Nigerian Chutzpah: Notes on the Artist Known as Slawn

Photo of Olaolu Slawn by Georgia Jones 

saatchiyates.com  

 

"My style is all about feeling over form ..." 

 

 

I. 

 

One of the young artists included in the Saatchi Yates summer exhibition whose work I didn't discuss in a recently published post [1], is the man who brings "Nigerian chutzpah to the London scene" [2] and is usually known by the mononym Slawn. 

 

Such is his presence, for better or worse, within contemporary British culture, however - he designed a unique version of the FA Cup in the 2023-24 season in order to promote the competition amongst a younger generation of football fans and he also designed the set and stauette for the 2023 BRIT Awards - that this seems something of an oversight. 

 

So, for the record, I did like his large and energetic canvas Diaspora (2025). Using acrylic, ink, and spray paint, Slawn combined elements not only of street art and abstract expressionism, but surrealism - all those eyes! 

 

Having said that, however, there's something about him and his work - or perhaps more precisely the uncritical media fanfare surrounding him and the cynical promotion and exploitation of his work by the (predominantly white and wealthy) people in the art world - that troubles me (even if it doesn't seem to trouble him). 

 

 

II.      

 

Let's start from the beginning ... 

 

Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in October 2000. A clever and creatively-minded teenager, he and his skateboarding pals founded Motherlan in 2018; an art collective cum streetwear brand. 

 

In the same year, Slawn moved to London and enrolled to study graphic design at Middlesex University in 2019, taking up a paintbrush shortly afterwards and quickly establishing a strong social media presence. 

 

He had his debut exhibition in September 2021, at The Truman Brewery (Brick Lane, E1). Interviewed in The Face around this time, he is famously quoted as saying of his work:

 

"I don’t even know why people want this shit. ​I wouldn't buy this shit. I just have no interest in my art. I make it so I can fuck about." [3]

 

Evidence perhaps of his iconoclastic spirit and Nigerian chutzpah ...   

 

Such an honest (and sadly accurate) appraisal of his own work didn't, however, have a negative impact on his career as an artist and in autumn 2024 he held his first major London exhibition at the Saatchi Yates gallery: I present to you, Slawn - click here. 

 

One of the works was a giant mural spanning the full length of an entire wall. Composed of a thousand small rectangular canvases, each was hand-painted and each priced £1000; all of which were sold. 

 

But what can one say - without using his own four-letter term - of the dozen or so large, colourful canvases that made up the rest of the exhibition ...?   

 

The gallery press release for the exhibition speaks of the work being "rooted in both Yoruba heritage and contemporary societal themes" [4], but, frankly, this sounds like the kind of thing Marcus at Modern Wank would tell one of the wealthy poshos looking to buy some new toss at a reassuringly high price to put alongside the old shit they already own [5].    

 

I can accept that one might read some of Slawn's playful figures with their oversized red lips in terms of race and identity, but whether he can be said to address such complex issues is debatable. As the cultural critic Tomide Marv has noted, Slawn is a mix of artist, hustler, and performer ultimately more interested in collaborating with world-famous brands than producing art to raise political consciousness or inspire people to want to know more about Yoruba history [6]. 

  

Still, I'm not about to criticise him for that. And I certainly don't think he's merely a talentless chancer - far from it. But neither am I going to pretend that his work is comparable to that of Jean-Michel Basquiat, as I've seen it suggested by some idiot online and to which I can only respond: 

 

I've posted in praise of Basquiat. Jean-Michel is a hero of mine. Slawn, you're no Jean-Michel Basquiat [7].       

 

 

Olaolu Slawn: Diaspora (2025) 

Acrylic, ink, and spray paint on canvas (170 x 225 cm)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The post I'm referring to - 'Reflections on the Summer Exhibition at Saatchi Yates: Once Upon a Time in London (2025)' - was published on 8 August and can be read by clicking here.     

 

[2] Quoted from the press release for Once Upon a Time in London by Purple PR, a shortened version of which can be read on on the Saatchi Yates website: click here. 

      I'm not quite sure I know what the phrase Nigerian chutzpah means, though one assumes the writer is using it in a positive sense to signify boldness, even if this Yiddish term originally carried a more negative connotation suggesting impudence rather than just audacity. 

 

[3] Slawn interviewed by Brooke McCord for The Face, Vol. 4, Issue 9, (November, 2021): click here to read online. Slawn has also stated on social media that it doesn't matter to him whether he makes money through art, fraud, or crime, so long as he is rich at the end of it. 

 

[4] To read the press release for I present to you, Slawn (12 Sept - 1 Nov 2024) visit the Saatchi Yates website by clicking here.  

[5] I'm referring here to a character played by Harry Enfield in Harry & Paul, a British sketch show, starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, first broadcast on BBC One in 2007. Along with Modern Wank, Marcus also has an antiques store called I Saw You Coming. Click here to watch a sketch on YouTube.  

[6] See Tomide Marv; 'Slawn's Art is Not That Deep', an opinion piece on theblotted.com (31 March 2024): click here. 

      For a more positive view, written by Juliette Eleuterio, see the article 'Artist, Skater, Designer, Mowaloa Model: Who Exactly is Slawn?' (2023) on culted.com - click here. Clearly a fan she writes:

      "Working on canvases, murals and just about anything Slawn can get his hands on, his playful street and pop art-style may seem like just that, a bit of fun, at first glance. This notion is reinforced by the artist himself who has often been quoted as questioning why others even follow or show any interest in his art as he is just messing about. Though up close, it's clear that Slawn knows what he is doing, with his art diving into the themes of political challenges, racism, human psychology and other societal concepts." 

