Chris Kraus

Tova Mozard has always been interested in how people act and the games that they play in group settings. When visiting Los Angeles for the first time, with that type of improvisation right in front of her, she realised that she d found her subject matter. The distance from her own culture gave her view a different perspective. Cops, psychics and comedians might seem generally well known but Tova Mozard wants to go deeper, to find uncharted territories within these categories.

Kathy Acker: Rich girl, street punk, scholar, stripper, victim, media-whore ... and cultural icon.The late Kathy Acker's legend and writings are wrapped in mythologies, many of them created by her. Twenty years after her untimely death aged just 50, Acker's legend has faded, but her writing has become clearer.A few years ago, the writer Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick, found that her own experiences were becoming more and more like Kathy's. She began writing about Acker 'through the distance, but with this incredible frisson of feeling that often I could write "I" instead of "she."'This is 'literary friction': The first fully authorised biography of the avant-garde writer Kathy Acker, by the woman who arrived on the scene straight after her, who shared some of her boyfriends and friends, and her artistic ambitionsUsing exhaustive archival research and ongoing conversations with mutual colleagues and friends, Kraus traces the woman behind the notorious novels, and places her at the centre of a kaleidoscopic artistic world.

THE CULT NOVEL AS ADORED BY WRITERS AND FEMINIST ICONS ALIKE 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION When Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus's novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in 1997. Widely considered to be the most important feminist novel of the past three decades, I Love Dick is still essential reading; as relevant, fierce and funny as ever.

‘Chris Kraus reinvents the true-crime novel’ The New Yorker ‘A writer whose antennae are attuned to subtle connections and strange cross-currents’ Colm Tóibín ‘This is Chris Kraus’s masterpiece’ Constance Debré On the Iron Range of northern Minnesota, at the end of the last decade, three teenagers shot and killed an older acquaintance after spending the day with him. In a cold, rundown town, the three young people were quickly arrested and imprisoned. No one knows why they did it. At the time of the murder, Catt Greene and her husband, Paul Garcia, are living nearby in a house they’d bought years earlier as a summer escape from Los Angeles. Undergoing a period of personal turmoil, moving between LA and Minnesota — between the urban art world and the rural poverty of the icy Iron Range — Catt turns away from her own life and towards the murder case, which soon becomes an obsession. In her attempt to pierce through the mystery surrounding the murder and to understand the teenagers’ lives, Catt also finds herself travelling back through the idiosyncratic, aspirational lives of her parents in the working-class Bronx and small-town, blue-collar Milford, Connecticut. Written in three linked parts, The Four Spent the Day Together explores the histories of three generations of American lives and the patterns that repeat over lifetimes, and is piercing commentary on the pressures of lives lived on the edge.

An unforgettable new novel from the author of the modern classic I Love Dick — a witty, probing journey into a fractured America, culminating in the investigation of a teenage murder. On the Iron Range of northern Minnesota, at the end of the last decade, three teenagers shot and killed an older acquaintance after spending the day with him. In a cold, rundown town, the three young people were quickly arrested and imprisoned. No one knows why they did it. At the time of the murder, Catt Greene and her husband, Paul Garcia, are living nearby in a house they’d bought years earlier as a summer escape from Los Angeles. Undergoing a period of personal turmoil, moving between LA and Minnesota — between the urban art world and the rural poverty of the icy Iron Range — Catt turns away from her own life and towards the murder case, which soon becomes an obsession. In her attempt to pierce through the mystery surrounding the murder and to understand the teenagers’ lives, Catt also finds herself travelling back through the idiosyncratic, aspirational lives of her parents in the working-class Bronx and small-town, blue-collar Milford, Connecticut. Written in three linked parts, The Four Spent the Day Together explores the histories of three generations of American lives and the patterns that repeat over lifetimes, and is piercing commentary on the pressures of lives lived on the edge.

