Chris Kraus (born 1955) is a writer and critic. Her work includes the novels ''

I Love Dick ''I Love Dick'' is a novel by American artist and author Chris Kraus. Published by Semiotext(e) in 1997, ''I Love Dick'' merges fiction and memoir formats to explore the writer's psycho-sexual obsession with the eponymous "Dick", a media theoris ...

'', ''Aliens and Anorexia'', and ''Torpor'', which form a loose trilogy that navigates between autobiography, fiction, philosophy, and art criticism, and a sequence of novels dealing with American underclass experience that began with ''Summer of Hate''. Her approach to writing has been described as ‘performance art within the medium of writing’ and ‘a bright map of presence’. Her work has drawn controversy through its equalisation of high and low culture, mixing critical theory with colloquial language and graphic representations of sex. Her books often blend intellectual, political, and sexual concerns with wit, oscillating between esoteric referencing and parody. She has written extensively in the fields of art and cultural criticism. Kraus has also produced numerous plays and films, including the feature film ''Gravity & Grace''. Her work has featured in publications such as ''Artforum'', ''Art in America'', ''Modern Painters'', ''Afterall'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The New York Times Literary Supplement'', ''The Paris Review'', ''The Los Angeles Review of Books'', ''Bookforum'', and ''Texte zur Kunste''. She taught creative writing and art writing at The European Graduate School/EGS for ten years and has been Writer in Residence at ArtCenter College of Design. Kraus is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for General Non-Fiction (2016), a Warhol Foundation Arts Writing Grant (2011), and Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism from the College Art Association (2008). Kraus is co-editor of the publishing house Semiotext(e). Her bestselling novel, ''I Love Dick'', was adapted for television by Joey Soloway and released on Amazon Video (2018). Holland Cotter has described her as ‘one of our smartest and most original writers on contemporary art and culture’.

Biography

Christine Kraus was born in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York City, and spent her childhood in Milford, Connecticut, and New Zealand. Kraus completed a BA in literature and political theory at

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

, beginning at the university at the age of 16. She worked as a journalist for five years after the completion of her BA. When she was 21 she arrived in New York, where she began studying with actor

Ruth Maleczech Ruth Maleczech (January 8, 1939 – September 30, 2013) was an American avant-garde stage actress.
University of Notre Dame; a ...

and director

Lee Breuer Esser Leopold Breuer (February 6, 1937 – January 3, 2021) was an American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents. Career Breuer was a founding co-artistic ...

, whose studio in the East Village was called ReCherChez. Kraus is Jewish and deals with many spiritual and social aspects of Judaism in her works. She says that her parents attended Christian church and did not tell her that her family is Jewish until she moved back to Manhattan at age 21, possibly to shield her from antisemitism. She continued to make films through the mid-1990s. As of 2006 she was married to

Sylvère Lotringer Sylvère Lotringer (15 October 1938 – 8 November 2021) was a French-born Literary critics, literary critic and cultural theorist. Initially based in New York City, he later lived in Los Angeles and Baja California, Mexico.Hultkrans, Andrew"Boo ...

, a Jewish man who survived the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

as a child. They had divorced by 2016. Some of her works are based on her marriage and her ex-husband. Kraus' ''I Love Dick'' was first published in North America in 1997, initially receiving a poor reception but going on to become a popular success. At first, according to Anakana Schofield of ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

'', the novel was only a "cult hit" among the visual arts community and did not receive much attention from "mainstream literary culture". ''I Love Dick'' was not published in the United Kingdom until 2015. In 2017, Kraus published ''After Kathy Acker'', a biography of

Kathy Acker Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trau ...

. Kraus is a landlord, owning several low-income properties in Albuquerque, New Mexico - she describes this as "a day job". Kraus "chose early on not to pursue full-time teaching", instead focusing on property management which she claims takes "a couple of hours every day".

