We hereby apologize, on behalf of the collective formerly known as Go! Push Pops, for what we now recognize as an utter failure to live up to our own intersectional politics (as a queer, radical, transnational feminist collective) amounting to what could hardly be described as a “career.” At best it was a shallow “famous in Bushwick” no-wave social media pseudo-celebrity and at worst… an abysmal love letter to white male patriarchy. Call it a “career-malfunction.” We’re sorry. We were exhausted, out of our minds and angry at God the Father. We rode through some scintillating hell realms hand in hand. We apologize, from the bottom of our dark, self-seeking egomaniacally opportunistic hearts and not-quite-poppin’ but appropriately mystico-erotic handles @mysticalratchet @ambrosialtwat, we failed. We were deeply motivated and horribly naïve. Visionary, but vacant when it came to real social-change.
We barely had time to celebrate each other’s birthdays, let alone repair the world or restore the Matriarchy through our neon-Lolita-guru-Utopia’s mystically-intended acts. We’re hereby leaving “Art” to do something more worthy with our time in a more ethical, grounded and humble fashion somewhere we will not name. The only art we pledge by is the art of Self-Awareness (be prepared to eat the devil’s diarrhea!) All deities live within the human breast.
This Public CERVIX announcement is to say: Yung feminists, drop bombs! Be better and do better than we did. Smash the muthakuckin patriarchy. Sexuality is a cultural production representing the appropriation of the human body and its erogenous zones by ideological discourse. Warning: while you’re busy guarding the family jewels New York City will creep up on you and steal something you didn’t know you had. Like a soul. It’s Not About the MONEY. Art is what Art does.
We always called each other “soul mates” or “soul sistars.” Since we met in graduate school, where we shared neighboring studios, we had suffered a strange attraction to one another. Twat had run away from a Republican Aristocratic family where homophobia was rampant and the female gender was regimented around maternity and domesticity while bloated patriarchs loomed large. Ratchet had come from the sunny and idealized West, where she learned how to do yoga and diet at a tender age. Upon her relocation to the Beast Coast, her father seemed concerned she’d be raped in Central Park and her brother warned “don’t take off your clothes” while family friends whispered “Follow the money…”
Go! Push Pops somehow oriented our whole career around NOT following the money. It was the only dirty word we knew. The truth is, renegade druggy white bitches taking off our clothes in protest against the patriarchy is about the money. YES, (Mystical) homosexuality is not “captured” by society for procreation or social stability and is more free to be realized on other microcosmic dimensions but that’s no excuse for dragging our pussies through white boxes and art institutions with angsty rigor to say FXCK the white man while Ratchet served hers up to the Black man on a silver platter (her famous ex-lover Strawberry was really looking for a safe, clean place to sleep – she was just happy he didn’t think her thighs where fat). It’s not about the money. Twat hid her language barrier and feelings of inadequacy behind criminal charm and occasional bouts of cereal domination. Ratchet hid her feelings of inadequacy behind workaholism, doing too much for everyone else especially the cool Black kids that took the place of the cool white kids she knew growing up and validated her mountains of racial guilt. She was better at writing than making art and controlled the whole thing with words hiding behind her inbox and lyrical dexterity. One day before we became friends Twat smacked Ratchet in the face out of the blue during a casual round of drinks in the student lobby but Ratchet quickly forgot it ever happened.
Before we knew it we buried ourselves in a provocatively public, international art “career” fueled by sublimated erotic feelings for one another and something resembling the aesthetics of resentment meets Goddess-complex. But going toe to toe with “radical” artists that go back to old money while you go up to six digits in debt is about the money. It means someone’s got you. It means you got privilege.