Chris Kraus’ The Bastard Factory tells the story of an entire epoch: a drama of betrayal and self-delusion spanning the years 1905 to 1975, taking us from Riga and Moscow, Berlin and Munich, all the way to Tel Aviv.Hubert and Konstantin Solm are brothers, born in Riga at the beginning of the twentieth century. They will find themselves – along with their Jewish adopted sister, Ev Solm – caught up in in the maelstrom of their changing times.As the two brothers climb the rungs of society – working first for the government in Nazi Germany, then as agents for the Allied forces, and eventually becoming spies for the young West Germany – Ev will be their constant companion, and eventually a lover to them both. The passionate love triangle that emerges will propel the characters to terrifying moral and political depths.The story of the Solms is also the story of twentieth-century Germany: the decline of an old world and the rise of a new one – under new auspices but with the same familiar protagonists.Translated from the German by Ruth Martin

The European bestseller, an epic of two brothers, brought together and divided by betrayal, secrecy and self-delusion, spanning seventy years of German history: from the Russian Revolution, to World War II, to 1975.

Det er 1996, og Chris Kraus er på en komplet mislykket rejse til Berlin for at finde en distributør til sin eksperimentalfilm Gravity & Grace, hvori en samling tosser venter på, at aliens skal redde dem fra en forstadshave i New Zealand. I 1942 fantaserer tristhedens første radikale filosof, Simone Weil, om at springe i faldskærm ud over de franske slagmarker. Kunstneren Paul Thek jagter den gennemgribende løsrivelse og vender i 1977, fuld af forventning, tilbage til New York efter flere års eksil, men må arbejde i et supermarked for at overleve. I slutningen af 1990’erne sidder Chris Kraus i Northwest Woods og skriver om sin fejlslagne film, mens hun venter på svar fra sin virtuelle S/M-partner, der optager en Hollywoodfilm i Nairobi. Og uret, det tæller ned til årtusindeskiftet. Aliens & anoreksi er en kalejdoskopisk roman om fiasko, køn, visioner, begær og længsel. Med Kraus’ film Gravity & Grace som afsæt væves skæbner, tider og temaer sammen i en forførende historie fortalt med ligefremhed og vid. Chris Kraus (f. 1955) er en amerikansk forfatter og filmskaber. På dansk er også udkommet hendes første roman, I Love Dick, og essaysamlingen Hvor kunst hører til. Aliens & anoreksi udkom i år 2000 og er hendes anden roman.

I essaysamlingen Hvor kunst hører til besøger den amerikanske forfatter og filminstruktør Chris Kraus en række udstillinger, kunstnere, værker, fester, kyster og byer i en afsøgning af, hvad og hvor kunst kan være. Hvor kunst hører til er en invitation til snakke med hinanden om kunsten, tænke over den og spørge til den. Det er en bog, der betragter kunstverdenen som den pengemaskine, den (også) er, uden at afskrive den og som samtidig insisterer på håbet om, at kunsten stadigvæk spiller en rolle for vores fællesskaber. Ikke for de få, men for os alle sammen.Bogen er oversat af Nanna Friis og Emma Holten.”Det er muligt at være vildt intelligent og samtidig ikke have nogen viden. Denne tilstand – der som regel hænger sammen med ungdom eller forlænget pubertet – resulterer tit i kedsomhed, den eksistensielle stamfader til stort set alle væsentlige kunst- og kulturbevægelser.”

