Welcome to a marginally indexed smorgasbord of my work as a critic and essayist. If you seek guidance among the fraught and frothy waters of a creative or editorial project, I am here for you.
Aesthetical Relations is a constellation of essays on art, fashion, cancer, comedy, Los Angeles, and your mom. Martinez whips elements of fiction and stand up material into bits and pieces addressing such concerns as: how many times you may kiss an art-world acquaintance, the theoretical stakes of sexting, and why German performance art is like French clowning. Aesthetical Relations is titled after Martinez’s ongoing conceptual comedy talk show of the same name.
This new revised and expanded third edition includes new essays written from 2020-2025.
*Signed edition; please leave instructions for inscription (desired spelling of your name, ‘this is for my nephew Bernice, general signature, etc.) or it will be signed with something impersonal that I thought of that day, possibly a recipe for soup
*Price includes shipping and handling anywhere in the US, and chef’s choice of bumper sticker while stock lasts
Thoughtful, rigorous essays from an original comedy voice that’s well worth hearing. —Kirkus ReviewsConceived in 2016 as a talk show, Aesthetical Relations has taken the form of several kinds of performance, as well as a book of essays. As a writer, actor, art critic, and comedian, Martinez proves poised to keenly conflate the sunken depths of comedy with the spacey depths of theory. The fusion of the academic and the absurd, the theoretical and the theatrical, the humorous and the hermeneutical[…]This is where critical gesture meets comical jest. —X-Tra Journal
Martinez is so funny, so witty, so clever and quick on her feet that often she outpaces her audience, leaves her reader gasping for air… A polymath of unquantifiable largesse, breaking brains one cultural consumer at a time. —BOMBA bewitching hybrid of standup, clown and performance artist, who also happens to be a talented essayist. —PBS
Martinez muddies the boundaries between documentary and fiction, trash and art, reality and fantasy. —INTERVIEWShe doesn’t exactly straddle the comedy and fine-art worlds so much as stir them both together. As a writer, whether for Artforum or in her collection of essays, Aesthetical Relations, Martinez mixes in elements of her stand-up. —Vulture
She’s like Naomi Klein meets Tallulah Bankhead. —Michelle TeaAesthetical Relations is a constellation of essays on art, fashion, cancer, comedy, Los Angeles, and your mom. Martinez whips elements of fiction and stand up material into bits and pieces addressing such concerns as: how many times you may kiss an art-world acquaintance, the theoretical stakes of sexting, and why German performance art is like French clowning. Aesthetical Relations is titled after Martinez’s ongoing conceptual comedy talk show of the same name, and includes an introduction by writer and comedian Jamie Loftus. This new revised and expanded third edition includes previously unpublished essays written from 2020-2025.
published by Hesse Press
Available here and from Asterism books
ISBN 9781948434126
Soft cover, perfect bound
116 pages, 5.375 × 8.25-inch
The third anthology from DOPAMINE Books that considers the many-sided splendor of the clown.
In this anthology of poetry, fiction, screenplay, and more, writers explore and explode the archetype of the CLOWN in all of its humiliating, earnest, magical, subversive glory. From fiction that reveals the humanity beneath the smeared greasepaint to psychedelic autofiction to poetry that exposes normal folk for the sickening anomalies they are, CLOWNS will get under your skin until it liberates your own inner clown, be it a smart-ass or trickster, sad sack or buffoon.
With work from Megan Milks, Tania De Rozario, Nicole J. Georges, Clement Goldberg, Catherine Christina Martinez, Julián Delgado Lopera, Justin Chin, Andrea Lawlor, MariNaomi, Sophie Robinson, Chris E. Vargas, and other holy fools.
Available from MIT press
recent favorites
My Insanity Shelf - dirt.fyi • No Pictures: The Hidden World of the Magic Castle - Frieze no. 240 • A Woman Apart: Agnes Varda - Bookforum Winter 2024 • The Shape of a Joke - Beyond Noise no. 1
Cultural Essays & Reportage
An aesthetic critique of Rick Caruso’s architectural holdings for LA Times IMAGE • An essay on the thrills and perils of raw-dogging reality for DOCUMENT Journal • A meditation on Eve Babitz’s relationship to art, commissioned by the Los Angeles Times • A print feature for Artforum on privacy, image collecting, and hotness versus beauty, on occasion of the exhibition “Sisi in Private” at Musuem Ludwig in Cologne • A love letter about my car, addressed to the man who bought her for me, for LA Times IMAGE
An essay on Hollywood architecture and the current WGA strike for LA Times IMAGE • My quarantine diary for Texte Zur Kunst • A guide to the Siegfried & Roy estate sale at Bonham’s • A deep dive on post-pandemic partying at Shirley Temple’s childhood manse
Reviews
Eliza Douglas’s “Josh Smith” at Overduin & Co. — e-flux, 2019
Eyes Without a Voice — CARLA issue 15 cover feature, 2019
Sterling Ruby’s DAMNATION at Sprüth Magers — Artforum Spring 2019
Laurie Simmons's Feature Debut — MOMUS, 2018
Wanda Koop, In Absentia — Border Crossings Magazine, 2018
Critic's Pick: An Te Liu at Anat Ebgi — ArtForum, 2017
Interviews & Profiles
Torbjørn Rødland — CNN Style, 2017
That time I interviewed artist Tita Cicognani in her combination hot-tub-art-installation
