Wayne Koestenbaum
@waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social
writer / artist
Tonight, Friday, Oct. 10, in Brooklyn, from 6-9pm, I debut 22 new cyanotype assemblages in a solo show at “B” Dry Goods, 679 Franklin Ave. Shown here: Marlene Dietrich’s Seconals.
October 10, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Tonight, Friday, Oct. 10, in Brooklyn, from 6-9pm, I debut 22 new cyanotype assemblages in a solo show at “B” Dry Goods, 679 Franklin Ave. Shown here: Marlene Dietrich’s Seconals.
“… a dream of escape, a dream of intervention, a dream of invisibility …” @wakefieldpress.bsky.social
March 2, 2025 at 2:01 AM
“… a dream of escape, a dream of intervention, a dream of invisibility …” @wakefieldpress.bsky.social
My new novel, “My Lover, the Rabbi,” will be published by FSG in 2026. (And I’m signed up there for an essay collection, too.) Thank you to editor Jackson Howard and agent PJ Mark. @fsgbooks.bsky.social
February 22, 2025 at 7:40 PM
My new novel, “My Lover, the Rabbi,” will be published by FSG in 2026. (And I’m signed up there for an essay collection, too.) Thank you to editor Jackson Howard and agent PJ Mark. @fsgbooks.bsky.social
Saw Justin Vivian Bond tonight and so I feel immeasurably awake and naughty and truth-telling and mercurial and alive.
February 8, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Saw Justin Vivian Bond tonight and so I feel immeasurably awake and naughty and truth-telling and mercurial and alive.
I’m sending clear
warning signals to you
(new hieroglyphic painting
on paper, 18x24”)
warning signals to you
(new hieroglyphic painting
on paper, 18x24”)
January 31, 2025 at 11:38 PM
I’m sending clear
warning signals to you
(new hieroglyphic painting
on paper, 18x24”)
warning signals to you
(new hieroglyphic painting
on paper, 18x24”)
In 1984, reading Ashbery’s book “A Wave,” I figured out how to read him and how to love him. Here are the naive but heartfelt notes (I was 26) I wrote on the book’s endpaper, while waiting for a train.
January 30, 2025 at 3:03 AM
In 1984, reading Ashbery’s book “A Wave,” I figured out how to read him and how to love him. Here are the naive but heartfelt notes (I was 26) I wrote on the book’s endpaper, while waiting for a train.
new figurative painting, finished last week—of my friend Will, posing for me in my studio—
acrylic, Flashe, casein, and watercolor pencil on unstretched canvas—
approx. 45x31 inches
acrylic, Flashe, casein, and watercolor pencil on unstretched canvas—
approx. 45x31 inches
January 25, 2025 at 4:55 PM
new figurative painting, finished last week—of my friend Will, posing for me in my studio—
acrylic, Flashe, casein, and watercolor pencil on unstretched canvas—
approx. 45x31 inches
acrylic, Flashe, casein, and watercolor pencil on unstretched canvas—
approx. 45x31 inches
winter weekend reading
January 25, 2025 at 3:41 AM
winter weekend reading
I thought this news item might interest you (source: “The Hill”):
January 25, 2025 at 1:14 AM
I thought this news item might interest you (source: “The Hill”):
banana peel en route to compost—inverted banana peel, you are a Futurist involuted cylinder—or a Rauschenberg tire-track print—and you are an antidote to gloom
January 23, 2025 at 2:30 AM
banana peel en route to compost—inverted banana peel, you are a Futurist involuted cylinder—or a Rauschenberg tire-track print—and you are an antidote to gloom
I took this photo in the sculpture garden of the New Orleans Museum of Art—but the font and the date and the stone carving’s severity speak to me on this brutally inaugural day—
January 21, 2025 at 2:08 AM
I took this photo in the sculpture garden of the New Orleans Museum of Art—but the font and the date and the stone carving’s severity speak to me on this brutally inaugural day—
yesterday afternoon I finished this painting—I might call it “Event on the Horizon”—the materials are acrylic and casein and watercolor pencil on 18 x 24 canvas paper