[7] Surprisingly, even The Guardian's arts and culture correspondent says there's "more than a hint of Jean-Michel Basquiat about Slawn". However, he is not comparing them in terms of talent, but referring to the fact that both men tried to disguise that they were from relatively wealthy backgrounds: 

      "Basquiat created a myth about himself being a Haitian-Puerto Rican street kid prodigy who slept on benches in Tompkins Square Park. While he might have been homeless at times, he also grew up in a Prospect Park brownstone, went to private school and knew MoMA inside out. Like Basquiat, Slawn has told reporters about his down-and-out existence in Lagos before he was 'discovered' by the British grime MC Skepta while working in a Lagosian skate shop and encouraged to move to London. 

      But while he might have slept at friends' houses and in cars, he also went to the exclusive Greenwood House school in the bougie Lagos suburb of Ikoyi, and mixed with other Nigerian tastemakers such as fashion designers Mowalola Ogunlesi and Ola Badiru." 

      See Lanre Bakare, '"I got offered a gram of cocaine for a painting": is Slawn art's latest enfant terrible?', The Guardian (24 September 2024): click here to read the article and interview online.  

      Obviously, my response is a paraphrase of the famous remark made by Democratic nominee Senator Lloyd Bentsenduring during the 1988 US vice presidential debate with the Republican nominee Senator Dan Quayle, after the latter compared himself to President John F. Kennedy. 

      For my post of 11 October 2017 on Basquiat and the question of black dandyism, please click here.  

 

 

Reflections on the Summer Exhibition at Saatchi Yates: Once Upon a Time in London (2025)

Saatchi Yates: Once Upon a Time in London 

12th June - 17th August 2025 

 

 

I. 

 

Only a few days to go before the summer exhibition at Saatchi Yates [1] comes to a close. So, if you want to see it, you'd better get your skates on ...

 

According to the press release prepared by Purple PR, this group exhibition is a celebration of those British artists who, over the last 70 years, have called London their home and it draws upon the history, diversity and culture of a city that has been "a major artistic crossroad where artists have challenged conventions and redefined the artistic landscape" [2].  

 

Still, don't let that and further clichéd guff about the way in which London has "evolved but remains a constant beating heart of ground breaking art" - or how "the current community of London artists [...] create masterfully painted surreal portraits that delve deep into the human psyche in a post digital world" - put you off, as it was clearly written by an idiot (or perhaps, who knows, generated by artificial intelligence given all the right prompts). 

 

Never prejudge an exhibition by its press release: that's my advice; just go see things for yourself [3]. 

 

 

II. 

 

The problem with a show of this kind, in which very different artists from different eras, working in very different ways and with very different concerns, are placed side by side is that difference is often flattened out in the name of continuity, coherence, and the identifying of correspondences so as to open up a dialogue between past and present: Messrs. Bacon, Freud, and Hockney meet Jadé Fadojutimi and Olaulu Slawn.  

 

Maybe that's a noble goal which, if successfully achieved - and I'm not convinced this show pulls it off - allows us to see how one artist takes up the challenge or initiative of another, albeit in a new context and in a new manner, for a new audience (it's never just solely a question of influence and imitation):

 

"Many things change or are supplemented from one initiative to another, and even what they have in common gains in strengh and novelty." [4]  

 

Rightly or wrongly, however, I suspect that Once Upon a Time in London was conceived and curated more as an opportunity for the gallery "to show off their roster of emerging artists with Saatchi legacy artists as a backdrop" [5].  

 

     

III. 

 

Having said that, there were certainly artists included in the exhibition whose work I'm always happy to see; Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach, for example. 

 

I particularly liked the latter's vibrant portrait Catherine Lampert Seated II (1991), a medium-sized, predominantly yellow coloured oil on canvas, which sold at auction to a private collector a couple of years ago for £630,000 [6]. 

 

There are other artists, however, whose works I could quite happily live without ever having to look at again; sorry Damien, sorry Tracey.

 

Hirst's Nothing Can Stop Us Now (2006) - part of his Medicine Cabinet series - may, as a concept, interest, but, unfortunately, as an object it bores after a few moments; much as Emin's neon heart - Wanting You (2014) - bores as soon as one has read its message (if not before) [7]. 

 

 

IV.

 

Ultimately, I didn't go to the Saatchi Yates summer show in order to see old works by artists I already knew and like (or knew and disliked), but new works by artists I didn't know of ...

 

Artists such as Benjamin Speirs, whose large porno-surrealist canvas, Metamorphosis (2025), certainly caught my attention when I first walked into the gallery. This was a painting which wouldn't have looked out of place at the Time to Fear Contemporary Art exhibition that I loved so much at Gallery 8 back in March of this year: click here.

 

The red-haired nude figure with a strangely twisted and elongated body was only spoiled for me by the fact she was wearing flip-flops: I hate flip-flops, for the reasons explained in an early post on Torpedo the Ark that can be accessed by clicking here.   

 

I was also quite taken with Danny Fox's Black grape vape, purple tape, Guaguin's cape (2024); a large canvas which not only referenced Guaguin, but also had elements that reminded me of Matisse. I would quite happily hang this on my wall, although if I'd been offered the chance to take but one picture home, it would probably have been Our Vegetative Virgin (2020) by Jadé Fadojutimi ... 

 

Why this one? 

 

Because of the title. Because of the lovely colours. Because I think this young woman (of Nigerian heritage who was born in London and grew up in Ilford) has real talent [8]; her work containing both abstract and figurative elements all cleverly orchestrated and full of a certain exuberance that is hard to resist.

 

I think this description from Rebecca Mead pretty much hits the nail on the head: 

 

"Amid vibrant gashes, iridescent arcs, and urgent lines, a viewer may discern the contours of leaves, flowers, butterfly wings, waves, or suns. But Fadojutimi’s swirling images seem to capture a state of mind as much as they do a state of nature - they are always energetic, and sometimes ecstatic, blooming into color and motion and light. [...] They are an alternative place to dwell." [9]    

 

Despite the obvious speed they are painted at, Fadojutimi's canvases allow one to breathe like little engines of fresh air.  

