| Matt Starr | |
| Known For: | Experimental art and film |
| Notable Works: | My Annie Hall (2018) |
| Website: | matt-starr.com |
Matt Starr is an American visual artist, poet, conceptual comedian, and experimental filmmaker known for his provocative viral works.
Starr obtained his BFA in studio art and a minor in Swahili from the University of Indiana.[1]
In 2015 Starr created and marketed a line of clothing called "Babycore" inspired by outfits he wore during his early childhood.[2] This trend quickly went viral and inspired Jeremy Scott's Fall/Winter 2015 ready to wear collection and Miley Cyrus's BB Talk (2015) music video.[3]
In 2016 Starr enacted and documented the performance piece "Amazon Boy," which was included in the piece of "Art on Amazon" in the March 2020 issue of Art in America.[4]
In 2017 to celebrate the fortieth birthday of the film classic Starr along with theater director and his artistic partner Ellie Sachs did a truncated remake of Woody Allen's "Annie Hall' with a cast of octogenarians from the Lennox Hill Neighborhood House.[5] The idea for the project arose from Starr's relationship with his grandmother in whom he noticed a measurable cognitive decline due to alzheimer's. Allen himself approved of the project and even suggested other films to be remade.[6] The effort was funded with a Kickstarter campaign.[7] In Starr and Sachs' version of the film Alvy Singer is played by the then 94 year old Harry Miller a designer for TV and stage who won two Emmy's during his career for his work on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light.[8] [9] [10]
In April of 2018 Starr and Ellie Sachs created the instillation "The Museum of Banned Objects", in the gallery at Manhattan's Ace Hotel, sponsored by Planned Parenthood, in a commentary on access to birth control.[11]
In 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Starr and Sachs founded the Long Distance Movie Club, "a virtual movie-watching group that meets every two weeks in an effort to not only engage seniors in a sense of community but also to help them find some escapism in the midst of self-isolation."[12]