Guest Lecture: Petra Collins
Plus Hot Divorcee Summer, a Feed Me event in New York, and more.
Good morning, everyone.
If I was looking for plans this week, I’d be heading to the Paul Thek opening at Galerie Buchholz tonight, or the Leonora Carrington opening at L’Space tomorrow night. I’m upset that I’ll be out of town for the opening of Klimt’s drawing show, Women, at Gladstone on Friday.
A Feed Me reader who goes by J.M. made that last one sound quite enticing:
This show of Gustav Klimt uptown is just his drawings. We all know immediately at least one or two Klimt paintings of women resplendent in gold leaf that we love. Rather than a bombardment of work like that, we’re given the drawings, the slight whispers of women that surface on the page as the ideas have still yet to form on the canvas. Gladstone’s uptown location is in the Edward Durell Stone House, the Modernist townhouse Stone built for himself in 1956, which you’ve certainly walked past, with the filigreed masonry on the front.
Today’s newsletter includes: An invite to a Feed Me event in New York later this month, unpacking Hot Divorcee Summer, and a downtown gala hosted by Ari Aster and Josh Safdie.
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Guest Lecture: Petra Collins
This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Gwyneth Paltrow, J. Crew CMO Julia Collier, and beehiiv founder Tyler Denk.
Today, Petra Collins — artist, photographer, director, author of STAR — answers your questions about directing Selena Gomez’s music video for “Fetish,” whether imitation is truly flattery, and her self-care rituals.
“You’re really the first major visual artist to come out of Toronto in the internet age. What’s one thing about making it from here that you had to figure out on your own, that you wish someone had just told you?” - Parker
I’m not totally sure. For a long time I felt really held back by Toronto, but then I moved to America and realized every place comes with its own trade-offs. In the U.S. there’s this very individualistic energy where everyone is kind of fighting for themselves, whereas Toronto actually has a real sense of community within the arts. I appreciate that a lot more now than I did when I was younger. Lean into that community and don’t underestimate it.
“You recently were talking about how the Hungarian cartoons your mom introduced you to influenced you so deeply. Would you ever consider animation?” - Tatayana
Yes, completely. I would die to work in animation. Those Hungarian cartoons were so dark and psychedelic and beautiful. I think animation can get into the subconscious in this powerful way. I got into Adventure Time a couple years ago and there is one episode that made me cry for almost a year. Animation is such a beautiful way to speak about trauma and abuse and I would love to make something that touches on that.
“Oh boy, this really made me miss Rookie Mag. What’s the most exciting piece of media made by teens you’ve seen recently?” - Samara
Samara! I miss Rookie too!!! I’m not sure about one specific piece of media, but something that’s really captured my heart lately is this spirit of radical self-love I see in a lot of younger girls online. When Alysa Liu started doing interviews again, I kept seeing all this really sincere posi-core content around her that I loved.
I think a lot of teens now are shedding certain fears and shame that I definitely carried when I was younger, and it’s really beautiful to watch. I also recently read this cute New Yorker profile about a tween girl that I implore everyone to read. I was really struck by how aware younger girls are now of predatory culture and the internet in general.