After admitting in January that he had embezzled millions of dollars from celebrity clients, including Alanis Morissette, Jonathan Todd Schwartz is headed to jail.

The former entertainment and sports manager was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison, CNN reported, the conclusion to a suit first leveled by Morissette in 2016. He stole around $5 million from the Canadian singer during a time period between 2010-2014 to support a lavish lifestyle, according to court documents. Schwartz worked under the firm GSO Business Management in Los Angeles.

“Mr. Schwartz used his clients’ funds as a personal ATM machine,” Deirdre Fike, assistant director for the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, told CNN. Schwartz owes approximately $2 million in unpaid taxes.

According to The Associated Press, Morissette appeared at the sentencing and said Schwartz had misled her about his net worth while secretly taking money from accounts she had left in his trust. 

“He did this in a long, systematic, drawn-out and sinister manner,” the singer said. Schwartz attributed an addiction to gambling as the reason for the thefts. He detailed his “double life” in an April guest column for The Hollywood Reporter.

Morissette’s new money manager had discovered the embezzlement, which Schwartz would conceal by reporting withdrawals as “sundry/personal expenses,” according to CNN. When GSO was contacted about the missing funds, Schwartz falsely claimed it was used to invest in the medical marijuana business.

While in court, Schwartz expressed that he alone was “responsible for this devastation,” saying, “I will spend the rest of my life asking for forgiveness.” Court papers list Schwartz’s salary as $1.2 million.

Though prosecutors were seeking a sentence of five years in prison, U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee sentenced Schwartz to six, citing the “sheer audaciousness of this conduct” as the reason for additional time. Gee also ordered that Schwartz pay $8.6 million in restitution. E! reports that Morissette and Schwartz’s other clients were reimbursed by the firm or through insurance.

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It’s May the 4th, which means it’s time to celebrate Star Wars Day. While we’re eagerly awaiting the next Episode 8 trailer, it’s a good day to reflect on the enormity of what George Lucas has built over the past forty years.

On the surface Star Wars deals with the battle between good and evil, an ancient one at that. But the journey of our heros, in both the original and prequel trilogies, are set against a backdrop of complex political strife and oppression. The films, at their core, explore the nuanced relationship between a state and its people, and how a democracy can slip into a strict dictatorship.

George Lucas has admitted that one of the biggest influences on the series was the Nixon era. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lucas said Star Wars “was really about the Vietnam War, and that was the period where Nixon was trying to run for a [second] term, which got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships? Because the democracies aren’t overthrown; they’re given away.”

Lucas has also expressed that Emperor Palpatine, or Darth Sidious, was directly inspired by Nixon, which makes a lot of sense given the the nose. In “The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” when asked if Emperor Palpatine was a Jedi at one point in his life, Lucas responded, “No, he was a politician. Richard M. Nixon was his name. He subverted the senate and finally took over and became an imperial guy and he was really evil. But he pretended to be a really nice guy.”

But the political inspirations didn’t stop at the original trilogy. Say what you will about the prequels, but revisiting them will show you that Lucas held fast to his political ideology and used his massive entertainment franchise to comment on and predict the Bush administration.

Once again, Lucas drew connections between real life political figures and those in his cinematic universe. In a New York Times interview, Lucas explained that “Anakin Skywalker is a promising young man who is turned to the dark side by an older politician and becomes Darth Vader.” He added, “George Bush is Darth Vader. Cheney is the Emperor.”

The prequels allowed Lucas to fully explore how a people’s republic can turn into an empire. While the original films were largely reactionary to the politics of the time, the prequels were occurring simultaneously to the War on Terror, and it reflects in the films as we see a non-conflict blown up into something that represents absolute patriotism, and the gradual decline into the creation of the Galactic Empire.

Most famously, Lucas got some heat for giving Anakin a line of dialogue that was almost verbatim from a Bush speech. Anakin says to Obi Wan before his ultimate betrayal, “If you’re not with me then you’re my enemy.” Bush’s line was, ““You’re either with us or you’re with the enemy.”

The question is, how will the new era of Star Wars deal with the underlying politics of the universe in the Trump era? Now that Disney holds the keys to the Star Wars universe, they’ve been adamant about them not being political. Some Trump supporters went as far as to boycott Rogue One because they said it was a slight against The Donald. However, Disney chief executive Bob Iger made the absurd claim, “Frankly, this is a film that the world should enjoy. It is not a film that is, in any way, a political film.” The film’s plot centers around rebelling against an oppressive tyrant. That is at least, in some way, political.

With the new trilogy under way, it begs the question of whether Disney’s team will stay true to Lucas’ political influence, and use the billion dollar franchise to comment on the Trump administration. If the original inspiration for Star Wars was to explore how a democracy turns into a dictatorship, certainly this is more relevant now than ever.

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Trigger warning: This post contains discussion about rape, sexual abuse and mistreatment of women.

Spoiler alert: Don’t read unless you have watched the first four episodes of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale has a sense of humor, you guys! Gay people are always coming out of the closet to survive. Offred goes into the closet to find the strength to save herself. How hilarious!

Last week the show finished on a highly disturbing note: The government essentially turned Ofglen into a Barbie. It was pointed out to me that the shot was highly stylized, Ofglen sporting a futuristic-looking, transparent girdle over her mangled vagina. The ugliness of their world is made more unsettling by its gauzy, jewel-toned beauty.

Episode 4, “Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum” (Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down), this week’s slower-paced installment, was practically a frothy relief, full of flashbacks featuring Moira and Offred/June making an escape from the high school gym/Stepford training camp. In Gilead women have to hurt each other in order to stay alive. Patriarchal societies rely on women turning against one another, which is not a novel concept; we live this reality every day in American society.

I’ve been frustrated with the landscape of American politics as of late. Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high.” Don’t we, though? It’s a liberal curse in a way. Moira couldn’t stomach really hurting Aunt Elizabeth during the escape. She left her oppressor tied to a pole, screaming, a choice that threatened Moira’s safe passage. Pointing out Moira’s compassion is victim-blaming to an extent; I recognize this, but I think it’s OK to feel disappointed when a character chooses the moral high ground over revenge or even personal security. We know Moira’s a feminist, the flashbacks showed that, so it’s her values and her human decency that dictate her behavior. She sticks to her beliefs despite the stress and the torture she’s endured at the hands of other women. One could argue that Moira maintaining her sense of self, her identity, even in the worst conditions is, itself, survival.

The Commander flouts convention several times, exposing his discomfort with the strict rules of Gilead. He attempts to connect with Offred before his state-sanctioned monthly raping. He can’t get it up. He runs away. He plays a mean game of Scrabble with the prisoner. And yet, he’s not blameless, is he? When his wife offers strategy on dealing with an Aunt who defected to Canada, he abruptly shuts her down, saying essentially, “Sweetie, us men have it under control.”

The heart of Gilead’s doctrine and its structure is female oppression. Even their common greeting, “Blessed be the fruit,” alludes to female reproduction. Gilead reveres reproduction while criminalizing female sexuality, which begs the question, what’s so dangerous about sex and women?

Is the fear that women, with their beguiling ways, lead good men like the Commander astray? Offred does use her sexuality to manipulate her way out of Serena Joy’s punishment. Is it Eve leading Adam down the garden path all over again?

Only women can bring life into the world. In Gilead, babies are big business, and the womb, along with everything else connected to it, belongs to the government. By subverting women, men gain control over the future. Men are able to steal the reproductive process to further their own ends. Therefore, repression of female sexuality isn’t only about fear, it’s about power.

See you next week for Episode 5. Until then, I’ll meet you on Twitter.

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Jessica Biel hopes her son, Silas, takes after his dad, Justin Timberlake, in many ways. There is one quality, though, she hopes her 2-year-old avoids in the future. 

In an interview with news.com.au, the actress said she wants Silas to inherit Timberlake’s “charm and his sense of humor.” However, when it comes to his career, she doesn’t want him to take after dad.

“I really don’t want him to be a musician,” she said.

Biel clarified that she meant it “sort of as a joke” and “of course” Silas can be whatever he desires. She simply doesn’t want her son to become discouraged or feel rejected in the tough music industry.

“I already have this image of him as a struggling musician and that’s like, ‘Oh, my God!’” she told news.com.au. “As a mom, you think 30 years into the future and you’re like, ‘How do I fix this for him?’ I just want him to be like an engineer or a doctor, something like that.”

The star of “The Sinner” told news.com.au that she’s seen what Timberlake has gone through and how he’s worked years and years to be able to work with any producer he wants and have his songs on the radio. She also noted how much she loves seeing Timberlake play with their son. 

