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Philippa Snow
Philippa Snow is a critic and essayist. Her work has appeared in publications including ArtforumThe Los Angeles Review of BooksArtReviewFriezeVogueThe NationThe New Statesman, and The New Republic. Her first book, Which As You Know Means Violence, is out now with Repeater, and she is currently working on an essay collection about famous women.  

Articles Available Online


You Don’t Think God Is Sexy?

Film Review

January 2023

Philippa Snow

Film Review

January 2023

On the most literal level, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s elliptical, spiritual-cum-sensual movie Teorema (1968) is about an entire family being driven to distraction by their...

Essay

Issue No. 31

It's Terrible The Things I Have To Do To Be Me

Philippa Snow

Essay

Issue No. 31

Here was a woman who had modelled her life so closely on Marilyn Monroe’s that doing so eventually helped...

Image: ‘visionary company’ (2021) by Wu Tsang, at Lafayette Anticipations © Pierre Antoine   On entering Visionary Company (2020), Wu Tsang’s exhibition at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, visitors walk down a curving, carpeted pathway that resembles a backstage corridor In The show is over (2020), a film by Wu Tsang made in collaboration with the poet Fred Moten, the camera follows a set of bodies that move around a stage The floor is wet with mud, and the bodies bask in a dark blue light Nearby, Tsang has placed a sculpture which takes the form of an illusory Penrose triangle, an impossible object that appears as a motif in The show is over (2020) To make the film, Tsang translated Moten’s poetry into choreography, the choreography into film, the film into sculpture – all blending into one space   Tsang works across many mediums, but her recurrent lines of inquiry are translation and community building While studying at the University of California in the late 2000s, Tsang lived in McArthur Park, a historically Latinx and Asian neighbourhood, and one of the poorest areas of Los Angeles She came across Silver Platter, an unassuming bar and home to Latin gay and drag communities since the 1960s It was there that she co-created Wildness in 2008, a weekly club night for experimental performance and electronic music, eventually producing the documentary WILDNESS (2012) The film cast a reflexive gaze on the club night, raising complex questions of responsibility and privilege   Tsang’s practice continues to expand through kinship In 2014, she began working with performer Tosh Basco (also known as boychild) on the sci-fi film A day in the life of bliss (2014–ongoing) It follows Blis (played by Basco), a young pop star by day and underground performer by night, who navigates a world where thoughts are controlled by centralised artificial intelligence Two years later, Basco and Tsang co-founded Moved by the Motion, a collective with fluctuating members – including the dancer Josh Johnson, an early Wildness collaborator, musician Asma Maroof and Fred Moten The collective is shaped by experimentation and friendship Eight members of the group joined

Contributor

November 2018

Philippa Snow

Contributor

November 2018

Philippa Snow is a critic and essayist. Her work has appeared in publications including Artforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, ArtReview, Frieze, Vogue, The...

Essay

January 2021

An Uneasy Girl

Philippa Snow

Essay

January 2021

Even before Lucie arrives holding a shotgun, we know that the perfect family in this huge suburban house are...

Brilliant Muscles

Essay

December 2019

Philippa Snow

Essay

December 2019

‘Lindsay Lohan’s new film,’ I told almost everyone I spoke to for about two months earlier this year, ‘is about werewolf detectives.’ Nobody seemed...
Evita Vasiljeva, POSTCRETE

Art Review

February 2019

Philippa Snow

Art Review

February 2019

Lower.Green is situated in the unlikely surroundings of a near-dead mall in Norwich. It is not just any mall, but Anglia Square Shopping Centre:...
Gabriele Beveridge, Live Dead World

Art Review

November 2018

Philippa Snow

Art Review

November 2018

Several months ago, I went to a salon so small and so identikit that I do not recall the name, and against every sane...

READ NEXT

fiction

August 2016

Boy With Frog

Kristin Posehn

fiction

August 2016

My first impression was of a tall building laid down for a nap, with all its parts nestled together...

feature

Issue No. 2

Three Poets and the World

Caleb Klaces

feature

Issue No. 2

In 1925, aged 20, the Hungarian poet Attila József was expelled from the University of Szeged for a radical...

Interview

August 2016

Interview with Daniel Sinsel

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Interview

August 2016

In the decade after leaving Chelsea School of Art in 2002, Daniel Sinsel made a name for himself with...

 

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