T|A|G

A Queer e-zine.

[paddyjohnson]

Yellow: Mike Kelley as the Banana Man

“Mike Kelley as the Banana Man,” 1981 (Image courtesy of MoMA PS1)

Color Wheel is a series in which…

View Post

[tagzeen-blog]

I think all art has humor in it because all art is about surprise. And so, humor is a more socially accepted version of surprise in which there's a kind of cultural racket in which you can be surprised. It's only because of the pomposity of art that so-called 'normal folk' don't like art. They accept shysters and they accept comedy. But, they can't accept it when it has intellectual potential. That's the only difference. Humor is a basic component of art. Art, to me, is very much about analyzing visual language, decoding it and using it against itself or exposing it's conventions. That's what jokes do. If it's not funny or if it doesn't reinforce the status quo, then it's bad. And much humor in America is about reinforcing the status quo because what is being made fun of are those things which are non-status quo. So, art is, to me, a kind of humor that is not acceptable because it is threatening.

Mike Kelley

[charmingnotion]

Dolores del Rio, 1920s

[lydia]

idk

[tagzeen-blog]

Ryan Pusilo

[tagzeen-blog]

[tagzeen-blog]

Michael Clark

[tagzeen-blog]

[tagzeen-blog]

Thank you, Craig!

Tagzeen.com would like to thank Craig J. Calhoun for guest-curating the site for the past week. You’re an amazing “middle-aged queer artist”!

[tagzeen-blog]

"Saying what something is 'about' calls for the adoption of a focus of interest. Different observers may differ in their focus of interest for all kinds of reasons. [...] Being about something, in short, lacks any objective application of its own. It simply provides a slot for offering subjective and situationally relevant interpretations." - Roy Harris, Language and Intelligence (p. 88)

[tagzeen-blog]

"To me, writing a song is a bit like an experiment. In science you have an intention, an experiment, a result and an inference. What I always do is go for the experiment, and the result perhaps, but I never draw the inference. I leave that up to people who listen to the song, because really I'm in the dark as much as anybody else is." - Simon Le Bon, The Book of Words (p. 35)

[tagzeen-blog]

"I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring (pgs. x, xi)

[craigjcalhoun-deactivated201904]

[tagzeen-blog]

I don’t create in order to capture; I create to constantly shift.

I consider the objects and images that I make with the help of others (however directly or indirectly) to be neither personal (mere instances of self-expression), nor universal (transcendent generalizations); but hopefully some, if not many, will find them applicable to their experiences and/or interests.

Because I don’t think that anything can take the place of (stand in for) anything else, I view what I make as becoming dis-similar to instead of being representational of.

[Please note that I’m attempting to suggest both similarity and dissimilarity by using a hyphen in dis-similar.]

I’m not trying to show anything as it really is (as if that could actually be done). I’m also not claiming to state how things ought to be. If anything, I’m putting forth various fictions.

In other words, I don’t presume to know. I’d even go as far as to write that the “wiggle room” of not necessarily knowing, which I would not equate with willful ignorance, is what motivates me; not some search for (Platonic) truths or essences.

- Craig J Calhoun

[craigjcalhoun-deactivated201904]

posing #955

bodies, photography & Photoshop - Craig

07/09/12 - 04/20/13

[tagzeen-blog]

The above image has been published in two dis-similarities books available for purchase here and here.

[tagzeen-blog]

Siouxsie And The Banshees - Switch (1981) Köln, Germany

[tagzeen-blog]

"'I'm not exactly sure when it occurred to me to put a hole that you stick your head through on a T-shirt in a different place [...]. But if you change the place of the hole the fabric [...] bunches up in different places. It touches one hip higher than the other and gives you a feeling of curvaceousness [...].'" - Vivienne Westwood [quoted by Craig Bromberg], The Wicked Ways of Malcolm McLaren (pgs. 276 & 277)

[craigjcalhoun-deactivated201904]

underwear shift #2

materials - underwear & t-shirts

photography - Steve Greiner

body, sewing & Photoshop - Craig

Feb. 1996

The second underwear t-shirt I made while living with my parents after getting my BFA at SUNY New Paltz and before attending The School of The Art Institute of Chicago to obtain my MFA. The photo dates to 1998.

[tagzeen-blog]

The above image has been published in two books available for purchase here and here.