Kathy was and will always be a sexy, scary, seminal figureperhaps more myth than author. Something about ackers work still communicates deeply, even to those who arent aware of her intelligence, humour and compositional approach. A few years ago, the writer chris kraus, author of i. Chris krauss after kathy acker sets the bar for what will surely be a new era of critical and biographical reckoning with the life and work of kathy acker. Kraus had a ringside seat, has done her homework, and here provides a substantive effort to pay homage not only to the complex, singular, raucous, and crucial writer and human that acker. Chris kraus is the author of four novels, including i love dick and summer of hate. Her achievements were singular, but they were not hers alone. This text was drawn from after kathy acker, which is out from semiotexte on august 18th. Kathy acker is inarguably one of the most important writers of the 20th century to whom, as kraus points out in the final pages of this book, the current wave of discursive firstperson writing autofiction, nelson, etc. You can read an interview with chris kraus, talking about her biography, here. Chris kraus on postpunk literary icon kathy acker another. A literary biography semiotexte active agents kraus, chris on. I have to make all my living as interesting to myself as my writing, acker told jonathan miles early in 1983. After kathy acker part hagiography, part literary criticism lives up to its hype as a roaring motorcycle tearing through acker s life, both real.
Authors chris kraus chris kraus is the author of four novels, including i love dick and summer of hate. At once forensic and intimate, after kathy acker traces the extreme discipline and literary strategies acker used to develop her work, and the contradictions she longed to embody. But on january 23, 1998, which was a friday, friends of the late writer kathy acker drove from san francisco to fort funston park, about twentyfive minutes away, to scatter her ashes. Probing the surface of artcritical buzzwords, chris kraus brilliantly chronicles how the city of angels has suddenly become the epicenter of the international art world and a microcosm of the larger culture. They discuss new york in the 1970s, the sexual content of acker s work and the authors complex generosity. After kathy acker part hagiography, part literary criticism lives up to its hype as a roaring motorcycle tearing through ackers life.
As chris kraus describes it in her new biography of acker, blue tape enacts a highly charged psychosexual drama. Rich girl, street punk, scholar, stripper, victim, mediawhore. Chris kraus on kathy acker, with thad ziolkowski, march 15. How do you go about writing a biography of an inveterate selfmythologiser, who made. Kathy ackers influence over an entire generation of disaffected young women has yet to be fully explored, but with chris krauss new biography, ackers importance as. Copies of after kathy acker and other titles by chris kraus will be for sale at the event through the or gallery bookstore. Chris kraus on kathy acker sfu woodwards simon fraser. The author of i love dick on one crazy coincidence.
Chris kraus is the author of four novels and two books of art and cultural criticism. I love dick author chris kraus talks about new book she. Chris kraus discusses her new biography, after kathy acker, which looks at the life and work of the artist twenty years after her death. Guide to the chris kraus collection of kathy acker papers. An excerpt from chris krauss forthcoming literary biography of the late writer kathy acker, who died of cancer in 1997. A literary biography semiotexteactive agents, 2017, page 31, by chris kraus, author of the increasingly celebrated 1997 novel i love dick. During the six years she stayed in london, acker would become. Acker had a privateschool childhood on the upper east side and studied classics at brandeis and uc san diego. Chris kraus amassed a cult following beginning in the late 90s and early aughts for her rigorous, tender, restless novels, which she adaptedin playfully explicit waysfrom the stories of her own life. After kathy acker by chris kraus the mit press published august 18, 2017. Chris kraus on her biography after kathy acker, with thad ziolkowski, march 15, 2018, the segal theatre, the graduate center, cuny.
Chris kraus published her culthit debut novel i love dick the same month that legendary experimental writer kathy acker died of cancer, in 1997, at an alternative clinic in tijuana, mexico. Read the fashion of kathy acker, an extract from the biography, here. The chris kraus collection of kathy acker papers is comprised of materials kraus created or amassed in the process of writing her biography of kathy acker, after kathy acker. When hope to reschedule chris krauss trip to vancouver in the coming months. Kraus will be joined in conversation with poets and scholars anne boyer. Its a chaotic and tragic scene that writer chris kraus delicately renders to embark on a breathless ride of a biography, after kathy acker. They discuss new york in the 1970s, the sexual content of ackers work and the authors complex generosity. Chris kraus on the art, sex and myths of kathy acker dazed. Twenty years after her untimely death at age 50, ackers influential cultural presence is still felt through the confessional yet disorienting collage of her writing, and the accumulated myths around her life that she. She was a 2016 guggenheim fellow and teaches writing at european graduate school. Chris kraus on kathy acker institute of contemporary arts. Chris kraus on kathy acker, moderated by thad ziolkowski. The legacy of kathy acker, postmodern polymath chicago. A literary biography semiotexteactive agents, 2017, page 31, by chris kraus, author of the increasingly.