 

Top Left: Jadé Fadojutimi: Our Vegetative Virgin (2020)

Top Right: Benjamin Spiers: Metamorphosis (2025)

Bottom: Danny Fox: Black grape vape, purple tape, Gauguin's cape (2024)  

 

Notes

 

[1] An independent commercial gallery opened by Phoebe Saatchi Yates and Arthur Yates in October 2020, it is described by Dora Davies-Evitt as the buzziest gallery in London. 

       Since opening its doors five years ago, Saatchi Yates has become the place to be seen for a young crowd of glamorous gallery goers who know how to put the art in party. See 'Once Upon a Time in London: Saatchi Yates heralds a new chapter in British art', Tatler (11 July 2025): click here.

      The Saatchi Yates gallery is at 14 Bury Street, St. James's, London SW1. Visit the website by clicking here.      

 

[2] This from the press release written by Purple PR; a global communications agency who provide services including editorial procurement, product placement, and high profile event management for clients in the worlds of art, fashion, beauty and lifestyle. Visit the Purple PR website for more information: click here. 

      The Once Upon a Time in London press release can be read on the Saatchi Yates website: click here. 

 

[3] Obviously, as a writer trained in the art of the press release by the amazing Lee Ellen Newman, I rarely follow my own advice and usually go straight to any available literature about a show - both promotional and critical in character - in advance of actually looking at the pictures. But it's a habit I'd like to break if possible.  

 

[4] Gilles Deleuze, 'Nietzsche and Saint Paul, Lawrence and John of Patmos', in Essays Critical and Clinical, trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael E. Greco (Verso, 1998), p. 37.    

 

[5] Nigel Ip, 'Review: Once Upon a Time in London - Saatchi Yates, London', blog post dated 7 July 2025 on nigelip.com: click here. 

 

[6] For more details see the Christie's website: click here. The Lot Essay, detailing the close relationship between Auerbach and Lampert, is particularly interesting. 

 

[7] I didn't realise until visiting this exhibition at Saatchi Yates just how much I dislike Emin's neon signs and the bullshit that surrounds her unflichingly honest and sometimes painfully initimate sculptures. Having said that, I do like her piece entitled My Favourite Little Bird (2015); but then this is a (slightly sentimental) figurative work rather than a conceptual (and confessional) work pushing an overt message. 

      For a far more positive reading of Tracey Emin's neon works, see the article by Erin-Atlanta Argun on myartbroker.com (31 October 2024): click here.     

 

[8] In 2019, Fadojutimi became the youngest artist to have a work placed within the collection of the Tate; I Present Your Royal Highness (2018).   

 

[9] Rebecca Mead, 'The Intensely Colorful Work of a Painter Obsessed with Anime', in The New Yorker (11 November 2024): click here.  

 

 

Gout

 

James Gillray: The Gout (1799) [1]

'The very name GOUT! has a ferocious ferine sound, 

like the growl of some remorseless monster ready to fasten upon its prey.' [2]

 

I. 

 

I published a post recently in which I mentioned having a swollen and painful big toe, linking my own misfortune to the work of Georges Bataille and Jacque-Andre Boiffard: click here.  

 

And since one or two readers have been kind enough to enquire how I'm now doing, I thought I'd post this update ...

 

 

II.  

 

Having had several X-rays taken of the toe in question, it seems that there is no fracture. And as I have no symptoms of an infection (fever, fatigue, nausea), that's been ruled out too. 

 

What hasn't been ruled out, however - and can't be until I have a test to check the level of uric acid in my blood - and what seems, in fact, to be the likely cause of my suffering, is the so-called disease of kings - i.e., gout ...!   

 

 

III. 

 

Gout, for those who may not know, is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterised by sudden (and often recurrent) attacks of acute pain, redness, and swelling in the joints, most commonly the big toe. The condition is caused by an increased level of uric acid in the bloodstream, which results in the formation of urate crystals in and around the joints. 

 

Historically, it was associated with the wealthy due to the fact that only they could afford to regularly consume rich foods and alcohol and lead (depending on how you view the matter) either shamefully idle or beautifully sedate lifestyles; all recognised risk factors for gout.   

 

However, anyone, it seems, can develop gout, regardless of class or status; although it seems to be a metabolic disorder that mostly afflicts men of a certain age, particularly if the condition runs in the family, as they say; i.e., there's a genetic component. Thus, it's not all about lack of exercise and eating too much red meat or seafood (things rich in purine). 

 

 

IV.  

 

Anyway, because this is the UK and I can't afford private health care, I have to wait now for 11 days before I can see my GP and he arranges a blood test (why they couldn't have done such at the UTC of my local hospital when I was there for the X-ray yesterday, I don't know). 

 

So it's going to be a while before I know my fate ... 

 

In the meantime, I'm going to keep humming 'Enery the Eighth' [3] and read as many studies on the topic as I can, including George H. Ellwanger's famous meditation (quoted from above) which is notable for its unique approach to the topic (particularly when it comes to potential treatments) and Benjamin Franklin's humorous 'Dialogue Between Franklin and the Gout' (1780), an essay written after waking up one autumn night with an attack of this inflammatory (and most moralistic) condition [4].    

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The British caricaturist and printmaker James Gillray (1756-1815) is a fascinating figure, most famous for his etched political and social satires (many of which can be found in the National Portrait Gallery if interested). 

      Sadly, failing eyesight in his later years meant he was unable to produce work to his usual high standard, producing his last significant print in 1809. Depressed about this, he started drinking heavily; and this undoubtedly played a part in the severity of the gout he was prone to - as well as the madness he fell into. 

      In July 1811, he unsuccessfully attempted to kill himself by jumping out of a window above the shop on St James's Street owned by Hannah Humphrey, a leading London print seller who published much of Gillray's work, and who cared for him until his death in June 1815. He is buried in St James's churchyard, Piccadilly, should anyone wish to go and pay their respects.        

 

[2] George H. Ellwanger, Meditations on Gout: With A Consideration of its Cure Through the Use of Wine (Dodd Mead & Co., 1897).    

