Artists must first of all distinguish themselves from members of the adjacent professional classes typically present at art world events: dealers, critics, curators, and caterers. They must second of all take care not to look like artists. This double negation founds the generative logic of artists' fashion.

The relationship between an artist's work and attire should not take the form of a direct visual analogy. A stripe painter may not wear stripes. Read More

When I was five years old, my eyes were clouded to my childhood duties by the peak fan experience of my life. It was 1982, and everything was Annie. I developed a new-to-me, curious sensation of both wanting to be like her and believing myself to be already more like her than anyone else could possibly be—a certainty about kinship of soul that is the mark of devotion. For nearly a year I moved through the streets of my neighborhood with this feeling inside me. Read More

 Millionaire Matchmaker. Season Two. Bravo.

Five years ago, when my grandfather could still walk around, he and my grandmother would drive into the city some Sunday mornings and meet me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They would wait for me—I was late, inevitably—in the lobby, near the lavish bouquets that some particularly impractical philanthropist had caused to perpetually bloom there. I would spot them there and, for some reason, stop and stare at them for a moment before they saw me and try to imagine what I'd think of them if I wasn't their grandchild.

Nana always wore a silk-scarf headband and lavish makeup. Poppy wore a polo sweater and neatly pressed, almost hipsterishly slouchy chinos. They would see me and advance, grinning, and my grandmother would press a little aluminum Met admission button into my palm that I would punch onto the edge of my jeans pocket, and then we would wobble slowly through one of the entranceways, clutching each other's hands.

I would have figured them, especially given the setting, for rich people, which was of course the point. Read More