#or kraus' particular experience/perspective on her

[cypr1anlatew00d]

I hate to say it but the chris kraus kathy acker bio is kind of a flop... a lot of the raw materials are ofc interesting but man if I had that many artworld acquaintences I could do a better job....

[greatrunner]

greatrunner’s favorite books of 2018 (in no particular rank/order):

miles morales: spider man (jason reynolds) >> nanny returns (emma mclaughlin and nicola kraus) >> spider-man 2099, volume 2 (peter david) >> the books of elsewhere: the shadows (jacqueline west) >> spider-man 2099, volume 3 (peter david) >> the annotated african-american folktales (henry louis gate jr., maria tatar)

1.Miles Morales: Spider-Man – Jason Reynolds - (2018) – The Miles Morales story I would recommend newcomers of the character to read before touching the comics, Jason Reynolds’ YA slice-of-life novel focuses on characterizing Miles Morales to a degree that Brian Michael Bendis or his current writers couldn’t be arsed to do or wasn’t attempted (by non-Black writers) until Marvel’s Spider-Man, and makes me wish a series came out of this. It’s got its hiccups, but it’s good. Read it.

2. Nanny Returns - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus - (2009) – Nanny Returns is probably an interesting case of the author who assumes a character has learned something, but nothing about their experience throughout the narrative really reflects – or earns that. Nan (a former Nanny who deals in conflict resolution for businesses) spends a grand majority of the novel towing the line of a toxic environment that breeds rampant bullying and victim blaming among young, rich and ignorant children of wealthy families, (because she wants money to fix up an old row house in a gentrified neighborhood), and it’s only by sheer luck that the circumstances she does nothing to change end up rectifying themselves through the hubris of a character that is barely present in the narrative. It’s such a train-wreck of a book, I couldn’t put it down, honestly. I could understand her perspective in the original novel, but here, she’s not remotely sympathetic (which wasn’t the author’s intent, clearly). It kinda makes me thankful the film for the first novel chose to end things with some kind of resolution (that was a direct result of the characters changing to some degree, lmao).

3. Spider-Man 2099 (Volume 2) – Peter David - (2014-2015) – The second volume of the once-defunct Spider-Man 2099 revitalizes the series with time travel shenanigans that pits Miguel O’Hara against events that radically alter his present (2099) reality and attempt to bring about some positive change in his biological grandfather (circa 2014). Spider-Man 2099 is probably the only Spider-Man title I can enjoy unabashedly without (major) issue because I think Peter David never lets it escape him how ridiculous the framework of his character’s circumstances is, but he’s never mean-spirited about it. On top of that, he surrounds Miguel with some fantastic supporting characters. Volume two is about twelve issues long (cut short by the Secret Wars event), but it’s a solid read and a good time with some fantastic artwork by William Sliney.

4. Spider-Man 2099 (Volume 3) – Peter David - (2015-2017) – The third volume of Spider-Man 2099 picks up where Spider-Man 2099, or Secret Wars 2099 and Secret Wars in general, left off. Miguel is still trying to repair the past, but now he’s dealing with the added stress of a romantic relationship with Tempest Monroe (no apparent relation to Storm) and his biological father (Tyler Stone) and the ever-changing world of 2099 actively trying to fuck things up for him. The series lasts up 25 or less issues and goes places I honestly wasn’t anticipating or expecting. Silney and David are on their A-game here and the conclusion left me wanting more – in a good way. It’s a relatively solid end to a series I never really expected would see the light of day again.

5. The Books of Elsewhere – The Shadows (Book 1) – Jacqueline West – (2010) - The Books of Elsewhere is an odd little children’s book that I saw being advertised on a short story website for the zombie apocalypse and reminded myself to keep in my the back of my mind the next time I went to the library. That sleepy reminder eventually kicked in and I borrowed it during the summer. The best impression I could give you is that it a lot like Coraline in the sense that it’s about a young girl who finds a hidden world inside an old house she and her family move into. What it lacks is the cautionary tale beyond your run of the mill child-experiences-hubris-then-fixes-mistake-caused-by-hubris. The combination of illustrations elevates the story that is fairly visual-reliant. There are like six or seven books in the series, I’m not sure if I’ll read them, but the first book ends conclusively enough that don’t really need to worry about what follows.

6. The Annotated African Folktales – Henry Louis Jr, etc. – (2017) - If you’re familiar with The Annotated Brothers Grimm, then The Annotated African-American Folktales should be a relatively easy read to get through depending on your investment in the folktales themselves. You get basic information regarding the history of the tale itself and chosen verbage, use of language and etc. It’s definitely the kind of book you want in your collection, particularly if you end up taking an African-American lit. class in college.

