Season 7: Episode 1, New Series, "Travels with the Dark", Featuring Alexandra Carter, "The Substance", "The Last Showgirl"

#thesubstance #thelastshowgirl #truecrimecommunity #newseries Treat Mitch to a Coffee buymeacoffee.com/aesthetepodcastFor this inaugural edition of our new series “Travels With The Dark” we are blessed to have a return guest, painter Alexandra Carter. We will do a joyous deepest dive into the movie s“The Last Showgirl” and "The Substance" more on this episode. More on this special , new series we are offering, here:The nature of art and culture reception and evaluation can be as volatile and powerful as the IPO or the stock market. Here at “Journey of An Aesthete Podcast” we are more interested in appreciation and understanding than anything else.It is always the most joyous occasion when I have the fortune to discuss movies - or anything else - with our guest painter Alexandra Carter. We were both so impressed and enriched by two releases from last year, Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, that we devoted two hours in this episode to discussing them. As is inevitably the case we covered many topics, including personal travels and the Burlesque community in Las Vegas, as well as political and social matters. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did.Alexandra’s notes on this episode:These two films explore aging, identity, and societal expectations of women in strikingly different but complementary ways. The Last Showgirl spoke to me personally, having spent time in Las Vegas—especially within the burlesque and showgirl community during an artist residency. Its characters and setting felt deeply authentic, with Las Vegas itself becoming a living, breathing presence. Both films touch on themes of loss, delusion, and the erasure of women as they age. While The Substance delivers a visceral, maximalist critique through body horror, The Last Showgirl offers a more intimate, melancholic take on similar ideas.Alexandra’s Bio Alexandra Carter (b. 1985, Boston, MA) is a San Diego–based artist whose paintings explore themes of fertility, maternity, and transformation, often drawing on her upbringing on a cranberry farm in Massachusetts. She holds an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (2015), and a BA from Rhodes College (2009). Her recent solo exhibitions include the Middle Room and Luna Anaïs Gallery (both Los Angeles), Rogers Gallery (Las Vegas), the University of Minnesota (St. Paul), and Oolong Gallery (San Diego), with additional solo shows at Fusion Gallery (Turin, Italy), Southfork (Memphis), Proyecto’ace Foundation (Buenos Aires), and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Carter has participated in numerous residencies, including the Kone Foundation’s Saari Residence (Finland), KulturKontakt Austria (Vienna), Rogers Art Loft (Las Vegas), Qwatz (Rome), Vice~Versa Foundation (Goa, India), the Kentucky Foundation for Women (Prospect, KY), and Graniti Murales (Sicily).Alexandra’s Socialswww.alexandra-carter.com@alexandracarterstudio#giacoppola #demimoore #pamelaanderson #feminism #biology #reproduction #sexuality #wellness #health #bodyhorror #gothic #horror #fitness #aerobics #exercise #nature #culture #media #internet #socialmedia #internet #politics #jamieleecurtis #playboy #cinema #theatre #panting #portraitpainting #mother #children #maternity Series title: Travels With the Dark: Stories from humans in the “Limit- Experience”This “special” episode is the first in what promises to be a series concerning real occurrences of human beings when they are brought into or more aptly, up against “limit-experience”, a phrase from French and German philosophers that attempts to describe in the most general way what human beings undergo when they are thrust into situations that push them to their limits and conditions of maximum intensity. While originally this was intended to be a series in the “True Crime” genre I wondered to myself if subject and theme could extended outward.It might not even only encompass the most negative aspect of human experience.