Kate Durbin, “The Supreme Gentleman,” September 2015. Materials: Elliot Rodger's "Final Retribution" YouTube video, wig, lipstick, selfie stick. Yes All Women Benefit, Los Angeles, CA.
E! Entertainment, tumblr girls, Lady Gaga, monstrosity, dramatic readings of episodes of “The Hills,” witches, anorexia blogs, a transcription of Kim Kardashian’s fairy tale wedding: Kate Durbin revels in the “cesspools of modern culture,” using performance art, written text, and visual compilations to explore the grotesque intersections of public and private. She is co-founder of the online journal, Gaga Stigmata, which compiles critical writing about Lady Gaga, and her tumblr project, Women As Objects, “archives the teen girl tumblr aesthetic:” “People often look at me funny when I say reality TV is a brilliant medium or that teenagers on tumblr are geniuses. But anything that we consider shallow and is yet so ubiquitous can’t really be shallow or meaningless. It has to be really important for us to create it and sustain it for so long.”
Her book, E! Entertainment, can be found here.
