Graduate Studies Division
PhD Student
Graduate
Communications Building
Film and Digital Media
Bradford Nordeen is a writer, curator, and the founder of Dirty Looks Inc. He has written for Artforum, Frieze, Art in America, Afterimage, and Butt Magazine and was a 2018 recipient of the Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. His publications include Because Horror (with Johnny Ray Huston), Check Your Vernacular, the Dirty Looks Volume series (editor), and the forthcoming novel Blessed Western. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Film and Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz, though he lives in Los Angeles.
Research interests: Offline cultures, community organizing, experimental cinema, film festival studies, printed matter, HIV/AIDS, porn studies, utopia, fan cultures , performance studies, contemporary art criticism, avant-garde queer musicology and experimental literature.
Publications
2020
Because Horror (with Johnny Ray Huston), DL Press + Semiotext(e)
2016
THINGS: a queer lineage of graphic art and play [exhibition catalogue], ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archive
2014
Check Your Vernacular, DL Press
2011
#Empire (with Adam Baran), Franklin Street Works Press
Masquerades and Hysteria: The Art and Ephemera of Marco Vassi and the Daughters of Houdini, [exhibition catalogue], [2nd Floor Projects]
2008
Fever Pitch, Free 4 Fags Press
Articles / Chapters
2024
'New Utopia and Light Fractures by Luther Price,' Millennium Film Journal
'Hal Fischer at Et al. Etc,' Artforum
'Green is the Brattest Color,' Artforum
'Whiz Bam! The Video Gays that Made Me,' Queer Majority issue XII (guest edited by Bruce LaBruce)
'Slava Mogutin's Sexy Underground Hooliganism,' Queer Majority issue XII
'Playback Queens with Broken Dreams' + 'Johnny Guitar,' Little Joe: A Book About Queers and Cinema, Mostly
'Going Green,' SLUTS, Dopamine Press / Semiotext(e) (US); Cipher Press (UK)
'The Militant Mother: Media, Memory, Healing,' Praksis (guest edited by Merve Ünsal)
'Living Proof,' X-TRA Online
'LA Fairs Itself,' Artforum
'Bro Vapid,' Artforum
2023
'I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy,' Broadcast, Pioneer Works
2022
'Oral Histories of Queer Resistance,' Cavernous, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
'Rip It Up and Start Again,' Broadcast, Pioneer Works
2021
'Hands On: The Memory and Legacy of Fred Halsted [Blu-ray liner notes],' The Fred Halsted Collection, Altered Innocence
'Cinema's Missing Bodies (interview with Alanna Thain + Dayna McLeod),' Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media
'Four Years in The Back Row,' Mubi
2020
'Witch Baby,' Spectral Transmissions (curated by Donal Mosher + Mike Palmieri), NW Film Center
'Meat Movie,' Screen Slate
'Poster Child,' Lambda Literary
'Love Letters in Blood: On Queer Communion: Ron Athey,’ Los Angeles Review of Books
'Luther Price: From Here to Eternity,’ Frieze
2019
'Love at First Sight: The Brilliant Generosity of Kevin Killian,’ Lambda Literary
'Blood in the Lung: Ron Athey, Cassils and Fanaa Conjure a Ritual Body at the Arizona Desert’s Biosphere 2,’ Frieze
2017
‘Naked Soap Operas: Brontez Purnell,’ Art in America
2015
‘Michael Robinson,’ Little Joe no. 5
‘And I’ve Done it Again: A Look at Grace Jones New Book,’ Lambda Literary
‘Tom of Finland,’ Art in America
‘“Schooled,”’ Animal Shelter
‘A Look at Cult Art World Stars Cookie Mueller and George Kuchar,’ Lambda Literary
‘Beverly Hills John,’ Art in America
2014
‘Paris Is Burning by Lucas Hilderbrand,’ Lambda Literary
‘Bruce Benderson: Against Marriage,’ Lambda Literary
‘Private Dancers: Social Media Platforms and Contemporary Drag Performance,’ Afterimage
2013
‘Werner Schroeter’s Passion Plays,’ [Liner notes] in Der Bomberpilot & Nel Regno di Napoli [DVD] Munich, DE, Edition Filmmuseum 99
‘Sex Tools: New Queer Narratives as Community Action Cinema,’ Afterimage
‘Playback Queens with Broken Dreams,’ Little Joe no. 4
2012
‘Chris Kraus: Summer of Hate (interview),’ Lambda Literary
‘Grace Jones / A One Man Show,’ Little Joe Reader
‘Kevin Killian: The Contingency Approach (interview),’ Lambda Literary
‘The Cinema of Whitney Houston,’ with Kevin Killian, FANZINE
‘RuPual’s Drag Race: Racially Insensitive?’ Huffington Post
2011
‘Top 10 Moving-Image events of 2011,’ FANZINE
‘Forever Flaming: Jack Smith at MOMA,’ The L Magazine
‘Dennis Cooper: Florid Mysteries (interview),’ Lambda Literary
‘Halsted Playing Halsted,’ Art in America
‘Views from the Avant-Garde,’ The L Magazine
‘George Kuchar (1942-2011),’ indieWIRE
‘!Women Art Revolution! - Lynn Hershman Leeson,’ FANZINE
‘The Hollywood Stars of Avant-Garde Cinema,’ The L Magazine
‘Achingly Memorable: Magdalena Montezuma,’ Slant Magazine
‘Johnny Guitar,’ Little Joe no. 2
‘William E. Jones on Finished (Interview),’ Slant Magazine
2010
‘Paul Thek At The Whitney,’ Butt Magazine
‘The Lost films of Charles Ludlam,’ X-TRA
2008
‘Grace Jones does ‘La Vie En Rose,’ Kunsole Songbook and Other Stories, San Francisco Arts Commission
2006
Eaten Out: Queer Cinematic Trends Towards Self Obliteration, Zine
Editorial
2019
Dirty Looks Volume 4, DL Press
2018
Dirty Looks Volume 3, DL Press
2017
Dirty Looks Volume 2, DL Press
2016
Dirty Looks Volume 1, Co-edited with Clara López Menéndez, DL Press
2013
Dirty Looks at MoMA: Mining the Collection, a reader, (Co-edited with David Everitt Howe + Karl McCool), DL Press