[artbookclubdublin-blog]

This is the list of book suggestions that were gathered for our first book club. We then voted for the book that we wanted to read for our first meeting. 

Documents of Contemporary Art: Participation, edited by Claire Bishop 

The desire to move viewers out of the role of passive observers and into the role of producers is one of the hallmarks of twentieth-century art. This tendency can be found in practices and projects ranging from El Lissitzky's exhibition designs to Allan Kaprow's happenings, from minimalist objects to installation art. More recently, this kind of participatory art has gone so far as to encourage and produce new social relationships. Guy Debord's celebrated argument that capitalism fragments the social bond has become the premise for much relational art seeking to challenge and provide alternatives to the discontents of contemporary life. This publication collects texts that place this artistic development in historical and theoretical context.

Participation begins with writings that provide a theoretical framework for relational art, with essays by Umberto Eco, Bertolt Brecht, Roland Barthes, Peter Bürger, Jen-Luc Nancy, Edoaurd Glissant, and Félix Guattari, as well as the first translation into English of Jacques Rancière's influential "Problems and Transformations in Critical Art." The book also includes central writings by such artists as Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, Joseph Beuys, Augusto Boal, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. And it features recent critical and curatorial debates, with discussions by Lars Bang Larsen, Nicolas Bourriaud, Hal Foster, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist.

Ways of Seeing, by John Berger

John Berger’s now classic article "Ways of Seeing" (1972) revolutionarily, for his time, analyses the manner in which men and women are culturally represented, and the subsequent results these representations have on their conduct and self as well and mutual perception.

The Sublime, edited by Simon Morley 

In a world where technology, spectacle and excess seem to eclipse former concepts of nature, the individual and society, what might be the characteristics of a contemporary sublime? If there is any consensus it is in the notion that the sublime represents a taking to the limits, to the point at which fixities begin to fragment. This anthology examines how ideas of the sublime are explored in the work of contemporary artists and theorists, in relation to the unpresentable, transcendence, terror, nature, technology, the uncanny and altered states.

Book of Mutter, by Kate Zambreno

Composed over thirteen years, Kate Zambreno's Book of Mutter is a tender and disquieting meditation on the ability of writing, photography, and memory to embrace shadows while in the throes -- and dead calm -- of grief. Book of Mutter is both primal and sculpted, shaped by the author's searching, indexical impulse to inventory family apocrypha in the wake of her mother's death. The text spirals out into a kind of fractured anatomy of melancholy that comes to contain critical reflections on the likes of Roland Barthes, Louise Bourgeois, Henry Darger, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha , Peter Handke, and others. Zambreno has modeled the book's formless form on Bourgeois's Cells sculptures -- at once channeling the volatility of autobiography, pain, and childhood, yet hemmed by a solemn sense of entering ritualistic or sacred space.

Neither memoir, essay, nor poetry, Book of Mutter is an uncategorizable text that draws upon a repertoire of genres to write into and against silence. It is a haunted text, an accumulative archive of myth and memory that seeks its own undoing, driven by crossed desires to resurrect and exorcise the past. Zambreno weaves a complex web of associations, relics, and references, elevating the prosaic scrapbook into a strange and intimate postmortem/postmodern theater.

Aliens and Anorexia, by Chris Kraus  

First published in 2000, Chris Kraus’s second novel, Aliens & Anorexia, defined a female form of chance that is both emotional and radical. Unfolding like a set of Chinese boxes, with storytelling and philosophy informing each other, the novel weaves together the lives of earnest visionaries and failed artists. Its characters include Simone Weil, the first radical philosopher of sadness; the artist Paul Thek; Kraus herself; and “Africa,” Kraus’s virtual S&M partner, who is shooting a big-budget Hollywood film in Namibia while Kraus holes up in the Northwest woods to chronicle the failure of Gravity & Grace, her own low-budget independent film.

In Aliens & Anorexia, Kraus makes a case for empathy as the ultimate perceptive tool, and reclaims anorexia from the psychoanalytic girl-ghetto of poor “self-esteem.” Anorexia, Kraus writes, could be an attempt to leave the body altogether: a rejection of the cynicism that this culture hands us through its food.