January 19, 2025 at 12:45 AM
yesterday afternoon I finished this painting—I might call it “Event on the Horizon”—the materials are acrylic and casein and watercolor pencil on 18 x 24 canvas paper
I’m reading Joyce Carol Oates’s short fiction to savor her ability to balance psychological vertigo with a virtuoso technique so seamless it’s almost Mozartean—her prowess as verbal artificer becomes a living presence hovering above the depicted scenes of terror, duress, thralldom, yearning—
January 16, 2025 at 3:14 AM
I’m reading Joyce Carol Oates’s short fiction to savor her ability to balance psychological vertigo with a virtuoso technique so seamless it’s almost Mozartean—her prowess as verbal artificer becomes a living presence hovering above the depicted scenes of terror, duress, thralldom, yearning—
Ravi in his sunlit apartment—
(analog 35mm photo I took last Thursday)
(analog 35mm photo I took last Thursday)
January 15, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Ravi in his sunlit apartment—
(analog 35mm photo I took last Thursday)
(analog 35mm photo I took last Thursday)
hands—
my 35mm (analog) portrait of my new friend Ravi
my 35mm (analog) portrait of my new friend Ravi
January 15, 2025 at 8:45 PM
hands—
my 35mm (analog) portrait of my new friend Ravi
my 35mm (analog) portrait of my new friend Ravi
boyfriend signaling yes in sculpture garden
December 26, 2024 at 4:37 PM
boyfriend signaling yes in sculpture garden
tonight, light
December 26, 2024 at 12:58 AM
tonight, light
mediated friendship
December 21, 2024 at 6:42 PM
mediated friendship
What is the name of this flower?
December 19, 2024 at 3:18 PM
What is the name of this flower?
concise verdict
December 17, 2024 at 9:07 PM
concise verdict
harrowing commonsensical brutal lucid unpedantic stories I’m reading on this cold night near (we are always near) quotidian apocalypse
December 15, 2024 at 4:25 AM
harrowing commonsensical brutal lucid unpedantic stories I’m reading on this cold night near (we are always near) quotidian apocalypse
Finished tonight this brilliant book of stories--each composed with empathy and poetic compression, each sentence a timed, urgent pulsation: the stories remind us that circumstances will rarely give us what we desire: locked in our bodies, we lack the magical ability to catapult into another's mind
December 6, 2024 at 3:26 AM
Finished tonight this brilliant book of stories--each composed with empathy and poetic compression, each sentence a timed, urgent pulsation: the stories remind us that circumstances will rarely give us what we desire: locked in our bodies, we lack the magical ability to catapult into another's mind
the importance of red telephones in Italian giallo movies—of cars, of velvet curtains, of villas—this image is from Mario Bava’s 1964 “Blood and Black Lace” @criterion.bsky.social
November 29, 2024 at 4:13 AM
the importance of red telephones in Italian giallo movies—of cars, of velvet curtains, of villas—this image is from Mario Bava’s 1964 “Blood and Black Lace” @criterion.bsky.social
Here’s a linocut collage I made today. Zoom in and read the (found) text in the blue rectangle: “The incredible story of two people who believe they were ‘kidnapped’ by humanoids in a spacecraft.”
November 24, 2024 at 10:20 PM
Here’s a linocut collage I made today. Zoom in and read the (found) text in the blue rectangle: “The incredible story of two people who believe they were ‘kidnapped’ by humanoids in a spacecraft.”
In an art movie (top secret project!), I’m playing a priest;
tomorrow my scenes will be filmed in a public park. Here is my hieratic costume:
tomorrow my scenes will be filmed in a public park. Here is my hieratic costume:
November 22, 2024 at 6:48 PM
In an art movie (top secret project!), I’m playing a priest;
tomorrow my scenes will be filmed in a public park. Here is my hieratic costume:
tomorrow my scenes will be filmed in a public park. Here is my hieratic costume: