SEAGULL SALON NYC Beauty & Culture Blog

The Scissor Girls

When Seagull VIP Kelly Kuvo presented us with a signed press photo of her former band the Scissor Girls, a Chicago-based band active in the '90s, she took our bathroom hall of fame to a whole new level. The Scissor Girls were art-punk heros to my riot grrrl set, but I didn't manage to meet Kelly until maybe '97, when she moved to New York, into the apartment across the hall from where Shaun and I were living in Williamsburg. We had some insane adventures together over the next couple of years. Ask Shaun to elaborate during your next hair cut as most of it is not suitable for a family blog. 

Here the Scissor Girls are dressed as crust punks, or, I don't know, maybe an LA band, in keeping with their wry humor and persistent refusal to identify with or as anything:

And here, Kelly explains what the Scissor Girls are, or rather, are not: 

But it is, predictably, in a cable access video that we can clearly see the intransigent beauty of one of the greatest bands ever. That's Kelly with the tonsure:

 

Read a book. xo Johanna for SEAGULL

Notions of Femininity and Female Bodybuilding

Recently it was revealed that bodybuilder Jelena Abbou is the new face of MAC Cosmetics, and I couldn't be happier about it! It's great to see different representations of femininity celebrated, especially when that representation questions what femininity is. 

There was a piece in the NY Times about female weight lifters in the United Arab Emirates back in October, but overall there's not much talk about women competing in this interesting sport. I mean, my younger sister has been into weightlifting for awhile, so it's been on my radar for a couple years. I never understood why she wanted to change her body like that. Why would anybody want that? I was ignorant and didn't get it.

But my interest in female bodybuilding has been going strong for about six months now. It wasn't until I saw this amazing documentary called Pumping Iron II: The Women (the sequel to Pumping Iron, one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's first films) that my viewpoint on the sport was really made. 

In it, you see several different women preparing for a bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas. It's interesting to watch them prepare and lift weights that most people cannot lift. Their focus and determination really does elevate bodybuilding from sport to an art form. Their body has become a canvas. It's so impressive. I can only watch in awe. 

Even the way the documentary is made is interesting in that it's a predecessor to how reality television shows are nowadays: real/improvised dialogue but planned scenes. And there's a lot to talk about in this film because there's a much larger issue at hand: What defines femininity? 

You'll find that unlike the judging process in male bodybuilding competitions, the women aren't only judged by how much weight they can lift but also by how feminine they are.  "Feminine", rather, as what femininity means to the judges refers to how desirable the bodybuilding contestants are. Basically the judges want to see if a competitor can lift a lot of weights and at the same time be someone they'd want to have sex with. 

Bev Francis is one of the main competitors focused on in Pumping Iron II. She is the most impressive, too. 

Her image evokes a lot of feelings when you see her. Fear and admiration are the feelings that come to me when I see her. That's just me being honest. We aren't used to seeing women look so powerful. I like that it makes people uncomfortable and fearful. That's why above all I find Bev Francis to be a beautiful specimen and a work of art.

She's clearly the strongest woman in Pumping Iron II, but does she appeal to the judges in a sexual way? Is she still somebody they'd want to take care of and protect? Well, no. Bev looks like she'd do the protecting. She's not conventionally beautiful. She's not what most men would consider sexy. (In fact, I read that Bev later got cosmetic surgery in order to appeal more to judges.)

And that's why Pumping Iron II has some interesting contest results...

The film itself is out of print. Good luck finding a copy. I got a not-so-great quality version of it back in August, and even though there was an audio delay, I found myself glued to the monitor because it was just so interesting. I loved it. I loved what I was hearing and seeing and thinking. 

Find it and watch it. I highly recommend it.

xo
craig hunter 

Seagull VIP Laura Parnes at MoMA!

We've written about Laura Parnes before, as she's one of our faves, and her new video piece County Down involves BOTH of Seagull's owners. Shaun is featured as a surly—and extremely fashionable—grocery store associate; and I worked on the soundtrack. It will screen at MoMA (or, as my grandma would say, "the Modern") on December 17th at 7PM. We are thrilled. Here's the link! xo Johanna

Radical Looks

I live for looks that are iconic. I'm talking about those images of people that are tattooed in your memory. Looks that are original and mimicked by others.

But besides that I am interested in thoughts that are radical and different and upsetting to the norm. So, it's no wonder right now that I've been obsessing over the looks of political radicals of the 60s and 70s. 

Let's meditate on these, shall we?