In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective, by Hito Steyerl  

Available on the e-flux website: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/24/67860/in-free-fall-a-thought-experiment-on-vertical-perspective/

The Temporality of the Landscape, by Tim Ingold

“In Tim Ingold's article, there are two themes present; that "...human life is a process that involves the passage of time," and that "...this life-process is also the process of information of the landscapes in which people have lived". Through the use of these themes and his methodological structure, Ingold argues that the landscape can be read as a text. First, he defines the terms landscape and temporality, and second, he introduces a new word, "taskscape", and considers how this relates to landscape. Finally, to further prove his point, the author attempts to "read" the landscape of a well-known painting, The Harvesters, by Bruegel, in which he interprets the temporality of this landscape. This article is useful in understanding cultural landscapes in that it encourages the researcher to think about an often missing, yet integral part of the interpretation of landscapes: time. The researcher is also made to question the relationship of the dimension of time to a particular landscape.” [E. Martin]

The Indiscipline of Painting, by Daniel Sturgis  

Essay and catalogue texts to exhibition.

 High Rise, by JG Ballard

High-Rise is a 1975 novel by British writer J. G. Ballard. The story describes the disintegration of a luxury high-rise building as its affluent residents gradually descend into violent chaos.

Two Hito Steyrl essays, to be read in combination: 

Politics of the archive, Translations in film: http://eipcp.net/transversal/0608/steyerl/en  and In Defense of the Poor Image:

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil.

Curating Research, edited by Paul O'Neill and Mick Wilson. Specifically the text called ‘The Complete Curator’

This anthology of newly commissioned texts presents a series of detailed examples of the different kinds of knowledge production that have recently emerged within the field of curatorial practice. The first volume of its kind to provide an overview of the theme of research within contemporary curating, Curating Research marks a new phase in developments of the profession globally. Consisting of case studies and contextual analyses by curators, artists, critics and academics, including Hyunjoo Byeon, Carson Chan and Joanna Warsza, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Olga Fernandez Lopez, Kate Fowle, Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Liam Gillick, Georgina Jackson, Sidsel Nelund, Simon Sheikh, Henk Slager, tranzit.hu, Jelena Vestic, Marion von Osten and Vivian Ziherl, and edited by curators Paul O'Neill and Mick Wilson, the book is an indispensible resource for all those interested in the current state of art and in the intersection between research and curating that underlies exhibition-making today.

The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson

A brave, fascinating memoir about love, gender, gender theory, having children, death, writing, and the modern family. Maggie Nelson, an established poet and prose writer, details her love for and relationship with Harry Dodge, a charismatic, gender-fluid artist ('are you a man or a woman?' the narrator wonders, but it just doesn't matter). In a brilliantly-written account that is moving as well as fascinating, Nelson charts her thoughts and feelings about becoming a step-parent, her pregnancy, Harry's operation and testosterone injections, and the couple's complex joys in queer-family creation.

Staying with the Trouble, by Donna Haraway

In the midst of spiraling ecological devastation, multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants. She eschews referring to our current epoch as the Anthropocene, preferring to conceptualize it as what she calls the Chthulucene, as it more aptly and fully describes our epoch as one in which the human and nonhuman are inextricably linked in tentacular practices. The Chthulucene, Haraway explains, requires sym-poiesis, or making-with, rather than auto-poiesis, or self-making. Learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged earth will prove more conducive to the kind of thinking that would provide the means to building more livable futures. Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier SF—string figures, science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, so far—Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway's reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time.

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

The Most Vexing Unanswered Questions of 2017

There is something to this argument, as Kaepernick actually lost his starting job with the 49ers before the protests began and only got it back because his replacement was less effective. But that argument ignores the fact that 72 quarterbacks have appeared in a game this season, dozens of whom cannot match Kaepernick’s talent in any system.

Did the owners collectively agree not to sign him? Such outright collusion is unlikely. But in a league that has often overlooked domestic violence, animal cruelty, steroid use and vehicular manslaughter all in the name of talent, it is curious that Kaepernick was shown the door for a demonstration that did not violate any rules. BENJAMIN HOFFMAN

Did the Russians influence the election?

The political scientist Emily Thorson used her 2013 dissertation to investigate whether fact checking was an effective way to combat misinformation. She found that even when readers believed fact checks, they could not banish false information from their minds entirely. The power of fake news, she concluded, incentivized politicians to strategically spread untruths.

Not just American politicians. In January, a declassified report informed the public that the C.I.A., F.B.I. and National Security Agency concluded that Russia’s leader, President Vladimir V. Putin, had ordered an influence campaign to affect the 2016 election. Facebook’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, called posts disseminated by Russians “an insidious attempt to drive people apart.”

So there is little doubt that Russia meddled in the election (though, for the record, President Trump has said that Mr. Putin denies it). Determining influence is trickier. Did even one person change his or her vote after seeing a mocked-up Facebook advertisement?