 

[3] 'I'm Henry the VIII, I Am' is a British music hall song by Fred Murray and R. P. Weston, written in 1910. It became a signature song of the music hall star Harry Champion: click here. Joe Brown included a version of the song on his first album A Picture of You in 1962 and, three years later, it became a huge hit for Herman's Hermits: click here to watch them perform it on The Ed Sullivan Show (6 June, 1965). 

      I'm humming it because Henry VIII is perhaps the first figure who comes to mind - in the UK at least - when one thinks of someone suffering with gout. 

 

[4] Despite exploring the subject with a certain good humour, Franklin experienced frequent and painful attacks of gout that impacted his mobility and daily life; so no joke really. The essay can be read online by clicking here.   

 

Notes on Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Imp of the Perverse'

 

'The Imp of the Perverse' - Illustration by Arthur Rackham 

in Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1935) [1] 

 

 

I. 

 

'The Imp of the Perverse' is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, examining how a desire to do those things that we know we should not do can lead to our own destruction. 

 

This desire is imagined by Poe in the form of a small and mischievous being prone to causing trouble and leading men astray; i.e., what is called within European folklore an imp [2].   

 

Recommended to me by the Irish poet Síomón Solomon, I thought it might be nice to while away the hours on a Sunday afternoon reading it together ...

 

 

II. 

 

The story reads initially almost as an essay, as the narrator explains at length his theory on the imp of the perverse. 

 

Describing it as a primitive propensity of the human soul that causes people - including himself - to commit acts against their self-interest, he claims that it has been overlooked by scientists, priests, and other scholars because they could not perceive its necessity or understand how the imp of the perverse might advance knowledge of the human condition. 

 

In brief: the idea of it simply never occurred to them; it didn't fit into their scheme of things, including their map of the brain (the latter having been designed according to popular moral superstition by a rational and purposeful deity who had made man in his own image).   

 

Our narrator says: "Having thus fathomed to his satisfaction the intentions of Jehovah, out of these intentions [man] built his innumerable systems of mind" and a well organ-ised human body; i.e., one with a mouth for eating, an arse for shitting, and - having determined it to be God's will "that man should continue his species" - an organ of amativeness as well.      

 

In this way, we can conceive of man as an ideal creature, with every organ representing either "a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty of the pure intellect". 

 

Deleuze and Guattari may not be happy with this arrangement, but they are in a minority; most people are content to believe they have a divine origin and a preconceived destiny (remember, dear reader, that this tale was written in 1845, thirty-seven years before Nietzsche's madman was to announce the death of God and over a hundred years before Aratud introduced the idea of a body without organs) [3].     

 

 

III. 

 

The narrator goes on to say that it would have been wiser to have classified man according to his actions, "rather than upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended him to do". For if we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, "how then in his inconceivable thoughts" ...? 

 

If only more attention had been paid to man's actions, then perverseness - "for want of a more characteristic term" - would have been recognised as "an innate and primitive principle of human action"; albeit an irrational one in that it obliges us to act in a way that often makes no sense and has no benefit (which, in fact, is often harmful): 

 

"In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable; but, in fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive impulse - elementary." 

 

And this, says the narrator, is undeniable: "No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the entire radicalness of the propensity in question." 

 

I suppose, if I stop to think about it, there may well be something in what he says. Certainly, whenever I'm presenting a paper to an audience and I look around the faces gathered before I begin, I'm often tempted, sensing no connection, to simply walk off the stage and out of the room without a word of explanation (something Larry David was notorious for doing during his early days as a stand-up comic).  

 

Either that, or to stay and piss people off with deliberate vagueness and a refusal to take a position: 

 

"The speaker is aware that he displeases [...] yet, the thought strikes him, that by certain involutions and parentheses, this anger may be engendered. That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing [...] is indulged." 

 

Having said that, sometimes, like Sebastian Horsley, I'm only too happy to flatter an audience and adapt my views to suit them [4] (being transpositional means I can move swiftly from one side of an argument to the other - or neither - without too much cognitive dissonance). 

 

As for procrastination ... Well, I'll say something about that later [5].

 

 

IV. 

 

Is it the imp of the perverse that ultimately brings us to the brink of suicide? That tempts us to "peer into the abyss" until we grow sick and dizzy? 

 

Possibly. 

 

"Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degree our sickness and dizziness, and horror, become merged in a cloud of unnameable feeling" 

 

Is the ultimate practice of joy before death to imagine "our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height"? 

 

Again, that's possible - and it would explain Annabella's ecstasy as she stands atop the Eiffel Tower and contemplates jumping to her death [6]. This thought of falling - "for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination" - is the thing she most vividly desires. 

 

"And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of one, who shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge." 

 

Again, it's not rational; it's a perverse defiance of logic, sound reason, and common sense. But without a "friendly arm to check us" - Annabella looks round for someone strong and brave to save her - there's a very strong possibility we will jump and meet a very sticky end. 

 

 

V.

 

It turns out that the narrator is in chains sitting in a condemned man's prison cell; that the above is an attempt to explain how he came to find himself in such circumstances. He's not mad, as most people think, but is rather "one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse".   

 

What happened, exactly? 

 

Well, the narrator commited murder in order to inherit a man's estate: 

 

"It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection."

 

Eventually, after reading some French memoirs, he hits on the idea of using a poisoned candle (i.e., one that releases toxic fumes when burned): 

 

"The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim’s habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated."  

 

And although he effectively got away with it after a coroner declared the death to be in accordance with the will of God, he is eventually gripped by a self-destructive impulse to confess his crime in public:

 

"Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of the fatal taper, I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no shadow of a clue by which it would he possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute security. For a very long period of time, I was accustomed to revel in this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere worldly advantages accruing from my sin. But there arrived at length [...] a haunting and harassing thought [...] I could scarcely get rid of for an instant." 

