caroline contillo

Through October 27th at Tracy Williams, Ltd. is Georgina Starr’s ode to silent film actress Theda Bara, which involves “film stills, a limited-edition monograph, and Theda (Prelude), a 12-minute black-and-white video of herself dressed as Bara and performing a gamut of exaggerated expressions.” (from ArtKrush) I myself was obsessed with Theda in high school, using her name for most of my e-mail passwords and naming my short-lived print zine after one of her more feminist films. My penchant for performance art and its subsequent documentation will probably never die, so I definitely plan on getting to what looks like a pretty superb show before it’s over.

Also in Chelsea right now is a friend’s work, at Cynthia Broan. Lauren Baxter’s ink drawings simply can’t be done justice on the internet, as they are often so minutely detailed that one must almost press her face up to the page to make sense of it. This forced attention can be a little disconcerting for the gallery-goer who is used to bouncing from image to image, but it’s certainly worth it. I’m excited that Lauren is going to be part of the collaborative drawing/art project I’ve been trying to get off the ground recently. Should be a pretty awesome