Kraus has pivoted away, delivering what may or may not be a biography of kathy acker the underground punk novelist who is still, even 20. An extract from chris kraus s new biography, after kathy acker, which looks at the life and work of the artist twenty years after her death. And as chris kraus deftly showcases in her recently published after kathy acker, its this myth that both made her and potentially, trapped her and the analysis of her work. Chris kraus is the author of four novels and two books of criticism. Chris krauss new book after kathy acker chronicles the life of postmodern novelist, playwright and poet kathy acker.
Josie mitchell talks to chris kraus, author of i love dick, about her new biography, after kathy acker, which looks at the life and work of the artist twenty years after her death. Chris kraus will read from and describe the research process behind her new biography after kathy acker, on the life, myth, and influence of avantgarde artist, writer, and countercultural heroine kathy acker. Krauss biography, after kathy acker, depicts ackers life and work as an assault on established systems of meaning. Shed died two months earlier at an alternative clinic in tijuana, where she received palliative care for latestage, metastasized cancer. Kathy wasnt the first woman to use sex in her work. She cultivated a persona that was by turns tough and vulnerable, a mythic example of the great writer as cultural hero, as chris kraus puts it in her new biography, after kathy acker. An extract from chris krauss new biography, after kathy acker, which looks at the life and work of the artist twenty years after her death. Twenty years after her untimely death at age 50, ackers legend has faded, but her writing has become clearer. When chris kraus, the author of i love dick, set out to write a biography on the novelist and performance artist kathy acker, she knew they shared interests and. After kathy acker is an intense, riveting portrait of a writer.
Chris kraus is unable to sort fact from fiction in this hymn to the late postpunk provocateur. She attained them within a larger community of writers and artists, many of whom, such as the. The vivid resurrection of a postpunk literary icon 3. She received the college art associations frank jewett mather award in art criticism in 2008, and a warhol foundation art writing grant in 2011. Chris kraus s after kathy acker sets the bar for what will surely be a new era of critical and biographical reckoning with the life and work of kathy acker. The collection includes emails between kraus and ackers friends and colleagues. But krauss books are neither technically experimental, like ackers, nor traditionally narrated, like gaitskill. Now, thanks to chris krauss thoughtful, sympathetic biography, the doubters can perhaps find their way towards an appreciation of this enfant terrible of late 20thcentury american literature. She discusses kathy acker as a figure in culture who wrote of culture, achieving fame and notoriety through a writing style of pornographic intensity. To pin down the real kathy acker then is a selfdefeating task but chris krauss biography of her is a brilliant and necessary thing. Hardly anyone writes better or more insightfully than chris kraus about the lives of women and artists. A biography by chris kraus allen lane 352pp published august, 2017 isbn 97802418058.
How do you go about writing a biography of an inveterate selfmythologiser, who made over fiction into life just as she made over life into fiction. There is a wonderful ambivalence between subject and object here, which wires up a tension throughout this incredibly wellresearched book. Kraus is the perfect mediator for acker, finding in her work an aesthetics of provocation, discomfiture, risk and radical empathy. A literary biography, chris kraus wrote not of theory but of writing, creativity, and the depth a writer has to go to form an identity.
In this first, fully authorized, biography, chris kraus approaches acker both as a writer and as a member of the artistic communities from which she emerged. Its not just that kathy acker led an interesting life, but that chris kraus captures it in a way that is so beautiful, seamless, and entertaining. A literary biography by chris kraus semiotexte, 352 pp. Kathy ackers painful, untimely death from cancer at 50 was commemorated by friends who ingested her ashes, while the remainder was thrown into the pacific ocean by an unwelcome astrologer confidante of hers. I love dick writer chris kraus on her literary hero kathy acker, open relationships, and the dark reality of the 70s sexual revolution. Following the resurgence of interest in i love dick 1997, kraus is now a household name whose name rightly or wrongly will forever be associated with the kind of personal essay that nowadays passes for cultural criticism, in which the i, imperial. In after kathy acker, chris kraus, author of the cult novel i love dick, makes a persuasive argument for why we should be taking kathy acker. In her new biography after kathy acker, chris kraus doesnt exactly say. Kraus s biography, after kathy acker, depicts acker s life and work as an assault on established systems of meaning. Her biography after kathy acker, from which this essay is excerpted, was published by semiotexte this month. A biography by chris kraus is published by allen lane. Chris krauss after kathy acker acker by kraus is a tantalising prospect. In this first, fully authorized biography, chris kraus approaches postmodern literary phenomenon kathy acker both as a writer and as a member of the.
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