Author Chris Kraus Back to New Zealand

23 September 2011

Chris Kraus Back to New Zealand

Ex-pat author Chris Kraus returns to New Zealand this month and will give a series of public lectures in Auckland and Wellington. Chris Kraus has become a cult figure in the realm of art and writing. NY Times writer, Holland Cotter has called her: "one of our smartest and most original writers on art and culture."

Kraus's novel I LOVE DICK published in 1997 attracted widespread controversy but also gained a strong following. Blurring the boundaries of personal self-revelation and fiction, she created a unique style, which she has continued to develop across multiple publications.

The daughter of two disenfranchised intellectuals, Chris Kraus has forever been something of a stranger to the establishment. Moving from Connecticut to Wellington, New Zealand at an early age, a move she credits with saving her life, Kraus quickly fell in love with the punk philosophy of the late 70s.

Living in New York’s East Village in her twenties, she met many artists and writers and began making films. In the mid-80s, she met Semiotexte founder and editor, and later husband, Sylvère Lotringer, and in the 1990s, began the Native Agents fiction series, with the idea of linking first-person female writing to French theories of subjectivity.

I LOVE DICK was soon followed by ALIENS & ANOREXIA (2000), VIDEO GREEN: LOS ANGELES ART AND THE TRIUMPH OF NOTHINGNESS (2004), and TORPOR (2006).

Her latest book, WHERE ART BELONGS (2011) explores the use of shared time in current art practices. It will be previewed at her lecture in Auckland, Auckland Art Gallery Auditorium, Tuesday 25 October, 6pm.

Easy Listening: Talks in Art and Culture is a collaborative project by Artspace, Elam School of Fine Arts and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

Chris Kraus’s visit is in partnership with Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne.

ENDS

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