Above, a rogue florist is turning public rubbish bins into floral art installations in New York. Below, a pop-up womens’ bathhouse designed by photographer Mika Ninagawa to promote Tsubaki (camellia) brand shampoo – open in Tokyo’s Ariake district for the next few months only.
The illustrations of Ben Rubin, who doodles monsters over unsuspecting New York subway commuters.
Modern-day minotaur at Afropunk.
Nasty Baby came out of nowhere for me. It is a sweet, funny, modern and savage film about a Chilean artist in New York ( star/director Sebastian Silva), his boyfriend and his best friend, the ever-charming Kristen Wiig, getting pregnant together in the boho-Brooklyn enclave of Greene Park. I loved it – and it shocked me. The film also introduced me to the charming Tunde Adebimpe who plays the boyfriend, the singer from band ‘TV on the Radio’ and thinking man’s straight hipster fashion/lifestyle icon.
One of greatest recent travel disappointments was missing the Afropunk festival by a few days after my 2013 Summer in Brooklyn (and wow, two years have passed already…) Over the last weekend the event happened again in New York, and as with the Met Ball earlier in the year, it seemed to pierce through to a new level of public consciousness. My facebook feed was full of Afropunk street fashion snaps and even Vogue got in on the action. The concert seems to have been an unqualified success with the the high-octane lineup of noted tax-evader Lauryn Hill, Lenny Kravitz (retro!!!), Kelis (swoon) and the one and only godmother of Afropunk who performed topess, aged 67, and hoola hooped her way through “Slave to the Rhythm”. Ladies and gentlemen…heeeeeeere’ s Grace!
The decision by the US Supreme Court this week to legalize gay marriage took me by surprise. Like many non-Americans I hadn’t been following the twists and turns of the legal campaign, and the news came to me out of nowhere, a sudden and unexpected proclamation. I woke up one morning to a Facebook streaming with rainbows, many of them from straight friends, and the news that America had legalised across-the-board gay marriage.
As a non-American, and a formerly gay-married person, it would have been easy to be cynical or dismissive. But I was surprised to find that I wasn’t. Instead, was deeply touched. A few days later the joy is still being felt and the implications are still sinking in – the long-fought-for goal, seemingly so distant, now realised. The “culture wars” have been, decisively, won. It was like a moon landing. Nothing would be the same again.
The next generation will grow up in an America where gay marriage has been the norm, and the whole public debate is now re-framed. On the one hand I have wondered in the past why gay people feel the need to be part of such an institution, and whether we can’t be creative and honest and brave enough to make our own model, something better. But, reading the heartfelt articles from gay marriage advocates online today, it is hard to argue: this WILL mean so much to gay teenagers all over the world.
They are now being shown that their lives can be “normal” too, that they can have long-lasting love and that their love will be called by the same name and held in the same regard as that of their straight peers. Of course its all just symbolic, but thats what marriage is. A symbol.
So where to from here for the gay rights movement? It will be interesting to see, and I predict tough times ahead as the lack of a clearcut goal unties the bonds that have bought the community together.
And where to for America? A country long distained and discredited, but renewed this week out of nowhere as the symbol it has always promised to be – of freedom.
One only had to compare the victory in Washington with the gay pride parades being held around the world this weekend in a cosmic masterstroke of timing. In Istanbul, revellers were blasted with water cannons and in Seoul they partied defiant against Christian intolerance. And in America, just in time for the US Stonewall weekend, and the start of Summer, love briefly reigned. Its an exciting time to to be alive.
Missing Afropunk in Brooklyn by a single week was one of the cruellest disappointments of my New York Summer (now two years ago already!!). This year Grace Jones, Kelis, Lauren Hill and Lenny Kravitz will be playing, and the party is spreading its wings to Atlanta and Paris. Should be massive. More here.
The Met Gala happened in New York this week. The formerly obscure 25,000 dollar-a-head fundraiser (for the Met’s fashion collection) seemed to dominate the internet for days. When did it become such an important cultural signifier? When Solange beat up Jay-Z in the elevator (and was that already one year ago?)
This year the event’s theme was “China: through the looking glass”, transparently designed to raise the interest of big spending PRC industrialists. It worked. A bevy of Chinese actresses appeared, led by Fan Bing Bing dressed almost in character as a colour-blocking Pekingese queen, not unlike her (digitally enhanced) costume in current TV hit “The Empress” which had its neckline digitally raised by online censors. Rihanna turned up in preposterous Chinoiserie, a whole constellation of stars tiptoed around the problematic “Oriental” theme and Beyonce ignored it completely, rocking body-hugging jewelled Givenchy. But once again – her sister stole the night, this time less for her highkicks than her satellite-chic space couture, as breathtakingly odd as it was chic. It was inspired apparently, by the form of a Chinese fan.
