Chris Kraus Livres

« Dans la lignée des Bienveillantes de Jonathan Littell ou de Cent ans de solitude de Gabriel García Márquez, un roman hors normes, une fresque exubérante et tragique, pleine de passion, de sang et de larmes, qui retrace tout un pan du XXe siècle, de Riga à Tel Aviv en passant par Auschwitz et Paris. A travers l'histoire de Koja, Hubert et Ev Solm, deux frères et leur soeur, sorte de ménage à trois électrique, Chris Kraus nous entraîne dans des zones d'ombre où morale et droiture sont violemment bafouées, et dresse en creux le portrait d'une Europe à l'agonie, soumise à de nouvelles règles du jeu. Une oeuvre impressionnante, magnum opus sur le déclin d'une époque et la naissance d'une nouvelle ère.»--quatrième de couverture

Un film sur le sexe. Brut et radical. À New York. C'est la tâche qui est confiée à Jonas, un étudiant en réalisation débordé. Comment peut-il tourner un film dans le coin le plus sombre de la Lower East Side, entouré d'existences artistiques échouées ? Sa rencontre avec Nele, une femme d'été flamboyante et obstinée, lui ouvre les yeux sur le véritable objectif de son voyage : la confrontation avec l'énorme histoire familiale qui le hante.

It's Summer, 1991, the dawning of the New World Order; a post-MTV, pre-AOL generation. Jerome Shafir and Sylvie Green, two former New Yorkers who can no longer afford an East Village apartment, set off on a journey across the entire former Soviet Bloc with the intention of adopting a Romanian orphan. Unflinchingly dark, hilarious and moving - Torpor is at once a satire and philosophy of cultural history, social identity and failing relationships. Dipping into the trajectory of a life at different moments, Kraus interrogates convention and emotion, creating characters that are flawed, witty, and altogether true to life.Part prequel, part sequel, Torpor continues a project of life-writing; personal, unsparing, and triumphant. If I Love Dick is the book of your 20s, Torpor is the book of your 30s.

Exploring the intersection of art and personal relationships, the essays delve into the complexities of human connections and the contrasting experiences of freedom and confinement. The author reflects on a decade-long friendship, revealing how their lives intertwine through shared moments in a bar, underscored by the act of smoking Marlboros. The work challenges conventional notions of borders, emphasizing the tangible realities of life and art.

First published in 2000, 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. As Palle Yourgrau writes in the book's new foreword, 'Kraus's rescue operation for aliens like Weil from behind enemy lines on planet Earth is a gift, if, in the end, like all good deeds, it remains-as Weil herself would be the first to insist-a fool's errand.'

Catt, a Californian intellectual fleeing an unbearable BDSM relationship, decides to renovate low-cost apartments in Albuquerque. For the work, she hires Paul, ten years her junior, a former drug addict who has been to prison. She tries to prevent him from relapsing. The story of a love in a fractured, violent, and unequal American society.

The cult novel adored by feminists and fashionistas alike, now in paperback.

A provocative and timely new take on self-portraiture and erotica Featuring a black vinyl cover with gold foil stamping, Say So brings together American artist Whitney Hubbs' (born 1977) recent self-portraits, made in the style of cheap, pornographic pin-up photography. After her acclaimed book Woman in Motion, in which she photographed models, Say So continues her quest to explore and challenge the relationship between the camera and the female body. In it, she uses and abuses her own body to revealing effect in masochistic (BDSM) performances which sit at the intersection of eroticism and humiliation and are wonderfully uncomfortable to digest. Using the camera as both an audience and a mirror, Hubbs positions her work within a long tradition of artists using photographic self-portraiture--from Claude Cahun to Valie Export and Boris Mikhailov--and reworks its language with a stripped-down, rowdy formalism that pays homage to her Riot Grrrl past. Say So offers up an outside position (drenched in inky black humor) responding to precarity, loneliness and marginalization in a world badly off its tilt. Hubbs' photographic work is accompanied by a new essay by iconic writer and critic Chris Kraus, author of the seminal novel I Love Dick.

Jesko ist ein junger Modedesigner. Gesellschaftlichen Normen und Zwängen beugt er sich nicht – schon gar nicht, seit er weiß, dass seine Tage gezählt sind. Seine Mutter könnte ihm helfen. Doch Jesko will ihre Hilfe nicht. Da nützt es auch nichts, dass der Vater ihm bei einer Familienfeier gut zuredet. Einzig die geheimnisvolle Freundin seines Bruders schafft es, Zugang zu Jesko zu finden. Ein bewegender Roman über die Traumafabrik Familie – zärtlich, komisch, gnadenlos.

Sie waren beste Freundinnen, starteten gemeinsam eine Bühnenkarriere, doch dann kam der Bruch. Sonja, genannt Sonne, wurde von Jana von Mond verraten. Jahre später steht Jana – inzwischen ein Comedy-Star – vor der Tür von Sonnes Bestattungsunternehmen und bittet sie, die Trauerfeier für ihren Liebsten auszurichten. Alte Wunden brechen auf, neue werden zugefügt. Die Sonne und die Mond können ihre Umlaufbahn nicht verlassen, sie leuchten weiter, jede auf ihre Art, mal kalt, mal warm.