Dr. Thorson coined a term for the residue of untruth left behind by misinformation: “belief echoes.” One of her experiments tested whether people became besotted by misinformation only when it confirmed their previously held opinions. She found that was not the case. Humans change their minds. They are subject to influence. And when a state actor summons a sonic boom of nonsense and sends it rattling through the largest communication platform ever invented, there’s no telling who might hear the echoes — and maybe even follow that actor’s lead. JONAH ENGEL BROMWICH

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Lena Dunham in February. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times

Is Lena Dunham a feminist?

Lena Dunham has embraced the feminist mantle with gusto, often posting about gender politics on Twitter, where she has 5.72 million followers, courting thinkers who espouse similar views in her newsletter and on her podcast, and writing about the well-being of women for Glamour magazine, LinkedIn, The New York Times and elsewhere.

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What’s a feminist now? And is she one? There’s a joke she once made on her podcast about wishing she had had an abortion. (She later apologized.) Or the time when she compared reading Gawker to “going back to a husband who beat me in the face.” (She later apologized.)

This year, particularly dismaying was Ms. Dunham’s statement accusing Aurora Perrineau, an actress, of lying when she filed a police report alleging that Murray Miller, a writer on “Girls,” raped her when she was 17 and he was 35. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Ms. Dunham and Jenni Konner, her co-showrunner, wrote that “this accusation is one of the 3 percent of assault cases that are misreported every year.”

Believing rather than discrediting assault and rape survivors is a tenet of most feminist philosophies — and a stance Ms. Dunham has taken in the past, including in a tweet she sent this year: “Things women do lie about: what they ate for lunch. Things women don’t lie about: rape.”

Ms. Dunham, once again, apologized. And since mid-November, her Instagram and her Twitter have been silent. VALERIYA SAFRONOVA

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Credit Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Is wine good or bad for you or what?

Everyone who smokes cigarettes knows that their lungs get a little blacker and death draws a little nearer with each puff. Now those who pour a glass of pinot for pleasure, or to harvest its “medicinal” properties, can’t help but think of cancer too.

This fall, the American Society of Clinical Oncology stated that alcohol consumption may slightly raise the risk of breast cancer (also: esophageal, mouth, throat, liver and colorectal cancers). Its statement came after years of studies suggesting that drinking red wine (in moderation) lowers the risk of heart disease, reduces the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and improves cholesterol.

To put things in perspective, there are hundreds of known and probable carcinogens, many of which you could certainly find at home and not all of which are strictly bad for you. Moreover, just because we have evidence that alcohol consumption is associated with cancer doesn’t mean we can conclude that the relationship between them is causal.

So, the real question is: Are the effects of wine net positive? Actually, don’t answer that. BONNIE WERTHEIM

Are there any good men left?

Last month in New York magazine, the writer Rebecca Traister noted how, in this moment of post-Harvey Weinstein cultural reckoning, her husband had asked, with genuine feeling, “How can you even want to have sex with me at this point?” It’s a question many women I know — those who sleep with men, anyway — have found themselves contemplating, as the list of terrible men doing terrible things seems to metastasize (and not just terrible men we knew were terrible; terrible men we thought were good guys, in some cases feminists, even).

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But, O.K., let’s not get carried away. Statistically speaking, not all men are harassers — in fact, most of them aren’t — and there have been plenty of good men who did good things this year. Like Snackman. Remember him? He broke up a fight on a New York City subway by standing in between two people snacking on a tube of Pringles. Or this guy, Oscar Gonzales, who saved a bunny from raging California wildfires (if you haven’t watched the video yet, prepare to sob).

There were the men of the El Bolillo bakery, who baked pounds and pounds of bread while trapped inside as Hurricane Harvey pummeled Houston. (They donated it to evacuees.) And, of course, there was salt bae, a Turkish chef by the name of Nusret Gokce, who tickled women and men alike with his flamboyant sprinkling of salt onto a carved steak.

What these men have in common — with the exception of, perhaps, our Turkish chef — is that they were bystanders. Bystanders who jumped in, active in the face of larger events they often couldn’t control. Their participation fits with this particular cultural moment, as one of the only agreed upon methods for effectively combating sexual harassment and assault is, in fact, to intervene. If 2017 was the year of bad men falling like dominoes, let’s raise a glass to 2018 as the year that the good ones will stand up for the rest of us. JESSICA BENNETT

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Cardi B at the W hotel in Midtown Manhattan before for her show at MoMA PS. 1’s Warm Up series. Credit Amy Lombard for The New York Times

Was this the Year of Cardi?