“I am in awe of him and how he interacts with that little dude,” she said.

Since Silas’ arrival in 2015, Biel has given fans a glimpse at her life as a mother. In September, she posted a photo on Instagram of a fork and empty plate in the shower with her, and explained to Jimmy Fallon later that making time to eat by bringing food in the shower sums up “mom life.”

“I don’t know if anybody else does this,” she said. “I do not have time for anything. I’m feeding [Silas] in the morning, trying to get ready and I realize I haven’t eaten. I just take it into the shower.”

She also told news.com.au that being a mother has taught her how to be more patient and compassionate.  

“Being a mother has changed everything,” she said.

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Daniel Deivison-Oliveira joined San Francisco Ballet in 2005 and was promoted to Soloist in 2011. I first saw him in 2006. It was my first assignment. The occasion – a matinee, the final performance of the Company’s previous production of Swan Lake. The dual roles of Odette / Odile were danced by Lorena Feijóo. Davit Karapetyan appeared as Siegfried. Life was never the same and both superstars have just bid their farewells. ”I was Apprentice for a month,” said Daniel, “and then Corps after that. I danced in the Act I ‘Peasants’ and the Act III ‘Czardas’.”

How did he land at San Francisco Ballet?

“I went to the YAGP competition in New York. Through that, I got a lot of offers for either a contract or a school scholarship including with Canada’s National Ballet School, some in Germany, Alvin Ailey, and American Ballet Theatre. Kevin McKenzie [Artistic Director of ABT] offered me an invitation. I was 16 and he thought I was too young to join the company, but would take me when I turned 18. I was also offered an apprenticeship with San Francisco Ballet for 2003, but I had a fight with my teacher. So, it didn’t work out for me to come here and I stopped dancing for a while. In 2004, I was contacted by San Francisco Ballet saying they had a school company they were starting. Then my dad got involved and I came here. I became one of the pioneers in the training program.”

“Coming from Brazil, famous companies such as ABT, Paris Opera, Royal Ballet were always out there. Every kid wants to be in one of those companies because they hear so much about them. I had never heard of San Francisco Ballet. Back then – in Brazil and also South America – I was one of the most talented of the kids and the men in my age group. I say that because of the number of competitions I went to. My name was appearing in the newspapers, on television, the arts world. It never went to my head. I was doing very well and was ready to take another step – such as the opportunity to leave Brazil. My thinking back then was that I wanted to spend a few years outside, to see what was going on, then go back to Brazil and my family. I’m very attached to my family. I believe I made the best decision in coming here. But it wasn’t easy.”

Daniel’s bio on SFBallet.com reflects the company’s amazing range of repertoire and its diverse roster of choreographers. His strong technique, athletic drive and artistic insight commands our attention, especially through the (sometimes challenging) contemporary works and – on the other end – the anticipated demands of a dramatic role such as “Tybalt” in Tomasson’s Romeo and Juliet.

“It’s up to you – your level of artistry – to come up with something. The choreographer should not have to say something like, ‘Smile here, look sad there.’ Even though I’m classically trained and take class every day to maintain my technique – I’m very into the modern and new classical works. But I would like to do Romeo. I’m at my best whenever I have an acting role. It’s what I enjoy performing the most. It’s only a matter of opportunity. I’ve also done Von Rothbart in Swan Lake, the Moor in Petrouchka, the Kaschei in Firebird. There is a tendency for me to play the bad guys. But tonight I have Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour – third pas de deux, principal and Tomasson’s Trio – second movement, principal. For me, it’s the most interesting part of the ballet. He has said certain things about what it represents. I do a pas de deux with Lauren Strongin – we look like we are enjoying what we’re doing, we’re in love. Suddenly, another guy comes in. He represents death. He begins pulling her away and eventually takes her away. Technically, I don’t see him. It’s like – omigod, where are you going? I move from smiles and enjoyment to suffering and regret. I would definitely enjoy dancing ‘the bad guy’ – but, in this piece, I’m happy with my role. Whatever the music is – you have to create a mood even though there may be no character, no story.”

I told Daniel that every time I attend The Nutcracker I wonder how many kids out in the audience will wind up in a ballet class the following January. His countless appearances have no doubt sparked many an imagination. What would his advice be to the kid, especially the boy, who thinks he may want to continue with ballet and knows he must compete?

