! Herewith are five feature films that eschew the viscera in favor of suspense and chills.
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Richard Thompson, Dream Attic

By Chelsea Spear

In the early 1990s, British folk music hero Richard Thompson found himself the subject of a surprise revival. While his instrumental and songwriting ability had remained at a consistently high level throughout his career, his signing to Capitol and subsequent MTV success (with “I Feel So Good,” which would later appear as Puck’s unofficial theme on The Real World: San Francisco) brought him a younger, more diverse audience.
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Apples in stereo, Travellers In Space And Time

By Chelsea Spear

It’s a typical Sunday morning in New England. The skies are overcast, precipitation is spitting, and a slight breeze has started to pick up and become a full-blown wind. To my Eustachian tubes, however, the weather is 85 degrees and sunny without a cloud in the sky. The music of the Apples in stereo can have that effect on listeners.

While Robert Schneider and his band of merry musicians lack the cathartic heft of their Elephant 6 buddies Neutral Milk Hotel, and were never as experimental as the Olivia Tremor Control, he’s always been adept at serving up a kind of musical comfort food to fans of 1960s bubblegum and power pop. He sets his stick-in-the-head melodies in lush, layered production, creating a satisfying sound for fans of a bygone era.
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Happy Birthday Elvis Perkins

By Chelsea Spear

In this day and age of bringing heroin to a court date and stripping on the red carpet, being the most endearing man in rock may seem kind of mundane. However, Elvis Perkins makes this underrated virtue an outstanding and distinguished asset.
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