Feel Everything Gala (NSFW)
I invited myself to shoot Performance Space's inaugural Feel Everything Gala.
Well, sort of…
Yseult, Julia Fox & Richie Shazam
I was sent a flyer by a friend asking if I was going to attend the said soirée. After seeing Jordan Tannahill and Julia Fox on the shooting menu alongside a "haute fetish" dress code, I knew I had to be in. I worked with Jordan briefly last year when I was commissioned to take portraits of the cast of the scandalously riveting play he wrote called Prince Faggot. I'm no stranger to fetish photography. After all, one of my favorite events to shoot is Folsom Fair, and Julia Fox, well, can I really call myself a New York nightlife photographer if I haven't snapped a picture of this not-so-elusive non-chanteuse?
Anyways, I am no longer shy about pulling any strings I might have if they get me through the door. So I ended up messaging both Performance Space and Jordan asking if I could document the event. Both got back to me with an enthusiastic yes, Performance Space even offering compensation. We love the sound of that.
For the uninitiated, Performance Space New York lives at 150 First Avenue in the East Village — a former public school building that has been a launching pad for avant-garde performance since the 1980s, back when the neighborhood was cheap, dangerous, and crawling with artists who would go on to define a generation, like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Nan Goldin. It's been home to work that is weird, political, sexual, and unclassifiable and the Feel Everything Gala felt like a full-circle moment for everything the space has historically stood for.
Early in the evening, Richie Shazam spent a solid eight minutes on stage asking if anyone had seen their bestie and hosting partner Julia Fox. The whole room looking around perplexed. Then she finally made her grand entrance dressed as a table, of course. Navigating a tightly seated audience in a table costume was comedic, even if unintentionally so, a few guests standing up to clear her a path. Once she finally ascended the stage and after a few exchanges with Richie, she reflected on how she used to make money as a Domme in high school and how she's basically doing it for free now. A few oohs and aahs and some uncomfortable chuckling followed. To my dismay the table dress came off right after Julia and Richie left the stage. Now she's in a pink satin dress (or silk? I don't know much about fabric) à la Marilyn Monroe, but with black outlines of hands pinching her in all the strategic places.
Jordan had been running away from me for most of the evening, "putting out fires" as he said, but when I finally got him next to Julia I had to insist on a photo. Upon taking my first shot, no flash came out. Quick as ever, Julia asked: is there any flash? Well yas, she'd just fallen asleep.
The night went on with sporadic performances by Yseult, Arewà Basit, Star Amerasu with Jonah Almost, and wrapping up with a mini-concert by Moses Sumney who blew everyone away with charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent… ok let me stop. What I can really say is that his performance really did embody the Feel Everything ethos of the evening.
The personal highlight for me was the unhinged shtick by Alex Tatarsky. They started on top of a table, painted silver head to toe, silver cone hat, hands tied behind their back, and proceeded to (I can only describe it as) harass the table into feeding them “a cube of beef” and red wine. “Are you not going to share the resources?“ was all they had to say to force the hesitant crowd to oblige. Things got very messy. After being untied by the gala’s co-chair Slobodan Randjelović, they asked someone to whip them with the rope they'd been previously bound with: “They told me I could do whatever I want! Now tell me I’m bad!“ The audience enthusiastically obliged. “I’m just a wittle boy!“ begins jerking a small silver dildo attached to their waist by a rope. When they finally made it to the stage, they broke character and announced they'd been channeling a sculpture by the night's honoree Paul McCarthy — a naughty silver elf with an attachment, currently up for auction. The room was hysterical throughout the entire thing. Alex then proceeded to tell a story of how they ran into McCarthy’s “Santa” with a butt plug sculpture in Austria and thought: what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck — they sponsor art like that in Europe? Then produced a similar butt plug in a much more sensible size (comparing to the sculpture) and presented it as the award to Paul McCarthy himself.
Paul McCarthy is a Los Angeles-based artist notorious for work that is loud, grotesque, and deliberately confrontational. He is famous for large-scale sculptures and performances involving bodily excess, ketchup masquerading as other substances, inflatable genitalia, and corrupted American pop iconography. You may know him from the giant inflatable sculpture that Paris mistook for a butt plug and had removed. He is not subtle, and he would take that as a compliment.
Independent French pop star Yseult kicked off the performances surrounded by what Tannahill called a "fetish circus" — balloon provocateur Mistress Nina, lube-based choreography by Dahlia Damoiselle, surreal puppetry by Tristan Allen.
Internet sensation Star Amerasu performed a comedic bit called “Khia Asylum“ written and performed by her as Astrum the extraterrestrial, with Jonah Almost as himself, and Walker Stovall as a man on the leash. She basically played an extraterrestrial Genie who was able to make all of Jonah’s dreams come true, like a 10-inch dick and fame beyond belief, by topping him??
I dunno…
Alex Tatarsky generating chaos.
Performances by Miles Greenberg, Arewa Basit, Yin Qi of non-profit Red Canary Song with cellist MIZU.
Moses Sumney
Samuel R. Delany was also honored throughout the evening for his expansive body of work. A towering figure in science fiction, queer literature, and cultural criticism, Delany has spent decades writing at the intersection of race, sexuality, and the imagination. His science fiction (Dhalgren, Babel-17, the Nevèrÿon series) is some of the most formally ambitious work the genre has produced. But just as significant is his non-fiction, including the book honored here: Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, a meditation on the old Times Square. Its porn theaters, its cruising culture, its working-class queer life, and what was lost when the city sanitized it into a tourist destination. One of the ways the night honored him was through Miles Greenberg reading an excerpt from that book, which was exactly as atmospheric as it sounds.
Michele Lamy couldn't make it due to illness but sent a cryptic, hypnotic thank-you video that was mostly just her staring into the camera. Lamy, an artist, designer, muse, and long-time partner of Rick Owens, is one of those figures who seems to exist slightly outside of normal human categorization. She has tattooed knuckles, gold teeth, darkened fingertips, and the aura of someone who has been to places you cannot find on a map. She co-created the fashion line BOLARE with Owens and has been a fixture in avant-garde and fashion circles for decades. She is enigmatic by design and absolutely got away with a video that was essentially just a prolonged intense stare. Respect.
Still from Michele Lamy’s video.
After a chaotic fundraiser segment MC'd by Alok and Ruby McCollister, everyone headed out to the afterparty headlined by Bound NYC. Bound is one of New York's premier kink and BDSM nightlife events — a longstanding fixture in the city's underground scene, known for creating a space that takes both the erotic and the community aspect of kink seriously. Appropriate venue for the evening's energy.
Katie Rex of Bound NYC
In the corner of the main room, a small stage hosted slinky performances throughout the night. Kembra Pfahler was billed to headline the performance crew but I didn't catch her set, and neither did other photographers as far as I know.
Dylan Gong and Baddie Yu shared a lustful, blood-filled performance. Dylan made small incisions across Baddie's back with a scalpel, placed airtight cups over each cut, and let the suction do its work. As the blood pooled into each cup, Dylan removed it, filled a dish, and then wrote something on Baddie's back in her own blood before licking it off. Obviously.
Pup Voltzy in a yellow latex suit with PISS written across it, a toilet tank strapped to his back, standing in a small pool, waiting for someone to bless him with their warmth. A few people attempted. Every single one was pee shy.
Vanilla Honey and Mildred Pierce sealed each other into a latex bag, taking turns, with only a thick straw coming out for air. The person inside writhing with extras while the person outside controlled the airflow, making it dangerously sensual. The crowd could not look away.
That's it. I'm tired of writing.