Angela Davis

Shulamith Firestone

Bernardine Dohrn

Florynce Kennedy

Andrea Dworkin

Gloria Steinem

Their looks are beautiful and effortless. And what's powerful is what lies beneath. The words they've spoken and written come to mind to accompany these images. They evoke a spirit of the times that is hard to ignore. It isn't just about what clothes they are wearing but the ideas and the legacy that continues to live on. 

xo
craig hunter 

Seagull VIP Andrea Geyer

Here's an adorable picture of Shaun with his client Andrea Geyer. Andrea and I have known eachother since we were babies—well, since 2000, when she was in the Whitney independent study program and I was the curatorial assistant at the legendary Thread Waxing Space (stay tuned for the forthcoming publication from Participant Press The Alternative to What? Thread Waxing Space and the 90s). Andrea and her cool friends would come look at our show we and tell us (my boss Lia Gangitano and me) what we should go see in Soho (this is when there were still galleries there; the exodus to Chelsea was just beginning). ANYWAY, I've recently written about Andrea, she collaborated with Sharon Hayes (also a Seagull VIP, of course) on THE show of the summer, Sharon's There's so much I want to say to you at the Whitney. Next, Andrea will be featured in a program at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam along with feminist luminary MPA (whose first solo exhibition at Leo Koenig last fall Directing Light onto Fist of Father floored everybody), and, wow, VALIE EXPORT too!

Here is how Andrea's piece Comrades of Time is described in the museum's press release:

The performance draws upon speeches, letters, and essays written during the vibrant years of the Weimar Republic. Geyer crafts these texts into dense monologues, enacting a direct address to the viewer and a powerful encounter with political imaginary. Initially produced as a multi-channel video, "Comrades of Time" casts young women giving voice to the texts’ direct appeals to shared responsibility, layering the work with the formations of age and gender in political presence.

Dutch friends, save the date September 27th! (Shaun and I are researching last minute tickets to Amsterdam for the ultimate feminist art field trip).—Johanna

Gore Vidal

Yesterday one of our greatest twentieth century culture purveyors passed on.

Gore Vidal was 86 years old when he died.

Along with contemporaries such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, James Baldwin, Merce Cunningham, Tennesse Williams, John Cage and countless others, he helped shaped not only the modern American landscape, but also the way we perceived various media. In challenging sexual and gender theories and beliefs of the time, he helped to forge free reign of imagining new ways of what it could be (or in some cases not be) homosexual. A cultural critic, journalist, playwright, activist and sometimes actor, Vidal pushed the limits of societal constructs and challenged some of the best minds of the time.

The New York Times refused to review five of Vidal's novels after his forthright depiction of homosexual love in his 1948 novel "The City and the Pillar". He vehemently denied that there was such a thing as gay culture or even a homosexual identity, especially and even urgently, how they relate to the feminist situation in a time where a person could be institutionalized for even uttering those words... much less introducing a dialog around such subject matter:

" Although there is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person, there are, of course, homo- and heterosexual acts. Unhappily, it has suited the designers of the moral life of the American republic to pretend that there are indeed two teams, one evil and sick and dangerous, and one good and normal and--that word!--straight. This is further complicated by our society's enduring hatred of women, a legacy from the Old Testament, enriched, in due course, by St. Paul. As a result, it is an article of faith among simple folk that any man who performs a sexual act with another man is behaving just like a woman--the fallen Eve--and so he is doubly evil. "

Well said.

My personal favorite work was his adaptation for the silver screen Tenessee William's "Suddenly Last Summer" starring the indelible Elizabeth Taylor, where he added in spicy dialog as well as mind blowing snippets of arduous soliloquies shedding light on the cultural perception of homosexuals (and self-empowered women) as monsters, articulately and ingeniously inspired my Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein".

Gore Vidal leaves a prolific legacy in his work as a cultural critic and observer of the modern, American human condition. He is the last of the last of the greatest gatekeepers of knowledge in this regard and we mourn his passing with the weighty awareness that there is no one as clever, controversial, inflammatory and profoundly correct that will be stepping up to sit at his throne.

Mr. Vidal's partner Howard Austen, whom he became involved with cira 1950, resided with him in the virtually inaccessible Villa La Rondinaia Ravello, Italy in practical seclusion during later years. Until 2003, when, from his deathbed, Mr. Austen posed the famed rhetorical question:

“Didn’t it go by awfully fast?”

xoxoxo
With all the greatest of love and respect,
Shaun SureThing

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

You don't fool me for a minute. I know all about you. 

You came here tonight thinking you’d see some cute and wonderful rockstar. And you thought he’d take one look at you from up on that stage and he’d fall in love with you just like that. Then your savior could take you out of this dump of a town you live in. You could be different from all the other girls. Suckers!

Be yourselves.

