Hot or Not? Summer 2025

Chloe Pingeon breaks it all down

This appeared in the zine vol. iii. Order a copy here.

not: wall text: At first, artworks should speak for themselves. I am not against interpretation, but first, consider interpretation as in: your own. It is good for an artist to know, slightly uneasily, that there is a chance the audience understands the piece all wrong. It is good for an audience member to see something they love, only to later learn that everyone they admire responded differently. Reframe your opinions with context, but this context must come second. Otherwise, we do away with opinions all together. And the solution is so easy. A printed press release or checklist or show notes in the entry or the exit of a galley or a museum. Chic discretion. We don’t need to put the whole back story on eye level, elevated block letter font, thick descriptors, or color in competition with the work itself. It’s bizarre that curators ever did this, in the first place. Preserve “read the writing on the wall,” as metaphor. Preserve faith in the intelligence of your audience, yes, this part has been said before, but also, more significantly, preserve the stand alone integrity of the visual artwork.

not: brand activations disguised as art or preformance: The real life element of a party is destroyed when it’s sponsored by a dating app. You could tailor your performance to be topical towards something like “finding love on Feeld” or, you could do literally anything else. On that note, free neatly packaged piles of occasionally enticing but ultimately useless sponsored products doesn’t actually really appeal to the crowd, and it makes even the nicest events immediately guache. It’s not worth the meager bar tab the brand provides to host one of these, and it’s not worth going out of your way to attend.

not: scene reports: the nature of things are, people will see themselves reflected in some element of anything good you write regardless of your intention. Exacerbate this tenfold when half the people who read your autofiction were at that same Dump Party you’re talking about. Exacerbate this again when the dumb autofiction isn’t even that good. Real life as inspiration, not literal recollection. It’s starting to become like a photo. I’m Vlogging your Vlog. This doesn’t work in art and life. Try something else, instead.

not: a pop of red: Too obvious. A pop of blue or a pop of green is fine. A pop of yellow is good. Monochromatic outfits are also cool again.

hot: seeing red: Irony is out, and public meltdowns are in.

hot: Real Life: You don’t recall The Internet in nostalgia or in your dreams. There’s a strong and valuably pervasive desire for reality as entirely disconnected from the mirror screens and fog through which it is often filtered.

hot: getting married: If you are high on endless optimism, then I recommend: falling in love. If you are riddled with Doomerism, AI Apocalypse, world on warp speed, I went to the Private Paper Invitation Only Party and it was sponsored by Hinge, then I recommend finding a soulmate, stat. Once you find your soulmate, why not tie the knot? If you don’t know within the year, then it was never really real.

hot: swimming: The best form of exercise, and also a metaphorical form of ideology, clarity, poetry. The river, the ocean, the Russian Spa. Water should usually be temperate. There is a time for seeking the extremes, but it usually isn’t here.

hot: expressive function: precision and clarity undistracted and uninterrupted by the signaling towards something else. Also, language for expression is separate from language for utility. Dawn Powell comes to mind, similarly to a particularly entertaining friend.

hot: physical invitations to private parties: Mystique, extensive planning, an RSVP that means something.

hot: found objects: like a sweater from a church yard sale or a book that is given as a gift from a stranger. Make the case for the things that arrive via serendipity.