Maybe not officially, but we’re happy to settle the score. Just recall the video of people in New York starting an impromptu dance party to “Bodak Yellow” earlier this month in the Times Square subway station. See how the woman wearing the National Guard jacket transforms within seconds of hearing the beat. The bravado. The debauchery. The absolute lack of concern. In a year of nonstop bad news, Cardi freed us.

Fans who have followed her since she was a stripper in the Bronx named Camilla know that her success didn’t come overnight. She’s been making money moves for years, from her days on VH1’s “Love and Hip-Hop” to her mixtapes which, bafflingly, never took off the way “Bodak” did.

Since June, it’s been nearly impossible to go out or stay in without hearing Cardi’s breakout single, which went triple platinum and earned her two Grammy nominations. The song of summer has staying power. Maybe the real question is: Will Cardi still reign supreme in 2018? JOANNA NIKAS

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Rachel Lindsay and Peter Kraus, of “The Bachelorette.” Credit Scott Baxter/ABC

Why aren’t Rachel and Peter together?

Rachel Lindsay — America’s first and maybe last black “Bachelorette” — walked away with a ring at the end of the last season, but it was not presented by the American steel-haired ironman heartthrob Peter Kraus and so 7.5 million hearts and brains broke at once. The rule of the “Bachelor” franchise is that we will make sense of the heart. The rules of reality television are that enough editing and music can make us understand anything.

But in this case, producers of Rachel’s season of “The Bachelorette” had to dodge an inexplicable gravity sinkhole in the middle of their universe. They know why Rachel and Peter aren’t together, and they have no way, within their limited palette of reality show hues, to paint us the picture that explains it. No one else involved will or can! They are all too busy doing sponsored content and getting paid. The tabloid universe, which lives by similar rules, can’t execute on this narrative either: they tried “Peter Kraus Reveals Why He Turned Down ‘The Bachelor’: ‘I Was Not Ready,’” and it just smells like smoke screen spirit.

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We will probably never know why Rachel and Peter aren’t together. Their relationship is our Roanoke colonists. What’s left to believe? Who believes Rachel and Bryan Abosolo, a.k.a. “Plan Bryan,” are planning their wedding and next dog and/or baby? (No, seriously.) Who is even ready to trust “The Bachelor” again as Season 378 begins shortly? It’s also entirely possible this is 100 percent displaced anxiety about our engagement with the nuclear power of North Korea or maybe even some personal baggage. CHOIRE SICHA

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Jay Ellis and Issa Rae, of “Insecure.” Credit Anne Marie Fox/HBO

And will Issa and Lawrence get back together?

Will they? Who knows. But should they? Probably not — at least not right now. The most recent season of “Insecure” opens with two newly single characters, both so accustomed to the comforts of partnership that navigating the often choppy seas of dating in Los Angeles is naturally a little awkward.

Issa’s attempt at a self-described “hoe-tation,” in which she juggles multiple partners at varying levels of seriousness, only reveals her lack of experience with romantic relationships when boundaries aren’t clearly defined. As for Lawrence, his new and nearly serious relationship highlights just how wounded Issa left him. (Spoiler: In Season 1, Issa cheats on Lawrence with an old flame.)

For many, the ultimate betrayal is finding out the person you’re in a monogamous relationship with has had sex with someone else. But what this season of “Insecure” showed, particularly the heart-tugging finale, was that often both parties have had a hand at the gradual erosion of the union.

It’s clear that Issa and Lawrence love each other. If they even want to entertain the idea of getting back together, though, they’ll need to do some serious self-reflection first. IMAN STEVENSON

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Credit Chris J Ratcliffe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Is it nuts to start preparing for the apocalypse?

One strange thing about 2017 was that you could talk about preparing for the end of the world and not even have to explain why. The headlines were filled with apocalyptic scenarios — hellish wildfires, North Korean nuclear threats, melting glaciers, not to mention a long-prophesied economic collapse. As such, the popular image of the survivalist is changing, from wild-eyed cave dweller in camouflage fatigues, hoarding canned goods, to the mild-mannered executive or lawyer or insurance salesman who lives next door.

In a world where the bombproof bunker has replaced the Tesla as the hot status symbol for young Silicon Valley plutocrats, everyone, it seems, is a “prepper.” What else is on the list of must-have doomsday items? Artfully stocked bug out bags, folding kayaks, jet packs (yes, they exist), even condoms — and not just for the expected purpose, although they might come in handy for that, too. ALEX WILLIAMS

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