These guys laugh at you. They've got such big plans for the world, but they don't include us. So what does that make you?

Just another girl lining up to die.

That's when Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains grabbed hold of me and got my full attention. It was so lucid.

It's what Corinne shouts at the audience after her band The Fabulous Stains is heckled off stage. It's their first show, and they've revealed themselves to be a sort of cross between The Shaggs and The Misfits (from "Jem and the Holograms"). This crowd came to hear the all-male headlining bands, one of which likes to write songs about that point in a relationship, you know, where it's necessary for the man to hit his "old lady" because words just don't cut it.

But the Stains (Corinne, her sister Tracy, and their cousin Jessica, a very young Laura Dern) are desperate to succeed. They're in their teens. Corinne and Tracy's parents are dead; Jessica's mother is uninterested and absent. There's no future in their hometown. They have to get out of there. 

And so they do. And they quickly make a name for themselves. Their style is different. They don't dress like the other girls around. 

When their manager instructs the Stains to dress in sexy, tight leather outfits, Corinne refuses and opts for an olive trench and a red beret instead. (My personal favorite look from the movie.)

Corinne is also (in)famous for her outbursts and speaking her mind. (At one point she tells a news reporter: "Every girl should be given an electric guitar on her sixteen birthday." Amen.) She's also good at plugging her band whenever she is interviewed by the press, further spreading the word of the Stains and creating an impressive fanbase. 

But what happens when you aren't sure if your fans are really listening or if they just want to look like you? What does an influential band to do when it gets boiled down to a marketable look? What do you do when the youth subculture is something to be capitalized from? Are you a sellout, or what? These are questions that are brought up in The Fabulous Stains.

It's a short movie, but there is enough material in it that had me deep in thought the next day. I was also really inspired by the film. There's something about it. It's not perfect, but that's okay. I felt empowered.

What is most important (besides their awesome songs) are the ideas and situations brought up. It's the kind of movie that says the things I've always felt but never saw in a movie.

It made me want to start a band. It made me want to be myself. 

It has that effect. 

xo
craig hunter 

Nicole Eisenman Does It Again

It will come as no surprise that seminal radical lesbian artist Nicole Eisenman is a Seagull VIP. In her current solo exhibition at Leo Koenig's place we find more evidence of her typical hyper-ovulation: Eisenman's print-making practice is in full bloom. Apparently, her jaw-dropping grid at Whitney's B was only the tip of the volcano. That's not to say Whitney snagged the most incendiary stuff—what Leo has is fantastic as well. The principle at work here is, simply, "the more, the better." While individual pieces might contain a great joke or something beautiful, all together these works constitute an ecstatic scream. It's loud: One need not take drugs or attend a graduate program to discern its utopic vibe—or, alternately, its funny/serious jabs at "important art," patriarchy, and the right wing. Standout imagery in these woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, and monotypes include a psychedelic beard, a swarm of cigars attempting to penetrate all orifices of a head, and Eisenman's refreshing take on the vagina-as-portal trope. On view until June 30th.—Johanna Fateman

Our Date with xoJane's Emily McCombs

Emily McCombs is the cream of the blogosphere, churning out unexpurgated first person posts that raise our eyebrows as we nod in wonder and assent. As the executive editor of xoJane (the real talk website headed by ex-Sassy's Jane Pratt), her brand of radical honesty and nonjudgmental commentary challenges the fundamental tropes of women's lifestyle journalism by presenting an admirable style of life—one that is adventurous and intensely self-reflexive. Emily has written unblinkingly about her tastes in pornography and fantasies of degradation, her addictions, her cosmetics, the damage years of bulimia have done to her teeth, loving little tiny babies, and the experience of receiving a friend request from her rapist on Facebook. 

So when we learned that our hero @msemilymccombs had booked a color appointment at Seagull with William we all screamed. And, to make things more insane for our small staff of excitable, demonstrative and twitter-addicted creative professionals, she decided to crowd source her new hair color decision. Our twitter exploded with suggestions and demands from her formidable following. Purple was trending, as was reverse ombré; votes were cast for crew cuts, checkerboards, and Louise Brooks. So what happened in the end? Emily has documented the entire experience with before and after pictures, screenshots, and videos. She even prodded me into admitting on camera that I'm in this business for the "hot bitches." Emily, you rascal! xoJohanna

RESIST PSYCHIC DEATH

so tessellated

 Seagull muse @iamcaroline’s epic new Bikini Kill tattoo, courtesy of TRON at Thicker Than Water. Loving the Escherean elements, perspective play and nod to the future corpse (a classic Caroline leitmotif!) RESIST PSYCHIC DEATH FOREVER. 

XOXO,

Mawlz