“How much do you want to do this? Where do you see yourself? You will always have to keep up with these things in order to get these other things.

“It’s hard to see somebody who has everything they want in their life. I never wanted to have everything I ever wanted, because that would have made me lazy. It would make me stop being as hard-working as I am – to stay focused, disciplined. It has always been really hard for me. But I can’t complain. I am so blest to be a healthy person. I have a fantastic and supportive family. I understood that difficulties would come, but it was up to me to surpass them in order to achieve my objectives. And I’m still doing that! Every day it’s a different fight. When I was sixteen and started getting lots of attention and opportunity, I realized I could become something out of it. I’ve always had an image of what I wanted to be and where I wanted to be. That has helped me to stay focused and surpass the difficulties – whether it was the separation from my people, my home country or the financial struggles I had at the beginning. Going to ballet class and doing my best work every day, I knew that at some point – no matter how long it took – I would get there.”

I asked Daniel about his greatest difficulty. What is the ‘demon’ he deals with?

“Distance. Every time I go home – my parents are older, my nephew is older. I feel like I have missed so much of their lives because I only go home once a year – every May. Every time I get there, something is different. I have memories of the day I left, how young I was and how everyone looked. When you’re younger you don’t realize some things – how important it is to save money, to be polite, to pay attention to certain things while you’re busy doing something else. I was a different type of younger person. Even as a boy, I felt mature. I had all these priorities. My priorities have changed. I still have a lot of time – a lot of years still left in my legs. But I don’t know how much longer I can take being away from my parents, from my family. I don’t want to have regrets. So, I need to figure out how I can still do what I do and be closer to them.”

“At some point, I would like to move to Europe. It has become so difficult for Brazilians to move to America, because of governmental issues. My parents have never been able to come to San Francisco to see me perform – because of the government. But every time I go to Europe they come to watch me. When I first came here I spoke no English. I had no friends, no money. I had to deal with that situation for a long time before I felt comfortable. Learning English was the easiest thing I had to do. I had my dictionary, I watched movies. A year later, I had a Spanish roommate. He spoke absolutely no English. I knew a few things in Spanish, but not really. As time passed, I realized I was speaking fluent Spanish. Today, my Spanish is on the same level as my English.”

Daniel and I found vocabulary-in-common when I asked what piece of music he would choose to have choreographed on him / just for him. He’s already thought about that. “Can I have more than one?” Sure. He listed four. His category of choice – Opera.

“The flower duet from Lakmé [‘Sous le dôme épais’]; O mio babbino caro [from Gianni Schicchi]; the aria of the Queen of the Night [from Magic Flute, ‘Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen’ aka ‘The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart’]; and every Olympic skater’s favorite aria-without-words competition solo, ‘Nessun dorma’ [from Turandot].”

And his choice of choreographers? That took a moment.

“Val Caniparoli, Christopher Wheeldon, and Yuri Possokhov. I’ve done many pieces by these choreographers – and wonderful ballets by many other choreographers. But you’re asking me to name three, right off – and where I felt I really did something? It would have to be Val Caniparoli for O mio babbino caro; Wheeldon for Lakmé; and Possokhov for Nessun Dorma and the Queen of the Night.”

Perfect. Let’s all bend over backwards and make it so!

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Erin Chack just welcomed a new baby, err book, into the world. 

On Tuesday, the Senior Writer at BuzzFeed tweeted out four photos of her giving birth to her upcoming YA novel This Is Really Happening. Chack had all the essentials: a hospital bed, flowers, balloons and, of course, a doctor to “deliver” her baby. 

“Can’t believe my little book baby was born one week ago today. 1 lb. 4 oz., 234 healthy pages!” Chack wrote in the caption. “Mama loves you.”

Chack told HuffPost she came up with the idea for the photoshoot with her best friend Alijah. 

“We had been talking on the phone about how we couldn’t wait for the book to be out and how it was like waiting for a baby to be born,” she said. “At the same time we sort of blurted ‘WE SHOULD DO A BIRTHING SHOOT’ because we have the exact same brain.”

Before Chack knew it, she and Alijah were producing a full-blown book-baby birthing photoshoot in her New York City apartment right before the book launch.

The duo swiped a surgical mask from Alijah’s doctor, grabbed a pair of latex gloves from a restaurant and ― voilà ― Chack was ready to deliver!

