as if a chip on your shoulder is bad!

from THE NEW YORKER

Critic’s Notebook

Arcade Fire
by Hilton Als

March 15, 2010

Keywords
“Bad Reputation”;
Penny Arcade;
Books;
Performance Artists;
Political Activists;
Susana Ventura;
Playhouse of the Ridiculous

“Bad Reputation” is the self-consciously transgressive title of the performance artist and political activist Penny Arcade’s book of interviews, essays, and documentation of her works, but since when was Penny Arcade shy about rubbing our faces in her outlaw status? Born Susana Ventura in 1950, Arcade was a runaway at thirteen, and at sixteen had graduated from reform school. By the time she was nineteen, she had performed at the Playhouse of the Ridiculous in New York, been taken up by the avant-garde artist Jackie Curtis, and hung around that clubhouse filled with privileged dropouts, Andy Warhol’s Factory. Working class, ethnic, and not model tall, Arcade was the other New York City girl: hardworking and obscure, with a considerable chip on her shoulder, all of which she transformed into art. Her primary subject has always been herself, and the will it took to crack Manhattan’s class-conscious art scene. Once installed, though, Arcade never relaxed. She continues to critique the very world that now considers her a legend.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/notebook/2010/03/15/100315gonb_GOAT_notebook_als#ixzz0ixg1y9b3

In Freedom,
Frank Moore