The Shithole Opry Collector's Guide
A jewelry collection designed for punk vampires in attendance at the Grand Ole Opry: McCormack's first foray into art and object-making is characteristically both absurd and obscene
Derek McCormack's devilish blend of art and fiction imagines a world in which Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren are vampires, designing punk-influenced jewelry for other vampires visiting the Grand Ole Opry, the mother church of country music. From safety pin fangs to punk Minnie Pearl pearl necklaces, The Shithole Opry Collector's Guide showcases all manner of star-studded shit from McCormack's "Hillbilly Heaven Collection," which he has been documenting on his instagram page @thegrandholeopry since early 2024. The project is a riff on Westwood and McLaren's work of the 1970s, which reimagined American rockabilly and rocker gear; it's also a perversion of the clean-cut Christian facade of country music. Most of all, it's a parody of the way fashion designers pirate the past for inspiration, as it poses the question: What if the past stole from fashion the way fashion steals from the past? The Shithole Opry Collector's Guide combines McCormack's novel art-objects with his most original writing to date: the result is spectacular and sinister, sidesplitting and spine-chilling.
Canadian artist and writer Derek McCormack (born 1969) is a cult figure born in Peterborough, Ontario, and currently based in Toronto. His work is characterized by its extreme brevity, absurdity and dark, often obscene humor. His 2004 novel The Haunted Hillbilly (Soft Skull) was named a "Best Book of the Year" by both The Village Voice and The Globe and Mail, and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. His recent novels include The Well-Dressed Wound (2015) and Castle Faggot (2020), both published by Semiotext(e), and Judy Blame's Obituary: Writings on Fashion and Death (2021), published by Pilot Press.
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