 

"One day, while sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in the act of murmuring, half aloud [...] 'I am safe - I am safe - yes - if I be not fool enough to make open confession!'  No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep to my heart."

 

For our narrator knows where his perversity would lead; first to jail and then to the gallows - and that there was nothing he could do about it: 

 

"I had had some experience in these fits of perversity [...] and I remembered well, that in no instance, I had successfully resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self suggestion, that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I had murdered - and beckoned me on to death." 

 

Poe concludes his tale with the following passages, spoken by the narrator:

 

"At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I walked vigorously - faster - still faster - at length I ran. I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror [...] I still quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. 

      Could I have torn out my tongue, I would have done it - but a rough voice resounded in my ears - a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned - I gasped for breath. For a moment, I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then, some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long-imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul."

      They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before concluding the brief but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the hangman and to hell. 

      Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon."

 

 

VI.

 

Is there any more to say? 

 

Only that Poe's abysmal theory - and I'm using that word in the literary-philosophical sense - of the imp of the perverse is, as fearful thoughts go, one that I like very much; it might not be quite as chilling as he intended, but it certainly makes one question one's own self-destructive tendencies and the desire to deliberately give the game away as it were [7].    

 

It's surely better to think we confess our sins not from guilt or a moral sense of right and wrong (conscience) but from perversity; I for one would rather have a little imp on my shoulder than that annoying little twat Jiminy Cricket.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] All quotes from and references to 'The Imp of the Perverse' are to the version published in this edition of Poe's tales which can be read free online by clicking here. 

      The tale first appeared in the July 1845 issue of Graham's Magazine (Vol. XXVIII). 

 

[2] I'm assuming that Poe decided on the figure of an imp rather than that of a demon or some othersupernatural entity because it might be read as short for impulse (i.e., a strong and sudden urge to act). It might also suggest the related term impetus (i.e., a force which drives something forward).  

 

[3] Antonin Artaud first used the phrase corps sans organes in his 1947 radio play known in English as To Have Done with the Judgment of God, describing it as a state of liberation from imposed structures and automatic reactions, allowing for true freedom. It was later developed as a philosophical concept by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their two-volume study of capitalism and schizophrenia: L'anti-Œdipe (1972) and Mille Plateaux (1980). 

      Nietzsche first used the phrase Gott ist tot in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882), III. 125. It quickly became so well associated with him that it has almost become his catchphrase.

 

[4] Upon seeing someone make for the exit in the middle of a talk he was giving about his life as a dandy in the underworld, Horsley magnificently said: 'Don't go, I'll say the opposite if it will make you love me.' 

 

[5] Only joking. And in fact I have already written about this topic; see the post of 14 June 2014: click here. The narrator of Poe's tale does provide a nice description of procrastination for those who are interested: 

      "We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow; and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse using the word with no comprehension of the principle."   

 

[6] I'm referring to the Bow Wow Wow song 'Sexy Eiffel Towers' which first appeared on Your Cassette Pet (EMI Records, 1980) and, later, on the compilation album Girl Bites Dog (Parlophone Records, 1993): click here.  

 

[7] I think it may be stretching things to suggest that Poe's fictional theory of the imp of the perverse anticipates Freud's psychoanalytic concept of the death drive, but, nevertheless, several commentators have been quick to see and insist upon a connection.  

The Big Toe Reconsidered

Swollen Big Toe: Male Subect: 62 Years Old (2025) 

Photo by Stephen Alexander à la Jacques-André Boiffard [1]

  

"Le gros orteil est la partie la plus humaine du corps humain …" [2] 

I. 

 

Don't ask me what I've done, because I don't know what I've done; I was just innocently sitting when, suddenly, the big toe on my left foot seemed to painfully click and lock, preventing me from moving it. 

 

That was three days ago: and now the toe is red and swollen as well as remaining stiff and acutely painful. Ice hasn't helped and neither has the attempt to keep weight off it. So, there's nothing to do but pop another paracetamol and reconsider what it was Bataille once had to say about le gros orteil - the most human part of the human body ...

 

 

II. 

 

First of all, in case anyone is wondering why Bataille makes this claim for the big toe, it's because, he says, no other element of the human body "is as differentiated from the corresponding element of the anthropoid ape" [20]. 

 

That's debatable [c] and I can already hear Heideggerians screaming Es ist die Hand - nicht der Fuß! that is the fundamental thing that makes us human and enables us to engage with (and think) the world [d]. But it cannot be denied, however, that man, as an upright creature who walks on two legs, has a different type of big toe to the ape that spends a considerable amount of time climbing trees. 

 

Man's big toe allows him to literally stand his ground and to glory in his own erect being. 

 

And yet, perversely, man holds his foot - big toe and all - in contempt: for man is a creature who has his head "raised to the heavens and heavenly things" [20] and despises the fact that his feet remain caked in mud.

 

If he could, man would swap feet for wings, so that he might elevate himself still further and become even more like an angel, less like an ape; this despite the fact that within the body "blood flows in equal quantities from high to low and from low to high" [20].

 

It's just unfortunate, as Bataille notes, that the binary division of the universe into a "subterranean hell and perfectly pure heaven" [20] remains an enduring misconception; "mud and darkness being the principles of evil as light and celestial space are the principles of good" [20].

 

For as long as this remains the case then man will continue to curse his dogs and direct his rage against an organ he sees as fundamentally base: 

 

"The human foot is commonly subjected to grotesque tortures that deform it and make it rickety. In an imbecilic way it is doomed to corns, calluses, and bunions, and if one takes into account turns of phrase that are only now disappearing, to the most nauseating filthiness [...]" [21] 

 

Bataille continues:

 

"Man's secret horror of his foot is one of the explanations for the tendency to conceal its length and form as much as possible. Heels of greater or lesser height, depending on the sex, distract from the foot's low and flat character. Besides, this uneasiness is often confused with a sexual uneasiness; this is especially striking among the Chinese, who, after having atrophied the feet of women, situate them at the most excessive point of deviance." [21] 

 

That's the funny thing with feet - the more obscene we imagine them and the more immoral we think it to view them in their naked naked nakedness - the more they excite our interest [e]. Some may privilege the hand - and fingers can certainly be useful - but it's the foot that matters more in Bataille's view; even if the toes have come to signify base idiocy in comparison to the doigts de la main.      