Works

''I Love Dick''

''I Love Dick'' is an

epistolary novel An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...

with

autofiction In literary criticism, autofiction is a form of fictionalized autobiography. Autofiction combines two mutually inconsistent narrative forms, namely autobiography and fiction. An author may decide to recount their life in the third person, to mod ...

elements. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' described it as "a cult feminist classic" despite its poor reception on release in 1997. ''I Love Dick'' is written as a series of

love letter A love letter is an expression of love in written form. However delivered, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation and description of feelings. History One of the oldest references to a lo ...

s written to an addressee who is derived from the real-life cultural critic

Dick Hebdige Dick Hebdige (born 1951) is an expatriate British media theorist and sociologist, and a professor of art and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work is commonly associated with the study of subcultures, and its res ...

. Hebdige described the novel as a violation of his privacy. In 2016,

Joey Soloway Joey Soloway (previously Jill Soloway; born September 26, 1965) is an American television creator, showrunner, director and writer. Soloway is known for creating, writing, executive producing and directing the Amazon original series ''Transparent' ...

adapted the novel as a

TV series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...

, produced by

Amazon Studios Amazon Studios is an American television and film producer and distributor that is a subsidiary of Amazon. It specializes in developing television series and distributing and producing films. It was started in late 2010. Content is distributed th ...

. The first season was released on May 12, 2017.

''Where Art Belongs''

''Where Art Belongs'' is a non-fiction essay examining contemporary art and sexuality. In a series of vignettes, Kraus discusses various forms of early 21st century art, detailing her personal association with some of the artists. Artists whose work is discussed include

Ariel Pink Ariel Marcus Rosenberg ( ; born June 24, 1978), professionally known as Ariel Pink, is an American musician, singer, and songwriter whose work draws heavily from the popular music of the 1960s–1980s. His lo-fi music, lo-fi aesthetic and home ...

Bernadette Corporation Bernadette Corporation is a New York City and Paris-based art and fashion collective founded in 1994. Core members include Bernadette van Huy, John Kelsey (artist), John Kelsey, and Antek Walzcak. Bernadette Corporation is known for its performan ...

Bas Jan Ader Bastiaan Johan Christiaan "Bas Jan" Ader (19 April 1942 – disappeared 1975) was a Dutch conceptual and performance artist, and photographer. His work was in many instances presented as photographs and film of his performances. He made perf ...

Elke Krystufek Elke Silvia Krystufek (born 1970) is an Austrian conceptual artist who lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Vienna, Austria. She works in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, video and performance art. Life Krystufek studied ...

Moyra Davey Moyra Davey (born 1958) is an artist based in New York City. Davey works across photography, video, and writing. Early life Moyra Davey was born in 1958 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She grew up in Montreal, where she studied photography and r ...

Louis Malle Louis Marie Malle (; 30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in both Cinema of France, French cinema and Cinema of the United States, Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "a fi ...

, and James Benning. Ariel Pink's visual art is discussed in connection with ''Tiny Creatures'', an art collective that was active in Los Angeles from 2006-2007. Elke Krystufek's visits to

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...

and

Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Caro ...

are described as being inspired by Ader's disappearance at sea, journeys that were undertaken for the purpose of producing art. Photographer Moyra Davey's diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is described as influencing her choice to incorporate writing into her artwork, particularly fragments by

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

. Kraus also discusses her participation in the Sex Workers' Art Show, a touring show which precipitated the firing of

Gene Nichol Gene Ray Nichol, Jr. (born May 11, 1951) was the twenty-sixth president of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. He succeeded Timothy J. Sullivan and officially served from July 1, 2005, to February 12, 2008. It w ...

, president of the

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III ...

, when he allowed the troupe to perform at the college. Additionally, Kraus cites two historical

countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

documents on sexuality which have informed contemporary art. ''

Suck Suck may refer to: *Suction, the force exerted by a partial vacuum *.sucks, an Internet top-level domain Arts and entertainment Music * Suck (band), a South African hard rock group * Suck, drummer for the 1990s Japanese punk band Teengenerate * ...

'' was an underground newspaper founded in 1969 by

Jim Haynes James Almand Haynes (10 November 1933 – 6 January 2021) was an American-born figure in the British "underground" and alternative/counter-culture scene of the 1960s. He was involved with the founding of Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre, the pape ...

Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literatu ...

