Best of 2023: CPH:INTER:ACTIVE: Breaking the Code

For me, one of the hands down highlights of 2023 was the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival’s Inter:Active exhibition, which featured the ballsy theme “Breaking the Code.” Expertly assembled by risk-taking Immersive Curator Mark Atkin, it starred “artists using the 1s and 0s of computer code to explore the messiness of nature and humanity beyond binary definitions...The creators are for the most part neurodiverse, non-binary, queer, marginalised and activists, subverting established visual languages in order to address our existence between the physical and digital realms from an non-heteronormative standpoint.” And that mission statement was certainly accomplished in droves.

To read all about it visit Global Comment.

Art for Everybody

When one hears the words “the most successful artist of his time” the name Thomas Kinkade likely won’t spring to mind (at least not for those reading these words). But then, what is your definition of success? Like art itself it’s in the eye of the beholder; and for Kinkade’s (working-class white) superfans and true-believing business partners – upon which the QVC-ubiquitous painter’s multimillion-dollar empire was built in the 90s – success meant idyllic tableaus for the nostalgic masses. Which inevitably put Kinkade at odds with an elite establishment built on secret knowledge and scarcity, on the belief that art should only be interpreted and owned by the (rich white) few. In other words, one individual’s precious keepsake is another’s eye-rolling mall kitsch.

To read the rest of my review of Miranda Yousef’s (inexplicably undistributed) SXSW-premiering Art for Everybody visit Hammer to Nail.

A Hard Place: Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed

For those looking for some head-spinning holiday viewing, Stephen Kijak’s Tribeca-premiering, HBO-streaming Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed is a biopic chockfull of hall of mirrors contradictions: first and foremost it centers on a world-famous, well-adjusted, publicly closeted gay man who proudly (miraculously) lived his truth by hiding in plain sight. Indeed, for over three decades the titular Hollywood heartthrob succeeded in simultaneously abiding by the (straights and closeted folks-only) facade of the studio system that micromanaged his career and media persona – the omertà code unbroken until minutes after Hudson died of AIDS-related complications in 1985 – while unabashedly embracing all the perks naturally afforded an Adonis-hot friend of Dorothy. (You go girl!)

To read the rest of my review visit Global Comment.