Before the Internet, there was the 1960s Dial-a-Poem Hotline

On any given night in 1970, a teen somewhere in rural America could dial a number and hear the radical wisdom of Patti Smith, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Bourroughs – the list of poets was long, and painfully hip. One needed only the ten sacred digits of “Dial-a-Poem,” a revolutionary hotline that connected…

Remembering Robert De Niro, one of the “Strange Great Secret Painters of America”

In chapter five of Jack Kerouac’s timeless 1960 travelogue, Lonesome Traveller, the great American novelist takes us to New York to meet the inner circle of bohemian artists and beatniks in Greenwich Village: “Let’s go see the strange great secret painters of America and discuss their paintings and their visions with them — Iris Brodie…

For a Year, They Lived Tied Together with 8 Feet of Social Distance

The promise was made on American Independence Day, 1983. “We, Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh, plan to do a one year performance. We will stay together for one year and never be alone…tied together at [the] waist with an 8 foot rope.” Arguably the most difficult part of this promise? That artists Hsieh and Montano…

Vintage Muse du Jour: Peggy Guggenheim, Patron Saint of Art & Sex

You probably know Guggenheim– the name, the museums, the collections– but do you know the woman behind legendary the name (and sunglasses)? Peggy Guggenheim didn’t live the domesticated life that was expected of an heiress. She was her own kind of bohemian, impossible to define, mysterious and in many ways, tragic in her loneliness. But…

The Secret NYC Gallery that brought Picasso & the Avant-garde to America

Did they ever tell you about the nice Jersey boy who brought Modern Art to America’s shores? It wasn’t a Rockefeller, or a Guggenheim – just a kid from Hoboken, New Jersey with an eye for talent. Behind the doors of a little 5th floor attic-level apartment on 291 Fifth Avenue, he displayed raunchy Rodins,…

Our Top 5 Paris Obsessions for La Rentrée

Paris is back in full swing for la rentrée, the annual ritual of Frenchies returning from their god-given right to a long summer holiday and starting a fresh. And that goes for us too here at the MessyNessyChic HQ. This week we’ve been on the hunt for new hidden gems and stuff to wow and inspire us…

The Many Odd Jobs of Andy Warhol

Ask any full-time creative exactly where they find inspiration, or what their line of work even is, and they’ll tell you of all the jobs they’ve juggled not only to pay the rent, but stay relevant. And with history as our witness, Warhol was pretty damn good at that (as well as keeping a few…

Four Grisly Murders, One Salvador Dali

Note: portions of this article contain graphic text. You couldn’t have concocted an eerier murder mystery if you tried. Yet, history seems to have bookmarked the case of the Missing Women of Perpignan — “Les disparues de Perpignan”, as the French say — with dwindling media attention; a shocker due not only to the case’s bizarre nature, but the fact…

Like Picasso, But on Acid

Picasso, is that you? You have to admit, Jean Lurçat (above) is almost a dead ringer for Pablo. Same stocky build, same receding hairline. Just swap the cable-knit sweater for a Breton-striped shirt, and boom. We did a bit of digging to find out who this mysterious dopplegänger was, and realised that Lurçat and Picasso…

The Strangely Underrated Artistry of Japanese Playgrounds

I don’t know about you, but the playgrounds where I pottered around in my day, eating too much sand and earning my first set of stitches on the jungle gym, did not look like this. Surreal nocturnal scenes of colossal, if not slightly traumatising cement playground equipment in Japan, that looks better suited for a contemporary art sculpture…