, Bill Levy,

Heathcote Williams John Henley Heathcote-Williams (15 November 1941 – 1 July 2017), known as Heathcote Williams, was an English poet, actor, political activist and dramatist. He wrote a number of book-length polemical poems including ''Autogeddon'', ''Falling ...

and

Jean Shrimpton Jean Rosemary Shrimpton (born 7 November 1942) is an English model and actress. She was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels. She appeared on numerous magazine covers including ''Vogue,'' ''Har ...

. The twelfth issue of ''Recherches'', a French journal, was edited by

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næss, ...

in collaboration with the

Front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire The front homosexuel d'action révolutionnaire ( en, Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action) (FHAR) was a loose Parisian movement founded in 1971, resulting from a union between lesbian feminists and gay activists. If the movement could be con ...

, a gay rights group. Titled "Three Billion Perverts", the issue was devoted to homosexuality, with many copies being seized and destroyed by French authorities. Kraus cites

Andrea Fraser Andrea Rose Fraser (born 1965) is a performance artist, mainly known for her work in the area of Institutional Critique. Fraser is based in New York and Los Angeles and is currently Department Head and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studio of the ...

's ''

Untitled Untitled or (Untitled) may refer to: Artworks * ''Untitled (2004)'', by Banksy * ''Untitled'' (1982 painting), by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat * ''Untitled'' (Devil), a 1982 painting by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat * ''Untitled' ...

'' (2003), a video work showing a sexual encounter between the artist and a collector who subsequently purchased a copy of the video, as an example of an artwork informed by the literature.

Semiotext(e)

, Kraus's husband from the late eighties to the late nineties, founded Semiotexte's Foreign Agents series, which mostly published French critical theorists, in 1980. Ten years later Kraus founded the press's Native Agents imprint to publish fiction, mostly by women, as an analogue to the French theories of subjectivity in the Foreign Agents series."Female Trouble," Elizabeth Gumport, n+1 Magazine, 14 February 2012 http://nplusonemag.com/female-trouble In addition to groundbreaking works of fiction by writers like

Michelle Tea Michelle Tea (born Michelle Tomasik, 1971) is an American author, poet, and literary arts organizer whose autobiographical works explore queer culture, feminism, race, class, sex work, and other topics. She is originally from Chelsea, Massachuset ...

and Ann Rower, Native Agents has published notable volumes of poetry and prose by

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. No ...

Barbara Barg Barbara Barg (April 29, 1947 — May 22, 2018) was a poet, writer, and musician. Barg was born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Forrest City, Arkansas. After studying with poet Ted Berrigan at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, she m ...

, and

Fanny Howe Fanny Howe (born October 15, 1940 in Buffalo, New York) is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Howe has written more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Her major works include poetry such as ''One Crossed Out'', ''Gone'', and ''S ...

, as well as memoirs and interviews by

, Bob Flanagan, David Rattray, and

William Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultu ...

. In a 2012 piece for ''

n+1 N1, N.I, N-1, or N01 may refer to: Information technology * Nokia N1, an Android tablet * Nexus One, an Android phone made by HTC * Nylas N1, a desktop email client * Oppo N1, an Android phone * N1, a Sun Microsystems software brand now mostly ...

'', senior editor Elizabeth Gumport wrote "What united the Native Agents authors was the way their work combined elements of theory, fiction, and biography, explicitly refusing to identify absolutely with any single genre." In 2017, Kraus came under sustained criticism from anti-

gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...

activists who believed she and other artists were being used to promote displacement in

Boyle Heights Boyle is an English, Irish and Scottish surname of Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman origin. In the northwest of Ireland it is one of the most common family names. Notable people with the surname include: Disambiguation *Adam Boyle (disambiguation), ...

, Los Angeles. Semiotext(e) chose to cancel an event at which she was slated to speak rather than face further protests. In an April 2023 interview with Kraus in ''Interview'' magazine,

Gary Indiana Gary Indiana (b. 1950 as Gary Hoisington in Derry, New Hampshire) is an American writer, actor, artist, and cultural critic. He served as the art critic for the ''Village Voice'' weekly newspaper from 1985 to 1988. Indiana is best known for his ...

talked about how people were ganged up on by social media. Kraus: "It's the worst kind of elementary school bullying." Indiana: "I've seen it done to you. I've seen it done to a lot of people we really care about...putting down this person for something they know nothing about."

