Matt Starr (visual artist)

Matt Starr
Known for	Poetry and art
Notable work	"MOUTHFUL" (2024) My Annie Hall (2018)
Website	www.matt-starr.com

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

Early life

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

Art career

In 2015 Starr created 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 filmed 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 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]

In 2022, Starr co-founded the independent New York City based book press Dream Baby Press which is known for throwing literary events in unexpected and iconic NYC locations such as the Penn Station Sbarro [13]

References

1. "Matt Starr, Studio Art B.F.A. Alumnus one of fifty artists to create cover art for New York Magazine". Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. Indiana University Bloomington. November 21, 2018. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
2. Glenza, Jessica (January 26, 2015). "Forget normcore. Meet babycore, the clothing trend's juvenile counterpart". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 7, 2024. Retrieved January 17, 2021.
3. Lane, Sam (February 3, 2015). "Babycore is the New Normcore". www.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
4. "Photos: Art on the Amazon Company". March 5, 2020. Archived from the original on November 19, 2020. Retrieved August 10, 2020. Matt Starr: Amazon Boy, July 15, 2016, performance.
5. Carrigan, Margaret (November 6, 2017). "Artistic Collaborators Remake 'Annie Hall' With a Cast of Retirees". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
6. Marotta, Jenna (March 2, 2018). "'My Annie Hall,' A Charming Short Film Starring Senior Citizens, Has Woody Allen's Blessing". Archived from the original on May 2, 2021. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
7. Leland, John (March 2, 2018). "The Woody Allen Reboot You Won't See at the Oscars (or Maybe Anywhere)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 30, 2020. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
8. "An "Annie Hall" for the ages: Seniors star in a remake of Woody Allen's classic". www.cbsnews.com. December 2, 2018. Archived from the original on October 27, 2020. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
9. Sales, Ben (March 4, 2018). "An 'Annie Hall' remake, starring two senior citizens". Times of Israel. Archived from the original on December 21, 2019. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
10. Brendlen, Kirstyn (November 17, 2019). "Harry Miller follows Emmy's guiding light to Riverdale". The Riverdale Press. Archived from the original on September 7, 2024. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
11. Aylmer, Olivia (April 3, 2018). "Inside the "Museum of Banned Objects," an Art World Answer to The Handmaid's Tale". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on August 8, 2020. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
12. Bobb, Brooke (May 12, 2020). "This Millennial-Founded Movie Club Is for Senior Cinephiles Living in Isolation". Vogue. Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
13. Kodé, Anna (December 22, 2022). "Reading Erotica Anywhere and Everywhere". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 22, 2022. Retrieved September 7, 2024.