“We set up my futon like a hospital bed, pinned an old duvet to the wall, and rearranged the flowers people had sent me. It looked pretty good!” Chack told HuffPost. “At one point I literally cried because I was laughing so hard from the sheer joy of having the book out and being with my best friend in the world doing weird things, which is our favorite thing to do! I’m also super relieved my neighbors were away for the weekend, because we were making a lot of noise.” 

Swipe through Chack’s Instagram post below that shows even more joyful moments from the big delivery. 

Chack said writing a book was really hard and lonely, but ― similar to the herculean task of having a baby ― so, so worth it. 

“It’s kind of lonely, just hammering away at something you know won’t be fully formed for so many months,” Chack explained. “And then suddenly it has a name, and then it has a face, and then finally it’s a REAL PHYSICAL BOOK. And you hold it in your arms and cry a little because you can’t believe how much work it took for such a tiny, simple object.”

Check out more photos below. 

The one big difference Chack noted between a book and a baby (besides the whole caring for a tiny human for the rest of your life) is that “you can drink as much red wine as you want.” 

Head over to BuzzFeed to read an excerpt from Chack’s new novel “This Is Really Happening.” 

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Since it’s April 28 Netflix release, ‘Dear White People’ has received near-universal praise for the ways it tackles the complex but important topic of race. 

The show was adapted from the 2014 film of the same name directed by Justin Simien, who also directed the series. Both explore blackness from the perspective of several students who attend the fictional school of Winchester University.

Throughout the 10 episodes of its first season, the characters in “Dear White People” unpack their own unique relationships with race as well as those of people around them who perceive it in different, and sometimes damaging, ways. Their stories are a part of what makes the show most striking, the experiences each character faces reflect some aspect of life black people can encounter ― from colorism to interracial dating. 

Perhaps nowhere in the show is portrayal of the reality of racial experiences more profound than in the show’s fifth episode. Now, an exclusive video shared by Netlfix with HuffPost features cast members from “Dear White People” who detail exactly how and why the episode’s striking ending scene was so important to include. 

(Spoiler alert: Details from the episode will be dished below.)

Each episode shifts its focus to a new character and episode 5, which was directed by the Oscar-winning moviemaker Barry Jenkins, spotlighted Reggie, a smart, suave and socially-aware student determined to rev up the revolution and wake the campus up to the plight of black Americans.

Reggie is both admired and disliked by many ― praised by those who appreciate his honest take on racism and pushed aside by critics, mostly white students, who simply don’t seem to understand.

When a campus party was blasted for having white students show up in blackface, Reggie was the among the first to help shut it down. And when two armed white campus police officers were called to a party late one night, Reggie was the only man in front of the gun.

Because after all, while Reggie’s blackness makes him feel unapologetically proud, it also paints him as a mischief to those who practice racial bias and subscribe to such limiting stereotypes surrounding people of color, like many among the police. 

“When I read episode 105, I cried and I cried every time after that thinking about certain scenes,” says actor Marque Richardson, who plays Reggie, in the video given to HuffPost. 

The last part of episode 5 is set at a party thrown by Reggie’s white friend Addison, played by Nolan Gerard Funk. Reggie’s friends eventually encourage him to go out and enjoy his Saturday night, because after all “sometimes being carefree and black is an act of revolution,” he’s reminded.

“Reggie is all about the movement and he is sort of relentlessly, relentlessly trying to figure out a way to get people on campus to be involved and to care about the issues without coming off across like an angry black guy, which he has every right to be,” Simien says in the video.

Reggie reluctantly gives in and ends up at the party where he is greeted with a sea of white faces ― but that doesn’t stop him from becoming the life of the party. He socializes, dances and ultimately shows off his skills as he effortlessly defeats his opponents at trivia and is praised for being the champ of the game. But the fun soon stops after Addison, dances beside him to a rap song from Future while freely repeating the word “niggas.”

“Just don’t say ‘nigga,’” Reggie tells him. Addison asks what’s so wrong if he does and tries to explain why he doesn’t think simply repeating the word makes him racist.   

Reggie attempts to paint the problem clear but the conversation quickly escalates as the room goes silent and turns their attention on the two. In those moments, someone calls the campus police and within minutes, two officers arrive at the party to confront Reggie and Addison ― except Reggie is the only one questioned. He tells them he is a student of the campus but the officer insists he must see Reggie’s ID to confirm that fact.