Films

Before beginning her career as writer, Kraus was an artist and filmmaker, making a number of short films and videos, including one feature ''Gravity & Grace.''. Her films have been the focus of a number of international retrospective exhibitions and screenings, beginning in 2008 with “Plastic is Leather, Fuck You: Film and Video 1983-1993” at Galerie Cinzia Friedlaender,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. In the press release for the 2011 exhibition at Real Fine Arts in Brooklyn, Kraus detailed her thoughts behind the production of these films.

Awards

In 2008, Kraus received the

Frank Jewett Mather Frank Jewett Mather Jr. (6 July 1868 – 11 November 1953) was an American art critic and professor. He was the first "modernist" (i.e., post-classicist) professor at the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. He was a direct desc ...

Award for Art Criticism from the

College Art Association The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...

Publications

*''

'', 1997 (

Semiotext(e) Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher of critical theory, fiction, philosophy, art criticism, activist texts and non-fiction. History Founded in 1974, ''Semiotext(e)'' began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylv ...

/ Native Agents). *''Aliens & Anorexia'', 2000 (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents). *''Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader'' by Kraus and Sylvere Lotringer, 2001. *''Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness'', 2004 (Semiotext(e) / Active Agents). *''LA Artland: Contemporary Art from Los Angeles'' by Kraus, Jan Tumlir, and Jane McFadden, 2005 ( Black Dog). *''Torpor'', 2006 (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents). *''I Love Dick'' by Kraus, Eileen Myles, Joan Hawkins; 2006 (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents). *''Where Art Belongs'', 2011 (Semiotext(e) / Intervention Series). *''Summer of Hate'', 2012 (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents). * *''After Kathy Acker: A Biography'', 2017 (Allen Lane). *''Social Practices'', 2018 (Semiotext(e) / Active Agents).

Books in Spanish

*''Tienda de ramos generales Kelly Lake'', 2017 (Cruce Casa).

Filmography and performance history

*''In Order to Pass'' (1982), 30 minutes, Super8 film/video. *''Terrorists in Love'' (1985), 5 minutes, Super8 film/video. *''Voyage to Rodez'' (1986), 14 minutes, 16mm film. *''Foolproof Illusion'' (1986), 17 minutes, video. *''How to Shoot a Crime'' (1987), 28 minutes, video. *''The Golden Bowl or Repression'' (1990), 12 minutes, 16mm film. *''Traveling at Night'' (1991), 14 minutes, video. *''Sadness at Leaving'' (1992), 20 minutes, 16mm film. *''Gravity & Grace'' (1996), 88 minutes, Lonely Girl Films (New Zealand/USA/Canada). *''Disparate Action/Desperate Action'' (1980), performance. *''Readings From The Diaries of Hugo Ball'' (1983–84), performance. *''Longing Last Longer'' (1998), performance with Penny Arcade based on ''I Love Dick,'' directed by Eric Wallach and produced by

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...

, New York, January 1998.

References

External links

Interview with Chris Kraus
fo
Cultural Icons
series. Audio and video
The Novelist as Performance Artist: On Chris Kraus, the Art World’s Favorite Fiction Writer

Chris Kraus reading her essay "Greetings from LA" on 'Lectures with Lindsay' audio collection

Interview with Chris Kraus
for ''Full Stop. ''4 December 2012.
Interview with Chris Kraus
for ''Lenny Letter''. With Laia Garcia. 4 August 2017. * Jamison, Leslie
"This Female Consciousness: On Chris Kraus."
''New Yorker''. 9 April 2015. * "Chris Kraus." ''Contemporary Authors Online''. Detroit: Gale, 2012. ''Literature Resource Center''. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
Chris Kraus Papers, MSS.442, NYU Special Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kraus, Chris 1955 births Living people Jewish women writers American women film directors Film directors from New York City Academic staff of European Graduate School Victoria University of Wellington alumni Frank Jewett Mather Award winners American women academics 21st-century American women writers