By JRS
The Delusional Downtown Divas: Lena Dunham, Joana D’Avillez, and Isabel Halley
Getting all the Delusional Downtown Divas together in one room is a lot like herding cats. Nothing against the Divas, certainly, and nothing against cats, for that matter, but when it comes to the schedules of New York’s three most in-demand young performance artists, saying they’re spread thin is a bit of an understatement.
The trio of early-twentysomething gals first got on SPREAD ArtCulture’s radar in October at Rob Pruitt’s Art Awards at the Guggenheim. Acting at the event’s masters of ceremonies, they presented skits that poked fun at the very world they grew up in and have come to embody: New York’s highbrow art community. The downtown scenesters all have roots in the downtown art community, coming from parents who are painters, writers, and photographers. It’s only natural that they’d try to carve out their own niche into a world that’s shown them so much affection. Lucky for us, that happens to be creating a hilarious parody of the world that looks so very ridiculous as an outsider looking in.
Delusional Downtown Divas chronicles the adventures of Oona, Swann, and AgNess, three young women “hungry for art-world stardom but comically unaware of how to reach their goal of stylish domination. The DDD’s are downtown natives, living in AgNess’ father’s Tribeca loft. They spend their days changing outfits every few minutes and plotting about out how to worm their way back into the art world they were raised in—but now they’re adult women with professional aspirations, not just kids stealing pretzels from Leo Castelli’s gallery kitchen.” Spearheaded by the effervescent and imaginative Lena Dunham, is a wildly popular web series that embodies the personas the girls have created for our amusement. They ask performance artist Joan Jonas how she knows when she performing from when she’s just walking down the street. They pose Isaac Mizrahi with the “meaning of life” conundrum, which he answers,”Don’t panic…or panic. That’s the meaning of life. Maybe if you talk to me, that’s the meaning of life.”
The new season gives us Jerry Saltz commenting on the mozzarella sandwich he’s eating. This shows us the simplistic and effective genius of these three budding writers and performers: they break down the influential and cerebral minds and end up having them play along for us, whether they’re aware of their inner brilliance or not. Armed with a sense of renegade resourcefulness and the refusal to take no for an answer, the Divas are able to mold conversations to fill any void. They’re definitely on our list to watch out for in 2010.