“Why do you need to see my ID?” Reggie asks after other students, including Addison, try to explain to the cops that he is in fact a student.

The cop raises his voice as he demands identification to which a frustrated Reggie responds: “Fuck these pigs, man.” Within seconds, the officer removes his weapon and points his gun directly at Reggie as he stands in fear for his life.

“I was glad Marque took so much weight on his shoulders,” says actor Brandon T. Bell who plays Troy Fairbanks, a black student running for campus president, in the show. “You just get really emotional… you try to figure out why you have so many questions but I think it’s good that we tackle them.”

Bell isn’t the only cast member who believes that “Dear White People” does an excellent job at depicting how blackness can be treated in America through this episode. “You realize how real the show is in that moment,” says John Patrick Amedorie, who plays Gabe. “It was insane to think that this could happen at any point in time in any of these kid’s lives.”

However, the emotions each character displayed came from a very real place. The cast taped the first season last year, which was filled with constant news of police killing black lives around the country, and they were forced to deal with the reality of those deaths while also doing a show that spoke to the core of why such killings are so painful for so many.

We’re all sort of trying to figure out this thing called civil rights in the 21st century.”
Justin Simien

“I remember when Philando Castile was killed, we came into work that next day and everybody was devastated,” says Stephanie Allain, an executive producer for the show. “We were literally sick over it. We had to incorporate that feeling into the show.”

For Richardson, seeing black death so publicly displayed in the news left him feeling fear and shame, he says in the video. He references his young nephew and the worry he has for how he may treated him as a black kid in America.

“This is my reality at this time but my nephew who is 2 years old this will be his reality as well,” he says in the video, “and that just broke my heart.”

However, Simien says Reggie is one of the show’s most relatable characters. He believes Reggie carries the internal conflict so many people these days can feel in trying to figure out productive ways to tackle racism and all cases of injustice.

“What does it mean to be an activist in this modern era? How do you actually rally people? How do you do more than get just angry?” Simien says in the video.

“I think in a lot of ways, we’re all Reggie too. We’re all sort of trying to figure out this thing called civil rights in the 21st century.”  

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“Women artists have always been sidelined,” Bianca Chu, deputy director at Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery, told HuffPost.

Her opinion is hardly unfounded. Over the years, there have been widespread efforts by feminist activists to address the ongoing gender imbalance in the museum and gallery worlds, imploring individuals and institutions to learn more women artists’ names, put more women’s work in galleries and museums, and document more women’s contributions to art on Wikipedia and in history books. 

Chu and the team at London’s S|2 Gallery are working to address one imbalance in particular: market value. The gallery, a space adjacent to Sotheby’s auction house in London, is launching a series of exhibitions featuring the work of female artists who are historically influential, yet remain undervalued for a variety of reasons. 

For the first show in this vein, S|2 is showing the work of Renate Bertlmann and Maria Lassnig, two postwar artists from Austria whose reputations and market costs don’t add up.

Bertlmann, born in Vienna in 1943, is an avant-garde feminist artist whose work incorporated dildos, pacifiers and condoms to defuse what she referred to as the “phallocracy.” In one series, Bertlmann paints phalluses as pastel-colored cartoons donning corsets and garter belts. Throughout her career, Bertlmann depicted penises in many forms over and over again, each time chipping away at the unspoken patriarchal power possessed within them. 

“Pornographic jokes have always been a male domain, made at the exclusive expense of women,” Bertlmann said in an interview with the Tate museum in London. “I consider my series of objects an accomplished example of an obscene female joke. This joke has hit home; it targets the deadly serious, male sexual arrogance.”

When Bertlmann began exhibiting her work in the 1970s, she was criticized by other feminist artists for her obsession with phallic imagery. “People thought that because she was using phalluses in such a direct way she was empowering them,” Chu said. “But really, by using them so bluntly, she was trying to overcome them.”

In another iconic work, Bertlmann covers a mask with the tips of baby pacifiers, which bear resemblance to nipples and condoms, both of which were, again, frequent materials in her work. In a series of staged photos, Bertlmann wears the mask atop her face, covering her fingers with condoms. The monstrous image visualizes woman as baby-making machine, her physical features buried beneath the responsibilities of sexually accommodation and reproduction. 

The other artist on view is Maria Lassnig, who was born in 1919 in Kappel am Krappfeld, a small town in southern Austria. For 70 years, Lassnig painted only herself, assuming a variety of disguises including a baby, a cheese grater, a monster and a dumpling. 