Kritikerrosad roman av författaren till I Love Dick. Sverigebesök i juni! »Summer of Hate är originell, intelligent, ärlig, full av svart humor, och griper tag i läsaren som en obeveklig thriller.«|LA Review of BooksCatt Dunlop är en konstkritiker baserad i Los Angeles med en liten skara hängivna fans: »killar med Aspergers, tjejer som blivit intagna för psykisk sjukdom, lärarassistenter som inte skulle kunna få någon anställning, lapdancers, självskadare och horor.« Året är 2005 och USA vrider sig i plågorna från George W. Bushs krig i Irak när hon en morgon vaknar upp i sviterna av en BDSM-lek som gått för långt. På jakt efter ett mer meningsfullt liv ger sig Catt ut på en roadtrip med Albuquerque, New Mexico som slutmål för att fixa några fastigheter som hon investerat i. Där inleder hon en halsbrytande och till synes dödsdömd romans med den intelligente men obildade Paul Garcia, som suttit sexton månader i fängelse för bedrägeri. När Paul grips på nytt finner sig Catt snart allt mer intrasslad i det amerikanska rättssystemets paragrafer och en Don Quijotsk kamp för att rädda sin älskare. Summer of Hate utspelar sig i en amerikansk underklassvärld av pånyttfödd kristendom, självhjälp och crack. En existentiell noir-roman med politisk udd, och med den akademiska konstvärlden som kontrasterande skrattspegel. Ett av de mest hyllade verken av en av USA:s i dag mest inflytelserika författare, i svensk översättning av författaren och kritikern Jenny Högström. CHRIS KRAUS är född i Nya Zeeland och bor i Los Angeles. Hon är författare, konstnär, filmskapare, redaktör, kritiker och professor i kreativt skrivande, med en bakgrund i New Yorks vitala konst-och performancescen under sjuttiotalet. Hon fick sitt publika genombrott med den autofiktiva debutromanen I Love Dick. Hon är i dag redaktör på förlaget Semiotext(e) där hon bland annat svarat för redaktörsarbetet med Kate Zambrenos hyllade kritiska memoar, Hjältinnor. Kraus startade också förlagets feministiska underetikett Native Agents, som publicerat verk av författare som Kathy Acker och Eileen Myles. Summer of Hate [2012] är hennes fjärde roman »En av den amerikanska litteraturens mest subversiva röster.« | Index Magazine »Chris Kraus är en av våra mest intelligenta och originella författare.« | New York Times

Artist Jane Dickson is a deep-rooted and central voice in New York City's complex creative history. In the late 1970s and early '80s, she was part of the movement joining the legacies of downtown art, punk rock, and hip hop through her involvement with the Colab art collective, the Fashion Moda gallery, and legendary exhibitions including the Real Estate Show and Times Square Show. In the midst of this groundbreaking work, Dickson lived, worked and raised two children in an apartment on 43rd Street and 8th Avenue at a time when the neighborhood was at its most infamous, crime-ridden, and spectacularly seedy. Through it all, Jane photographed, drew and painted extraordinary scenes of life in Times Square. These works, many of which are reproduced here for the first time, include candid documentary snapshots, roughly vibrant charcoal sketches, and paintings created on surfaces ranging from sandpaper to Brillo pads. Featuring a foreword by Chris Kraus and afterword by Fab Five Freddy, Jane Dickson in Times Square is a time machine back to a New York City that was truly wild: lawless, manic, sometimes squalid, sometimes magnificent.

Essays on and around art and art practices by the author of I Love Dick.A border isn't a metaphor. Knowing each other for over a decade makes us witnesses to each other's lives. My escape is his prison. We meet in a bar and smoke Marlboros.-from Social PracticesMixing biography, autobiography, fiction, criticism, and conversations among friends, with Social Practices Chris Kraus continues the anthropological exploration of artistic lives and the art world begun in 2004 with Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness.Social Practices includes writings from and around the legendary "Chance Event-Three Days in the Desert with Jean Baudrillard" (1996), and "Radical Localism," an exhibition of art and media from Puerto Nuevo's Mexicali Rose that Kraus co-organized with Marco Vera and Richard Birkett in 2012. Attuned to the odd and the anomalous, Kraus profiles Elias Fontes, an Imperial Valley hay merchant who has become an important collector of contemporary Mexican art, and chronicles the demise of a rural convenience store in northern Minnesota. She considers the work of such major contemporary artists as Jason Rhoades, Channa Horowitz, Simon Denny, Yayoi Kusama, Henry Taylor, Julie Becker, Ryan McGinley, and Leigh Ledare. Although Kraus casts a skeptical eye at the genre that's come to be known as "social practice," her book is less a critique than a proposition as to how art might be read through desire and circumstance, delirium, gossip, coincidence, and revenge. All art, she implies, is a social practice.