Monday, January 8, 2007

The Sublet Experiment: NSA Theatre Coming to a Fifth Floor Walkup Near You


filed under: We Make Art Not Sex by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

The hunt for a good apartment in any major bustling metropolis is essentially a sexual crisis, and like sex, only by being honest about your wants can you get what you really need. You know you fuck too loud and so that requires finding roommates who also come at a similar or higher decibel, but how do you imply that in your carefully-crafted in the five minutes you’ve got email response to way too many vague craigslist ads? And hope they’re still the kind of folks who wash dishes? Then there’s the issue of fucking your roommates, which requires not only a great apartment, but chemistry with said roommates — unless sharing bills is enough to turn you on. Either way, you’re going to fare far better if you just concentrate on scoring the place you want and then returning to the “seeking subletters” (wink) section of craigslist to find your faux-flatmate fuckbuddy.

So was it compromised sex or real estate that inspired The Sublet Experiment, a show about a guy renting his place out to a woman “rent-free” in exchange for sex, that’s running currently in New York? The four-act play is actually staged in a new apartment — an actual New York apartment — each weekend. Rising costs for theatre venues must have in part driven this concept, but then there’s also the flaneur’s fascination with seeing other people’s stuff to pack the house (yeah, literally). Show locations are updated at their website — last weekend closed in Williamsburg, and this week opens on the Upper East Side. Only twelve audience members may attend each performance, of course, Gotham floorplans being as they are.

Monday, January 8, 2007

As Promised, Berlin, From Sexerati with Love


filed under: We Make Art Not Sex, Jet Sex by Melissa Gira | 2 Comments

Back when I relaunched Sexerati, I asked you where I ought to visit in Europe as a sex correspondant while I was overseas already for the Nordic Exceptional Trendshop (masterfully covered by we-make-money-not-art).

David LaChapelle Illicitly Photographed at the Helmut Newton Foundation

Berlin won out, not in small part due to the chance to visit the Helmut Newton Foundation, photographed from inside & secretly above. In the foreground is a David LaChapelle, with a Helmut Newton life-sized nude portrait peering in through the door.

I wish I could have shot more, but as I was not wanting to have a nonconsensual interrogation with German officials, you’ll have to imagine…

Just down the hall from here is what I like to call “the first webcam,” a self-shooting camera that Newton fabricated to render himself as the photographer irrelevant. Models could stand in front of the camera, pose themselves using a mirror behind it, and with the exposure preset by Newton, could trigger the camera shutter to open and close in rapid succession for over 200 images, with minute long pauses, much like camgirls do.

Downstairs, Helmut Newton’s personal collection of cameras, books from his library, and fetish objects from his most famous images competed for attention with sheaves and sheaves of faxes and cables from him to his editors, and to him from his admirers. This is the man who got Manolo Blahnik to design for him.

I lost myself between the two floor-to-ceiling cases of cameras in their leather sacks, embossed with HN and some bearing faded stickers from world travel, aiming their stilled lenses back at me. If only I could have the chance to come under that gaze…

This is the closest there is.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Art + Ladies + Liquor Are Coming to You


filed under: State of Sex Ed, We Make Art Not Sex by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

Sexerati fave and tartstar Molly Crabapple is touring the East Coast early in 2007, bringing with her the cabaret/artschool collision that is Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, where participants can get properly soused (or caffeinated) whilst sketching beautifully barely-clad models in a slightly salacious environment that puts the life (and then some) back into “life modeling.”

Molly is touring now in support of the first Dr. Sketchy’s publication/propaganda piece, Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Coloring Book, which she promises is…

Much like popular Victorian cure-all tonics, Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Colouring Book is a natrual cure for boredom, apathy, shingles, gout, sobriety, and erectile dysfunction. It can even buy you Love! (or at least explain how to hire her for an evening to strip down to her pasties). Lovingly illustrated, adorned with dirty humor and black wit, this book is twice as good as James Joyce’s Ulysses- and three times as sexy.

Fear not if you’ve no Dr. Sketchy’s yet where you call home — here’s how to start your very own.

Saturday, December 2, 2006

Vuk Cosic Models ‘Deep ASCII’ Tee at the Trendshop


filed under: We Make Art Not Sex by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

Vuk Cosic is the creator of ‘Deep ASCII,’ a full-length ASCII version of the ’seminal’ (oh stop it) porn hit Deep Throat. He was speaking on Friday at the Nordic Exceptional Trendshop in Copenhagen, as part of his ongoing efforts to evangelize on ASCII’s behalf.

Vuk Modeling His ASCII 'Deep Throat' Tee

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