The artist described her gripping self-portraits as “body-awareness paintings” ― in that they reflected as much as possible how she was feeling at the moment of their creation. She never painted from photographs, always from life. “I need the real body, real air,” she is quoted as saying in The Guardian. “When I paint I want everything to be as direct as possible.”

Lassnig’s depictions range from figurative to abstract, naturalistic to teetering on the edge of reality, her flesh shifting from salmon pink to electric green ― all dependent on the artist’s inner state at the time of the images’ creation. 

In her most well-known work, 2005’s “You or Me,” Lassnig paints her unclothed, 85-year-old body, the flesh yellowy and loose. Her face appears vacant yet alarmed. With one hand, Lassnig holds a gun to her head; she points another gun at the viewer with the other. The portrait is painful to look at yet impossible to look away from, as if warning the viewer that if she breaks eye contact Lassnig will shoot. 

“She has been active since the 1950s,” Chu explained, “but it’s only in the last decade or so that she’s had major museum retrospectives outside of her own country.” Lassnig was awarded the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and died the next year, at 94 years old.

Despite the critical recognition she’s received, her work is still priced in an entirely different bracket than, say, Francis Bacon’s, with whom she exhibited (and held her own) in 2016. While Bacon’s work has sold for up to $142 million, Lassnig’s record, according to Chu, hovers around $600,000. 

The first round of S|2 Gallery’s programming focuses on women artists, but future shows will explore work that is undervalued for a variety of reasons. Chu stressed that the exhibitions will place more emphasis on the artist’s work as opposed to the explanations behind their exclusion.

“Certain artists have been marginalized because of gender or race, but we are more interested in their rediscovery,” Chu said. “There are always a variety of factors, but we’re focusing on the art they are making.”

The time is ripe for serious attention to be paid to artists as groundbreaking as Bertlmann and Lassnig. And if those auction prices go up as a result, all the better. 

Renate Bertlmann’s work is on view now in S|2 Gallery’s lower gallery, and Maria Lassnig’s in the upper gallery. The London show is on view until June 1. 

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The second best part of voting ― right up there behind making your opinion heard while participating in the perpetuation of democracy ― is, of course, the “I Voted” sticker.

Just think of the inexplicable rush of pride and excitement you feel upon slapping those little disposable badges of honor upon your chest. 

New Yorkers voting in September’s primary election ― Sept. 12, write it down! ― should be even more excited to know that they’ll be receiving a freshly designed “I Voted” sticker this year. And you, engaged New York citizen, get to help choose which one. 

The NYC Campaign Finance Board is now hosting the NYC Votes “I Voted” Sticker Contest ― in which users are encouraged to pick the next official sticker art. There are currently 10 finalists in the running ― most made by designers based in one of the city’s five boroughs (plus one gentleman from Kansas City). The winning artist will have the surreal opportunity to see his or her work stuck to the majority of New Yorkers for one special day. 

Check out the finalists and their work below, along with quotes describing their visions. Vote on your first, second and third preferences here before the “polls” close on May 9 at 9 p.m. ET.

If only there was an “I Voted” sticker to vote on “I Voted” stickers, amiright?

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For over a year before it premiered this past weekend at the Rep Stage regional theatre outside Baltimore, the musical “Dorian’s Closet” was sparking buzz in the media, from Out magazine and the LGBT press to the Baltimore Sun and theater journals. Playwright Richard Mailman, who wrote the book and lyrics, fielded interviews while the show was in rehearsals over those long months, awaiting its debut.

The intense interest isn’t at all surprising. With music by Ryan Hasse and directed by Joseph W. Ritsch, “Dorian’s Closet” is based on the life of Dorian Corey, a prominent subject of Jennie Livingston’s groundbreaking 1990 documentary film, “Paris Is Burning,” about the remarkable Harlem drag balls of the 1980s and the powerfully-bonded community of black and Latino gay and trans people who created them. “Dorian’s Closet” has all of the glamour and the sequin ball gowns and the show-stopping numbers one would expect, relaying the story of a legendary figure on the Harlem ball scene who became internationally famous as a star in the beloved documentary. 