Fashion moment.
Meanwhile in Asia, Bangkok was also experiencing a high fashion moment of its own with the wedding of its number one actress and style icon Chompoo Araya Hargate to her (cute) baht-billionaire boyfriend.
Just when the media and entertainment industries should be slowing down for their Christmas break it suddenly seems like there is controversy and action breaking out everywhere – new Madonna album appears out of the blue, possible stolen. North Korea is at war with Sony. D’Angelo suddenly has an album out. And Azealia Banks is having a go at Iggy Azealia…again.
Regardless of whether you agree with her or not (I don’t) it makes for pretty damned entertaining radio.
A year ago today I was jetting off to New York for a Summer of African music and disco in Montreal, black gay pride at Fire Island, Catcher in the Rye in Central Park, Dominican dive bars and Colombian nights in Jackson Heights, walking over the Williamsburg Bridge on sunny days and sweating in the tropical humidity of the subway downtown, Satanist stores on the Lower East Side and soulfood brunches in BedStuy , avant bizarre warehouse parties and wild basements and my little slice of Brooklyn domestic happiness, my shared air b n b apartment by the rumbling el line in Bushwick, with its Cuban voodoo churches, Dunkin’ Donuts and juice bar.
Good times!
More at the ilbonito new york tag.
Currently on at Harlem’s Studio Museum in New York is the exhibition, “Shadows take shape”, exploring the currently hot topic (Janelle Monae, Sun Ra’s enduring hipster appeal) of Afrocentric science fiction. There is a strong contingent from Africa, including this blog fave Kiluanji Kia Henda whose Icarus 13 photographic project re-imagines bizarre Soviet-era architecture in the then-Communist puppet state of Angola as the backdrop to an African space programme journey to the sun.
♥♥♥
Love Blood Orange.
I missed the Habibi party when I was New York, the city’s once-in-a-while dance party for Middle Eastern gay men (and the men who love them). But for those in and around NYC the next party is coming up on October 4th. Get your yalla on.
In Thai film “Countdown”, three teenagers in New York get more than they bargained for when they dabble with devil (of in fact, Jesus) in search of some New Years Eve fun..
AB Soto’s latest, shot in my old ‘hood of Bushwick. Bushwick in the house!
This Summer I went to FIBO, the Fire Island Black Out black gay pride event at New York’s gay beach resort, Fire Island. For my (extensive!) reporting of the experience click here.
But for more high quality pictures of the event (not all safe for work) see the website of splendidly-monikered photographer Henrique Plantikow or follow on after the jump. Or you can read about it (with many of the same – fine – pictures) at Dazed and Confused magazine’s Digital arm here.
Pieter Hugo is the talented photographer behind the striking series of portraits of Nigerian hyena-handlers, ripped off by Beyonce for her ‘Run the World’ video. Having shot extensively all over Africa, he has most recently turned his lens on his home country of South Africa in a confronting series of portraits of “ordinary people” including elderly domestic workers, street beggars and (supposedly) the first gay couple to get married in a traditional African ceremony.
The show is on in New York at the Yossi Gallery now.
Goodbye NY. Goodbye to salsa on the street and soggy hotdogs. Goodbye Bushwick. No more hot Brooklyn boys or Bronx fly girls. So long to sweaty waits on the subway platform.
My stay here is over and I’ve loved every minute of it.
I had expected New York to be exciting but what I hadn’t realised was that it would be so beautiful: the effortless elegance of its Upper East Side girls, the shady streets of brownstones, the romance of lights on the Hudson glimpsed at night from a passing train…
New York was full of beautiful and intriguing things, restless in its search for the perfect body or the perfect burger, hungry for new experiences. It was sunny and hot, soundtracked by hip hop and house music and people by locals with a (surprising) amount, I thought, of kindness and good humour.
It made me feel inspired.
There are things I didn’t do in New York. I never made it to the Guggenheim or the Met. I didn’t see top-flight vogueing (see below) and I missed the Brazilian music festival and Shuggie Otis performing free in Central Park. I was out of town for Dominican National Day with its parades and parties (mmmm….Dominicans….) and I never crossed the Manhattan bridge on foot (unlike the Brooklyn Bridge, or the Williamsburg Bridge which I did twice).
But that is OK.
In a city like new York it is impossible to do everything and I experienced SO MUCH. I had not really expected, at age 36, to feel so reinvigorated and refreshed and renewed by a city. On any given day there were so many exciting choices, so many possibilities. So I didn’t do them all. But the ones that I did – I loved.
And hopefully I’ll be back to finish off some of the others 🙂
So thank you, New York.
ilbonito blog 2007 