Outside the Palace of Me

I'll say one thing for Shary Boyle:  her style is unlike that of any mixed media artist I've seen lately.  Her show at MAD is definitely a head scratcher.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Boyle represented Canada at the 2013 Venice Biennale.  The head on this elongated sculpture revolves intermittently.  I lacked the patience to capture her in motion after she startled me with an unanticipated swivel.

Hansel here reminds me of the Hummel figurines my mother probably brought at the PX when we first lived in Germany.  None survived my childhood.  He seems to be hiking solo through world of psychological terror.

Ditto for this ballerina.  Is she imagining the end of her career?

Things get even stranger in Boyles videos, sculptures and projections.

She embodies four female archetypes--a homemaker, an activist, a witch and a crone (not pictured)--in hand puppets on this woman with too many arms.

Boyle does for overhead transparencies what the Indonesians did with shadow puppets.  I'll never forget the first time I saw them in The Year of Living Dangerously, one of my all-time favorite movies.

In "The Trampled Devil," she kind of nails Andy's $$$$$$ obsession with a figure identified as "Warbucks."  It's not clear whether Boyle's tongue is in cheek or not.

Beautifully made crafts ground the museum's permanent collection.

"Taxonomia" by Armarinhos Teixeira (partial, 2020)

Untitled (Lone Ranger and Tonto bracelet)
by Teri Greeves (2004)

Tennessee Valley Authority Applique Quilt Design of a Black Fist (1934)

"Lyric with a Lollipop" by Bisa Butler (2017)

"The Family...Solid Like a Rock" by Carolyn Mazloomi (1991-93)

Seeing a quilt by Faith Ringgold in isolation gave me the time to read some of her panel text.  It's just as mind-blowing as anything she stitches! 

Move over, Lewis!

"Shades of Alice" by Faith Ringgold (partial, 1988/93)

"I Remember Way Back When" by Tiff Massey (partial, 2019)

Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle

If you're looking for a master class in FABULOUSNESS, get your ass to MAD which IMHO should have retained its original name, the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. 

A super-colorful exhibit celebrates the work of costumer Machine Dazzle (born Matthew Flower) who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page!  

Why aren't queens and kids rushing to Columbus Circle for this can't-miss spectacle? I had the two dark galleries nearly to myself on a jaw-dropping Friday afternoon.

Dazzle designed many of the costumes on the fourth floor for "Special Occasions."

This head dress could have lured me back to drag on Thanksgiving!

Leslie Chihuly (Dale's wife) wore this "Organism" costume to the 2020 Art for All Ball sponsored by Seattle's Path with Art.

Mx Justin Vivian Bond "dazzled" in these gowns while performing Lustre: A Midwinter Transfest in 2007.

Many of the costumes are so intricate, it's hard to believe they're wearable.  Videos prove they are.

Houstonian's got a glimpse of Dazzle's extreme creativity when his "Heliotropisms" were included in Natasha Bowdoin's Sideways to the Sun at Rice University.

Has there ever been a more fruitful (pun intended!) collaboration in performance art than Taylor Mac and Machine Dazzle for A 24-Decade History of Popular Music?  MAD gives Dazzle's costumes an entire floor.  I could kick myself for not getting a ticket when I could have but the prospect of sitting in St. Ann's Warehouse for an entire day and night intimidated me.  Now it would be the third stop in my pop culture time machine (Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl on Broadway is first, the Beatles at Shea Stadium is second).

Changing costumes for each of the 24 decades must have been almost exhausting as performing 246 popular songs composed from 1776 to  2016!

Dazzle's influences range from the sacred to the profane.  Yep,  that's a Star of David. 

Children, avert your eyes from this homespun "fabric."

Mr. Flower truly has a gift.