VersoFest 2023 - EVOLVING ROCK STYLE
VersoFest 2023
In this panel, Evolving Rock Style: From Marianne Faithfull to Debbie Harry to Lizzo, author and journalist Rachel Felder, will lead discussion on cutting edge female/androgynous rock fashion through the 1960’s to today, accompanied by pictures, video, and multimedia. Three expert panelists share their thoughts and perspective.
Rachel Felder is an author and journalist who writes about fashion and style, trends, and art. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Financial Times, Vogue, Elle, and many other publications. She is the author of five books, the most recent of which, Red Lipstick: an Ode to a Beauty Icon, examines the impact and cultural significance of red lipstick.
“No-One’s More Punk than Vivien Goldman,” pronounced Pitchfork Magazine. In that freewheeling spirit, the boundary-busting Vivien Goldman is a writer, educator, broadcaster -- and a musician, too. A Londoner, she has lived in Paris and Jamaica and now resides in New York. Since she started out in the vigorous British rock press of the 1970s, often working with Bob Marley (the subject of two of her books,) her can-do attitude and outernational insights have been on wide display: journalism, books, radio, television, university teaching, multi-media lecturing, museum dialogs, the recording studio, the stage -- and her beat still goes on.
“Revenge of the She-Punks,” Goldman’s award-winning sixth book, (University of Texas Press, 2019) won Rough Trade’s Book of the Year in the US and the UK, and earned her the Best Music Journalist Award from Germany’s Reeperbahn Festival. It has been translated into seven international editions.
In a unique career move, Goldman released her first album, ‘Next Is Now,’ in 2021, produced by Youth (Killing Joke, The Orb, Paul McCartney, Poly Styrene.) Brooklyn Vegan made it LP of the Week and The Washington Post, Forbes Magazine and Pitchfork, among others, enthused about what Lucie O’Brien called “a moving statement on love, exile, struggle and companionship.. Goldman sings with a sense of musical liberation.” (Mojo)
It was a remarkable renaissance for the post-punk music Goldman made in the early 1980s as part of The Flying Lizards, and solo with members of PiL, The Raincoats, Aswad and Robert Wyatt. When this scattered work was re-issued in a 2016 compilation album, “Resolutionary,” it prompted HBO to use her cult classic “Launderette” in their series, “The Deuce.”
"The Afrobeat Artist,” a book on the work of Lemi Ghariokwu, the visual artist whose sleeves projected Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the creator of Nigeria’s Afrobeat sound, will be published by Hat & Beard Books in 2022. A book of her collected music journalism, “Roots, Routes and Revolution.” will be published by White Rabbit Books (UK) in 2023.
A long-time Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recording Music, Tisch, her lecturing life has taken her to London, New York, Los Angeles, Munich, Bilbao, Lagos and beyond.
Goldman’s archive is collected at the Fales Library, NYU as The Vivien Goldman Punk & Reggae Collection.
Christian Joy is a costume designer and artist living and working in New York City. Christian has created performance looks for artists such as Karen O, Brittany Howard and Childish Gambino. Her designs have appeared on stage at the Oscars and Grammy Awards as well as music festivals around the world. Christian’s work has been exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Mode Museum in Hasselt Belgium as well as galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Matthew Yokobosky was appointed Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture at Brooklyn Museum in 2018, having most recently held the position of Director of Exhibition Design. Since 1999, Matthew designed over 95 temporary and permanent exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, including the critically acclaimed Luce Center for American Art: Visible Storage - Study Center (2001/2005), Basquiat (2005), Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life (2006), Who Shot Rock & Roll (2009), American High Style (2010), Killer Heels (2014), and The Rise of Sneaker Culture (2015). He then curated and designed David Bowie is (2018), Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion (2019), Studio 54: Night Magic (2020, international tour), and most recently Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams (2021) and Thierry Mugler: Couturissime (which is on view through May 7).
Prior to joining the Brooklyn Museum, Matthew was the Associate Curator of Film and Video at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he curated No Wave Cinema, 78-87 (1996, international tour), which chronicled the East Village filmmaking scene during New York City’s punk heyday, and Fashion & Film (1997). Also at the Whitney, he was the exhibition designer for the 1995 Whitney Biennial and Edward Steichen (2000), among many others. Matthew has curated and designed exhibitions in Los Angeles, Seoul, Copenhagen, Paris, and London. He won a Bessie Award (1989) for set and costume design for his work with the theater director Ping Chong, and a Markopoulos Award (2022) for his work in visual design at the Brooklyn Museum.
