As protests for racial justice continue, the art world has responded by featuring the work of black artists and exalting the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement on the art industry. Almost overnight, Twitter and Instagram has become flooded with lists of black galleries, black artists, and black musicians whose projects you can support. However, one black art dealer and critic, M. Charlene Stevens, remains suspicious. More →
Between the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and civil unrest, it might be easy to forget that this is an election year, and the New York Democratic primary takes place Tuesday. If you need to refresh your memory with some of the events that lead to Joe Biden being the party’s last remaining presidential candidate, you can count on Theater In Asylum. Well, kind of. More →
I first met dominatrix Charlotte Taillor in February at her home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, where her male submissives were curating pastry spreads and rolling her spliffs. While she usually sports a leather catsuit, this day she wore sweatpants and a t-shirt reading “sex worker rights are human rights.”
Charlotte runs The Taillor Group, a feminist kink collective that encourages explorations of BDSM and other fetishes. The operation is entirely female-centric, comprised of about 30 dommes, and rather an anomaly in the world of kink; dominatrixes usually fly solo. “BDSM is the only way I’ve found for women to achieve the agency we’ve been striving for,” Charlotte told me confidently, before bellowing at one of her subs: “Roll me more spliffs!” More →
Earlier this month, over 50 smashed storefronts were boarded up after a night of looting. Two weeks later, Soho has turned into an open-air art gallery.
“Color is not a crime” reads a message painted on the plywood boards covering one store, against a rainbow-hued skyline. More →
Sitting in her Greenpoint home on a Friday night, Lorraine Leckie opens up a Zoom video session and gets ready for a night of crafting songs. Around 7:30 p.m., video squares begin to pop up on her screen, revealing her friends’ heads and torsos and a snapshot of their living rooms. The Greenpoint Songwriters Exchange had to move out of Leckie’s home to an online platform to accommodate for social distancing rules, but just because gigs are canceled doesn’t mean writing new material has to stop. More →
As New York was hunkering down for the Covid-19 pandemic on March 21, the city Department of Health released a statement advising New Yorkers on how to have sex while saying safe and healthy. The guide, which advised residents to abstain from rimming and to engage in virtual sex, circulated widely on social media. Now, as we’ve entered phase 1 of reopening and New Yorkers are looking to restart their romantic and sexual lives, the Department of Health has updated those guidelines. More →
When Kirsten Midura started Engines for Change in 2019, she was merging her love for motorcycle riding and environmental activism. The nonprofit started off hosting beach cleanups. But as times quickly changed and the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City hard, Engines for Change volunteers began using their motorcycles to transport groceries to those who are unable to leave their homes, and they delivered Personal Protective Equipment to hospitals and health care centers across the city. With times changing yet again, the group is once again shifting gears – this time to support New Yorkers protesting police violence against black people. More →
If you join a protest these days and find yourself among hundreds or thousands marching through an otherwise empty Times Square, you may get the sense that something distinctly new is happening. When else in history have demonstrations taken over the streets of almost every major city in the country? More →
Late last month, video of a confrontation between an avid birder and a dog walker in the Central Park Ramble went viral. While Twitter and the op-ed pages rightfully prioritized the degree to which white privilege, prejudice, and misplaced fear motivated the dog walker’s more than inappropriate response, the exchange also underscored long-standing tensions between birders and dog walkers in the Ramble, and sparked broader conversations about city park usage in general. That conversation has become all the more timely now that parks are playing host to massive protests against police brutality and systemic racism. More →
March 7 was the last time Will Baker went out to dinner. It was the weekend of the International Antiquarian Book Fair, which went off just before the city’s official “pause” order on March 20. The owner of W.C. Baker Books and Ephemera recalled an off feeling in the air. “There was this sort of unease,” Baker said. “People didn’t really realize what was about to happen.” More →