Corey, who used female pronouns and was the “mother” of the House of Corey, succumbed to AIDS in 1993. Soon after, her notoriety shot even higher, when police found a mummy in the closet of her Harlem apartment ― a dead, preserved body of a man who was killed by a gunshot wound, likely 15 years earlier. “Dorian’s Closet,” via musical numbers performed by a grippingly talented cast, follows that story, taking us first back to Corey’s early years in Manhattan. Mailman, who’s worked on many stage and television productions ― but for whom this is his first musical ― discussed the show, the storyline and and where it’s all going, in an interview with me on SiriusXM Progress. This is an edited version of that conversation.

Michelangelo Signorile:  Looking at Dorian Corey’s story, what made you decide, ‘This would be a great musical’? 
Richard Mailman: Why wouldn’t a mummy in the closet make the best musical ever? [Laughter] You know, all those years ago when I saw “Paris is Burning,” it screamed out to be a musical. Obviously this isn’t a musical version of “Paris is Burning.” But just the whole world ― the balls, the drag queens, their performing, that’s definitely ripe for a musical. But I was always a fan of theatrical backstage stories. There’s totally that element of Dorian’s career ― how she ended up in New York, working at [the drag bar] Sal’s in Times Square, and in the Harlem balls. But throw in what they found in the closet after she left it there and, you know, that’s a fabulous number! When I first saw the movie, I was totally intrigued by her.

 

She was the mother of the House of Corey. These were [queer] families [of choice], these houses [which competed in runway walking and voguing against one another at the balls].
There’s all of those elements as well [in “Dorian’s Closet”]. The stories of all of those children ― a lot of them tragic ― that were part of those houses and hers… just what was going on in New York at that time and around that community. I really think that right now, especially with what’s going on politically in the world right now, particularly in this country ― obviously we’ve taken a real slide backward. But I think in a way the story now becomes even more important ― for people to remember what we went through and the struggle we went through. And do we really want to go back there? There’s a lot of that in there too.

For over a year before it premiered, the show was getting this incredible buzz and it just keeps increasing and increasing right up to today. You’ve been doing interviews for about a year.
A lot of that has to do with the fact that people know “Paris Is Burning.” I think we’ve forgotten about how much of an impact that movie had. For a small documentary, how many people remember it. And it still holds up well. It’s still relevant. People remember Dorian. About a year ago when Rep Stage announced their season, and we were included in that, word got out and it just exploded. When people heard about it, they went crazy about it. It made me nervous at first. But it really made me feel good. I started getting so many emails from people who remember Dorian and really, really wanted to see her story told. I should preface the whole thing by saying it is somewhat a fictional account of her life because there’s a lot we don’t know.

There’s a lot we don’t know about the man she purportedly killed and mummified and put in the closet. Was it a boyfriend? Was it a robber? Was it both ― a scammer? There are so many different theories that are out there about what transpired. You had to take [one] narrative and run with it.
The scary part was not knowing the truth. But there was a moment when I realized that the story we really wanted to tell was not so much who he was and how it happened. But how someone could keep a body in their closet for over 15 years and what would make a person do that. By the time you get to the end of the story you understand what these people were going through and what they were faced with.

 

Stephen Scott Wormley, who plays Dorian Corey is spectacular and James Thomas Frisbee, who plays Jesse Torres, another drag performer, is also amazing.
Doing a musical is not easy. Getting even just a small production out there is very difficult and takes a long time and there are a lot of elements involved. This show rests really on Dorian’s shoulders. During almost the entire show she’s onstage. So you’ve got to have a performer not only who can carry that vocally but also who can create this character that people can fall in love with. And I have to say, this [past] weekend [audiences] took to him ― it was amazing. He does a beautiful job with [Dorian].

It has already received some great reviews after the premiere. That’s got to feel good.
It feels really, really good. You kind of lose perspective. You’re locked in a theater, trying to bring it together. You don’t know how it will fly with people. But it was kind of amazing [opening night]. All of a sudden it hit me ― they’re really, really getting it. The thing that I’m just so thrilled about more than anything is that people are walking out, feeling really [good.] This is not a happy story ―

No, but it is kind of uplifting at the end.
When I first saw Dorian, there was something about her ― to quote a song in the show. She does have this optimistic outlook in life. 

Where does the show [performed at Rep Stage in Maryland until May 14] go from here? 
From everything that everyone’s been saying to us, they really feel there’s a way bigger life for this show. It could happen any number of ways. I’m ready for whatever anyone what’s to do with it. I’m ready.

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