 

 

III. 

So far, I have to admit that re-reading this essay by Bataille and writing this post has done precious little to alleviate (or distract from) the pain in my big toe ... It hurt before I began; it still hurts now; and I very much suspect it will continue to hurt even after I press the publish button, reminding me of my mortality. 

 

For as Bataille points out, it doesn't take much to remind us of the fact that our bodies are frail and prone to damage and disease; even the grandest of grand human beings - one who might imagine himself a god amongst men - is quickly brought crashing back down to earth "by an atrocious pain in his big toe" [22]. 

 

In other words, feet have evolved not only so that we might stand upright and walk, but to remind us that we are allzumenschliches and will, sooner or later, return to the filth from which we emerged; thus the "hideously cadaverous and at the same time [...] proud appearance of the big toe" [22] [f].    

 

 

Notes

 

[a] I'm thinking of Boiffard's two photos of a big toe belonging to a thirty-year-old male subject, used to illustrate Bataille's essay 'Le gros orteil' in Documents 6 (Nov. 1929): click here. 

      Born in 1902, Boiffard was a hard-working medical student before meeting André Breton in 1924 and deciding to dedicate himself to Surrealism. Having worked as Man Ray's assistant for five years, Boiffard then became closely associated with Bataille and the circle of writers involved in Documents (he had by this date already fallen out - like so many others - with Breton). 

      Following his father's death in 1935, Boiffard resumed his medical studies and abandoned his career as an avant-garde photographer. Serving as a radiologist at the Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris from 1940 to 1959, Boiffard died in 1961.

      If little remembered today, Boiffard's images remain clever manipulations of scale and point of view, transposing multiple exposures and contrasting brightly lit objects - including body parts - against darkened backgrounds, making them monstrously unfamiliar. 

      For an excellent discussion of his work, see Jodi Hauptman and Stephanie O’Rourke; 'A Surrealist Fact', in Object:Photo: Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909–1949, ed. Mitra Abbaspour, Lee Ann Daffner, and Maria Morris Hambourg (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014). This essay can be read as an online pdf: click here. 

 

[b] This is the opening line to Bataille's essay 'Le gros orteil', in Documents 6 (Nov. 1929), pp. 297-302. Reprinted in Œuvres complètes, Vol. 1, ed. Denis Hollier (Gallimard, 1970), pp. 200-04. 

      I'm using the English translation by Allan Stoekl; 'The Big Toe', in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, ed. Allan Stoekl (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), pp. 20-23 and all page numbers given in part II of this post refer to this work. 

 

[c] It's certainly the case that apes do not possess big toes like humans; that while we have a big toe aligned with other toes and which has evolved to play a vital role in walking, chimps and gorillas, etc., have opposable big toes (i.e., a bit like thumbs) that can be moved independently and used for grasping and climbing. 

      However, it's arguable that what makes the human being uniquely different from other apes is not the big toe, but the large brain inside our heads that enables us to perform advanced cognitive functions such as abstract thought and complex problem-solving. 

      Coincidentally, it might interest readers to know that scientists have recently discovered that our big toe was one of the last parts of the foot to evolve; see the article entitled 'Evolution and function of the hominin forefoot', by Peter J. Fernández et al, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 115, No. 35, pp. 8746-8751 (August 2018): click here.   

 

[d] See the post of 1 June 2019 - 'You Need Hands' - in which I discuss Heidegger's thoughts on the importance of the hand: click here. 

 

[e] I understand that this is not true of all feet or all people; although, interestingly, foot fetishism (or podophilia as those in the know like to say) is the most common form of body partialism (and even amongst those sophisticated individuals who redirect desire away from the flesh and on to objects, a large number have a penchant for shoes and other forms of footwear). Foot fetishism seems to be one of those things more common amongst men than women. Whilst the origin of such is a matter of dispute, clearly Bataille is of the opinion that the erotic allure of feet is linked to their anatomical baseness (abjection); i.e., pleasure is derived from touching something that, even if they are perfectly clean and pretty, still get their sacrilegious charm from the fact that they are often dirty and easily deformed.

      For an early post published on the transsexual consummation of foot fetishism (25 July 2013), click here.   

 

[f] Bataille thinks it only fair to add that the big toe is not specifically monstrous as a form - unlike the inside of a gaping mouth, for example. It is only "secondary (but common) deformations" [22] that have given the big toe its ugly and inhuman - yet exceptionally comic - character. 

 

 

For a follow up post to this one - on gout - please click here. 

Herr Nietzsche Agrees: Sydney Sweeney Hat Tolle Jeans

I think we can classify Sweeney as a member of the Nietzschean right ... 

- Richard Hanania [1] 

 

 

One final thought on the controversy surrounding the American Eagle 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' campaign, which I discussed briefly in a recent post: click here ...

 

Even if concerns that the ads featuring Sydney Sweeney appear to knowingly play on the long and troubling history of eugenics (i.e., the largely discredited set of beliefs and practices to do with genetically improving the population by promoting certain traits designated as superior and desirable over those designated inferior and undesirable) are valid and justified - and I'm not persuaded of that - the level of anti-white rhetoric that it has unleashed (in the name, ironically, of standing up to racism) is a little disheartening (to say the least); particularly when it comes from whey-faced commentators and is born of white guilt, white fragility, and self-loathing.    

  

But perhaps, as a reader of Nietzsche, I shouldn't be surprised at this: for anti-white rhetoric is arguably just another unfolding of what in the Genealogy he describes as the slave revolt in morality, a fateful turning point in history which begins when "ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values" [2]; or, more precisely, when it inverts the values of the ruling class and in this way extracts an imaginary revenge.

