Matt Starr (visual artist)

Matt Starr is an American visual artist, poet, conceptual comedian, and experimental filmmaker known for his provocative viral works.

Matt Starr
Known forExperimental art and film
Notable workMy Annie Hall (2018)
Websitematt-starr.com

Early life edit

Starr obtained his BFA in studio art and a minor in Swahili from the University of Indiana.[1]

Art career edit

In 2015 Starr created and marketed a line of clothing called "Babycore" inspired by outfits he wore during his early childhood.[2] This trend quickly went viral and inspired Jeremy Scott's Fall/Winter 2015 ready to wear collection and Miley Cyrus's BB Talk (2015) music video.[3]

In 2016 Starr enacted and documented the performance piece "Amazon Boy," which was included in the piece of "Art on Amazon" in the March 2020 issue of Art in America.[4]

In 2017 to celebrate the fortieth birthday of the film classic Starr along with theater director and his artistic partner Ellie Sachs did a truncated remake of Woody Allen's "Annie Hall' with a cast of octogenarians from the Lennox Hill Neighborhood House.[5] The idea for the project arose from Starr's relationship with his grandmother in whom he noticed a measurable cognitive  decline due to alzheimer's. Allen himself approved of the project and even suggested other films to be remade.[6] The effort was funded with a Kickstarter campaign.[7] In Starr and Sachs' version of the film Alvy Singer is played by the then 94 year old Harry Miller a designer for TV and stage who won two Emmy's during his career for his work on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light.[8][9][10]

In April of 2018 Starr and Ellie Sachs created the instillation "The Museum of Banned Objects", in the gallery at Manhattan's Ace Hotel, sponsored by Planned Parenthood, in a commentary on access to birth control.[11]

In 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Starr and Sachs founded the Long Distance Movie Club, "a virtual movie-watching group that meets every two weeks in an effort to not only engage seniors in a sense of community but also to help them find some escapism in the midst of self-isolation."[12]

References edit

  1. ^ Magazine, The Editors of New York. "Matt Starr, Studio Art B.F.A. Alumnus one of fifty artists to create cover art for New York Magazine: 2018: News: Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design: Indiana University Bloomington". Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ "Forget normcore. Meet babycore, the clothing trend's juvenile counterpart". the Guardian. January 26, 2015.
  3. ^ "Babycore is the New Normcore". www.yahoo.com. 3 February 2015. Retrieved 2021-04-18.
  4. ^ America, Art in (March 5, 2020). "Photos: Art on the Amazon Company".
  5. ^ "Artistic Collaborators Remake 'Annie Hall' With a Cast of Retirees". The New York Observer. November 6, 2017.
  6. ^ Marotta, Jenna (March 2, 2018). "'My Annie Hall,' A Charming Short Film Starring Senior Citizens, Has Woody Allen's Blessing".
  7. ^ Leland, John (March 2, 2018). "The Woody Allen Reboot You Won't See at the Oscars (or Maybe Anywhere) (Published 2018)". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
  8. ^ "An "Annie Hall" for the ages: Seniors star in a remake of Woody Allen's classic". www.cbsnews.com. 2 December 2018.
  9. ^ Sales, Ben. "An 'Annie Hall' remake, starring two senior citizens". www.timesofisrael.com.
  10. ^ "Harry Miller follows Emmy's guiding light to Riverdale". The Riverdale Press. 17 November 2019.
  11. ^ Aylmer, Olivia (3 April 2018). "Inside the "Museum of Banned Objects," an Art World Answer to The Handmaid's Tale". Vanity Fair.
  12. ^ Bobb, Brooke (12 May 2020). "This Millennial-Founded Movie Club Is for Senior Cinephiles Living in Isolation". Vogue. Retrieved 2021-04-18.