There’s the inner child and there is the adult child. Still working for free believing you’re going to “make it” hurts every artist. The snakelike promise of exposure is a liability in a system that denies the value of artists sweat and tears. We were the unpaid night nurses of an art market from which others profited greatly. Having been exploited we demand compensation for any future work after we Leave ART> Low KEY Our fifteen minutes of fame felt more like 5 pixilated as fxck seconds. But heck Bushwick let’s get pixilated as fxck! * epiphany * We’re hearby Leaving ART>
We exchanged some uncanny, paradigm-shifting emails. Can google sell you back your paradigm shift? Your epiphany? Where does it rate next to “cosmic yoga pants” and “loyal black men” on the product scale thirsty advertisers attempt to hook your mind’s eye with as you write your seemingly private feminist correspondences…
Mystical Ratchet: it is NOT OK with me to have a feminist collective that is monopolizing on the fetish-y algorithms of white male patriarchy… magazines, hype, girl-on-girl tempting the perverts all this bad girl drama sometimes just feels like a pathetic love letter to white male patriarchy obscuring the real money being made…working for free… social media owns us all … taking demented selfies…feeling safe enough to go crazy in public…privilege…. it’s just not enough for me… nor the Rockstar performances there has to be something more honest and more social-justice oriented and community oriented behind the trickster masks…otherwise its just emotional masturbation of the privileged ! ! !
Ambrosial Twat: There is similar points of conflict for me that came to deep discomfort, contradiction and integrity dilema…a black hole of overly objectifying ourselves, too much social media exposure, like our own statement beating back to us… slowly I felt a sort of isolation instead of more connection with all our peers… I understand and have more clarity now, where as you had the concept and strategy super clear in your core language and integrity and maybe didn’t affect you as much…. for me my soul was being removed and was speaking to me of a deep egoic conditioning like spinning around “my story” trying to find a way out through all the work that I and we did…..but like fire fueling my ego…till hating all that role, constructed self image, but yes your words….also have helped me to shift my perspective and see that clearly yes “masturbation for privileged girls” or “pathetic love letter to white male patriarchy” …but what exactly did you mean by CRIMINAL CHARM AND CEREAL DOMINATION?
Mystical Ratchet: (Makes indistinguishable noise resembling a song) I mean you did all the emotional labor… from the soul retrievals to the exorcisms.
Ambrosial Twat: oh ok yes, that makes sense, veils in between your sentences, that was important but also much challenging…”emotional labor” and yes that “genuine” play of collective negotiation of effort and management of our time plus collaboration also being about meeting people and not just getting what we need. (borderline pathetic pushpops self-serving free labor that I try to morally ease with trying to make real connection over the lack of depth and time, filling an empty void of guilt/shame or weird unfullfillment like a bad taste after being drained and overly exhausted post performance trying to fill it with instagram hashtag hunger missing all lost pictures into a dryer and emptier soul instead then shaking myself and focusing on all the shiny smile fun wild presence/present trickster moment to compensate the lack and then rollercoaster again and again like a trap)
Validation v. vacation. Alchemy v. agency. Rot v. pot. Ambition v. volition. Intention v. integrity. Hostility v. Hospitality. Emoticons v. Energy Vampires
YUNG QUEERS, beware: never confuse “Collective” with communism or even equality. Until artists rise up and stop working for likes and validation and exposure, cutting their teeth on the flesh-eating, fetish-y algorithms of white capitalist patriarchy, until we take back art and assert our value as CULTURE MAKERS, LEADERS, ALCHEMISTS, HEALERS, TRANSFORMERS… GUARDIANS OF MICROCOSMIC INTEGRITY! ! ! We only run the hamster-ass wheel fueling the system we reject. Not being about the money is about the money. The only thing holding you back is what you think you’re not. Yung feminists! While you’re shredding your soul up in a thousand selfies and squealing about that dick pic that just slid up in your DMs, remember that the dick pic is the least of your worries! Facebook owns you’re oeuvre and worse yet, your attention span. When it comes to social media, you’re just the custie.
As for Go! Push Pops we’re leaving art and will no longer perform for “free” and will leave it to you YUNG QUEERS to do better and be better. Yung feminists Drop bombs! The world is watching. Show us your tits, real or not. Sacrifice something. Give the gift you don’t actually want to give, just L e t i t g o.
© The Push Pop Collective, 2017