 

For example, noble values of strength and beauty are suddenly seen as oppressive forms of evil whilst the opposite of these things are deemed to be virtues; thus we see an emergence of so-called body positivity and a celebration of DEI.   

  

Unfortunately, things become particularly heated when framed in terms of perceived racial characteristics, such as skin colour, which is precisely how many of those who have attacked the American Eagle ads have framed things, seeing Sweeney's whiteness as inherently oppressive and offensive in itself; a malevolent and aggressive condition of being. 

 

It's almost as if they look at her image and hear her humorous affirmation of her own dress sense (and not, as a matter of fact, her genetic inheritance or racial identity) and can only think: ea est alba [3]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Richard Hanania on X (24 Mar 2024): click here to read the post in full. I very much doubt this is the case, but it's interesting that Hanania should write this 16 months ago. As far as I'm aware, Miss Sweeney has yet to declare her political or philosophical leanings.  

 

[2] Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge University Press, 1994), I. 10, p. 21. 

 

[3] I'm referencing and reversing the line from Horace's Satires (I. 85): hic niger est - literally meaning 'he is black' and often translated into English as 'he is a dangerous character' and thus intended to be understood as a warning against those with dark hair or skin. 

      

 

My Tuppence Ha'penny's Worth on the Sydney Sweeney Controversy

Sydney Sweeney in one of several ads for jeans by 

American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (Fall 2025) 

 

I. 

 

There are some news stories that, profoundly stupid and wearisome as they are, simply refuse to go away and everyone seems eager to share an opinion on. 

 

Usually, these are the kind of stories that I resist reading and avoid writing about. 

 

However, in this instance, I'll make an exception to the rule, as the case of Sydney Sweeney and her campaign for jeans manufactured by American Eagle exposes something interesting about contemporary culture (it also affords me the opportunity to place a picture of Miss Sweeney at the top of this post).    

 

 

II. 

 

Let's begin with the first charge against the ad; one made by old-school feminists who say it has a retro-reactionary feel to it, openly inviting the (heterosexual) male gaze which, for fifty years now [1], has been conceived as a bad thing in that it sexually objectifies women and leads to their oppression. 

 

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this analysis, but it's an interesting theory; one that builds upon Sartre's concept of le regard in his essay on phenomenological ontology L'Être et le néant (1943). 

 

The problem with such a theory - positing as it does the male gaze primarily as a social construct designed to uphold certain ideologies - is that it overlooks (or downplays) the biological underpinning; i.e., the fact that men have evolved to enjoy looking at women and to find certain physical traits more desirable than others when it comes to mate selection. 

 

Thus, when looking at Miss Sweeney's cleavage, for example, this might be because of some biological imperative rather than an attempt to reinforce the patriarchy (or to render her a passive object in order to overcome my castration anxiety) [2].   

 

And besides, we know now that women have eyes too and enjoy looking at bodies just as much as men (including other female bodies if that way inclined).  

 

So, let's not spend any further time discussing the American Eagle campaign in relation to this idea of the male gaze and move on to the far more surprising claim that the ads - by word-playing on the homophones genes and jeans - are secretly advancing eugenics and white supremacy and not just making a slightly cheesy joke.       

 

 

III. 

 

Unbelievable as it is to many commentators, American Eagle is facing a backlash over the 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' campaign for the reasons set out above: that a lazy pun is coded racism and that what we're really meant to admire are not her faded blue jeans but her sparkling blue eyes and pale skin (i.e., her genetic inheritance and/or racial identity). 

 

Now, admittedly, one of the ads does feature Sweeney saying: "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue." [3]

 

And that short - and overly simplistic - lesson in genetics doesn't help matters, but, even so ... I really don't think that American Eagle are dog whistling and whilst I wouldn't describe the campaign as bold and playful, neither is it Nazi propaganda reflective of Trump's America.      

     

 

Notes

 

[1] The concept of the male gaze was first articulated by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey in her essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', in Screen, Vol. 16, Issue 3, (OUP, Autumn 1975): pp. 6-18. 

      Well, I say that, she arguably borrowed the idea from the art critic John Berger who discussed the treatment of the female nude in European painting in his 1972 book (and BBC2 TV series) Ways of Seeing. Berger asserts that men are traditionally accorded the active role of viewer, whilst women are passive and decorative objects of desire that afford pleasure to the male spectator. 

      Thus, for Berger and Mulvey both - as well as a whole generation of critical theorists - the act of looking has been inextricably linked to power and politics.

 

[2] This is not to say men should perv on female bodies in a lewd and lecherous manner. And when it comes to sneaking a peek at a nice pair of breasts it's wrong to ogle. In fact, there's an etiquette involved as Jerry points out to George in an episode of Seinfeld: 'Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun; you don't stare at it, it's too risky! You get a sense of it, then you look away.'       

      I have discussed this episode on TTA in a post dated 19 March 2015: click here.  

 

[3] The social media ad from which I quote and which sparked all the hoo-ha, seems to have been removed by American Eagle from its official YouTube channel. However, it can still be found on YouTube having been uploaded by Alien Ads 801: click here.  

 

 

For a follow up post to this one - a kind of Nietzschean afterword - please click here.  

 

Reflections on Megan Rooney's Spin Down Sky II

Temitope Ajose and Leah Marojević performing Megan Rooney's  Spin Down Sky II  

on the opening night of her exhibition Yellow Yellow Blue at Thaddaeus Ropac (London) 

Photo: Camilla Greenwell (12 June 2025) 

 

 

I.

 

On Sunday, I went to see a performance of Megan Rooney's Spin Down Sky II (2025), created in close collaboration with Temitope Ajose [1], Leah Marojević [2], and Tyrone Isaac Stuart [3], which, as well as being an interesting work in itself, also served as the finissage to her solo exhibition Yellow Yellow Blue at Thaddaeus Ropac (London) [4]. 

 

The piece is the latest chapter in Rooney's developing tale of the fatal love between a male moth and a female bolas spider. But, before discussing this, I'd like first to make a few remarks on the title and, in particular, the word spin ...

 

 

II. 

 

Spin - an Old English verb of Germanic origin meaning to draw out and twist fibres of material (including thin air) into thread. 

 

It is, I think, one of those words that Heidegger would think of as elemental, i.e., one of those etymologically complex terms that reveal something fundamental about human being and existence; words that speak us rather than simply communicate information and ideas. 

 

These days, the concept of spinning has entered into many areas of life and the word has taken on multiple meanings depending on context. But I like to think that when Rooney speaks of spinning down sky she refers us to the possibility of making artworks out of the blueness of the Greater Day, or perhaps stretching the very stuff of the heavens so as to send yellow stars spinning like Van Gogh.

 

Of course, if writers spin words into narratives and painters spin colours into artworks, then spiders do something equally amazing by spinning silk into webs. And, as mentioned, at the centre of Rooney's tale is an unusual member of the Araneidae family ...

 

 

III. 

 

For those readers lacking a background in arachnology, a female bolas spider [5] is an orb-weaver that, instead of spinning a typical orb web, hunts at night by using one or more capture blobs consisting of a mass of spun fibre embedded in a sticky liquid on the end of a silk line, known as a bolas.  

 

By swinging the bolas at passing male moths, she hopes to snag her prey rather like a fisherman snagging a fish on a hook (thus it is that they are sometimes also referred to as angling spiders). If, after half an hour, she has been unsuccessful, she will consume the bolas and start again. 

 

On a bad night, she may only catch one or two moths; on a good night, six or seven. The female bolas spider, however, doesn't just leave everything to chance; she lures her favoured prey closer via the production of a scent that mimics the sex pheremones emitted by the female moth, driving the males mad with desire.

 

Having given a little bit of natural history by way of background, I'd like now to say something of the actual performance ...

 

 

IV.   

Spin Down Sky II is a new dance piece developed especially for the exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac. It premiered last month on the opening night of Yellow Yellow Blue. [6] 

 

I was disappointed to have missed it then, but I'm very glad to have seen it now and to have been further ensnared into Rooney's imaginative world, which, it seems, is shaped as much by movement as colour; i.e., a combination of choreography and chromatic chaos (which is why it makes perfect sense to both open and close the exhibition of paintings with a contemporary dance performance).  

 

The sequence of movements and rhythmic articulations unfolding in a unique time and space, both natural and mythical, seemed to me to be cleverly thought out and excellently performed (with, I'm assuming, some degree of improvisation) by the dancers although, I have to confess, I wasn't quite sure who was the moth and who was the spider. 

 

Arguably, however, as their bodies became increasingly entangled in a strangely erotic danse macabre, perhaps that's no longer an issue and binary distinctions around species, sex, life and death begin to curdle. 

 

And speaking of blurred lines ... 

 

The clothing worn by the two dancers had been hand-painted by Rooney, thus inviting us to think about the relationship not only between prey and predator but fine art and fashion; interconnected disciplines which often come together despite the efforts of some who would preserve the purity and status of the former and view the latter as lacking in high aesthetic value and cultural significance [7]. 

 

And then there was the excellent (if slightly too jazzy for my tastes) soundtrack provided by Stuart, with live sax improvisations on the night, obliging us to also consider the three-way relationship between colour, movement, and music. 

 

 

V.

 

Ultimately, Spin Down Sky II matters because, even though a short piece, it allows us to "think through and move across established categories and levels of experience" [8], transporting us to a place where the most profound ideas and feelings live and rise up. 

 

Via creative storytelling - i.e., an act of fabulation - Rooney allows us to step outside the gate and to understand something of the complex and shifting world of relationships - not just between a flying insect and an eight-legged spider, but between us and the natural world, us and art, us and one another - that is central to reality as a web of being and becoming.     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Temitope Ajose is a London-based dance-artist with an interest in myth, psychology and magic. Her creative process unfolds in the playful space that exists between the sacred and absurd. Whilst Rooney conceived and directed Spin Down Sky II, Ajose is credited as the choreographer.   

 

[2] Leah Marojević is a Serbian/Montenegrin/Italian/British queer female independent artist, based in Berlin, whose practice spans dramaturgy, choreography, performance, rehearsal directing, writing, teaching, curation and mentorship. 

 

[3] Tyrone Isaac Stuart is an interdisciplinary artist with over 12 years of professional experience in dance and music. He blends krump, contemporary dance, visual art, and jazz music in his work.

 

[4] Some readers may recall a couple of posts published last month inspired by this exhibition: click here and/or here. 

 

[5] Immature female spiders and (the much smaller-bodied) adult males hunt without a bolas; simply positioning themselves on leaves and grabbing whatever insects they can with their hairy front legs.

 

[6] The bolas spider and night butterfly characters were first explored over two performances of Spin Down Sky at Kettle's Yard (Cambridge), as part of Megan Rooney's first major solo exhibition Echoes and Hours (2024). To watch the full (20 minute) performance on 21 June, please click here. Or for a short (43 seconds) teaser, please click here. 

 

[7] Historically, fashion has been regarded as a craft or applied art, distinct from the more elevated practice of fine art. This perception is rooted in the belief that fashion is frivolous, commercial, and transient, while fine art is profound, timeless, and transcendent. 

      Thankfully, such idealistic stupidity is now no longer so widespread and many people acknowledge that fashion - particularly haute couture and avant-garde designs - can be a powerful form of artistic expression and that the very best runway shows are pure theatre; one thinks, for example, of Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 1999 show and its finale featuring a model (Shalom Harlow) in a white dress, spinning round on a rotating platform, and being spray-painted by robots: click here to watch on YouTube.  

 

[8] Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects (Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 4. 

 

 

This post is for Tom Hunt, who kindly invited me to the performance of Megan Rooney's Spin Down Sky II (27 July 2025).