{"id":76498,"date":"2019-05-08T13:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=76498"},"modified":"2019-05-10T08:28:43","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T08:28:43","slug":"kathy-acker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/kathy-acker\/","title":{"rendered":"Wie das radikale Verm\u00e4chtnis der Post-Punk-Literaturikone Kathy Acker weiterlebt"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,4568,10172,139],"tags":[1217,525,4459,1072,10240,12757,12756,249,2876,10307,12758,12761,3543,12759,3438,12762,12760,1045,865,8224,1271,4967],"class_list":["post-76498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-culture","category-film","category-art","tag-america","tag-chris-kraus","tag-david-wojnarowicz","tag-exhibition","tag-experimental","tag-feminist-writing","tag-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-kathy-acker","tag-ica","tag-institute-of-contemporary-arts-london","tag-kathy-acker","tag-kathy-acker-the-last-interview-other-conversations","tag-lecacy","tag-literature","tag-maggie-nelson","tag-mythology","tag-olivia-laing","tag-penny-goring","tag-performance","tag-punk","tag-reba-maybury","tag-subculture","tag-writing"],"acf":{"main_category":4568,"legacy":false,"exclude_from_ads":[],"hero_title":"","subtitle":"As a new exhibition opens at London's ICA, Lorena Mu\u00f1oz-Alonso traces the impact the trailblazing American writer has had on future generations of writers and artists \u2014\u00a0and where you might least expect it ","hero":{"video":false,"image":{"ID":76503,"id":76503,"title":"Portrait of Kathy Acker, San Francisco, 1991. 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It\u2019s difficult to establish whether experimental American writer Kathy Acker is making a comeback as the media seems keen to purport, or if she actually ever left. In her lifetime, Acker achieved a level of popular success rarely attained by avant-garde, subversive writers \u2014 even if she considered her invitation to the establishment as tokenistic. After her premature death in 1997, of breast cancer aged just 50, her unpublished fiction and non-fiction works finally saw the light, readers were compiled (notably <\/span>Essential Acker<\/span><\/i>, selected by Amy Scholder and Dennis Cooper), and even a film essay, Barbara Casper\u2019s punchy <\/span>Who\u2019s Afraid of Kathy Acker?<\/span><\/i>, was released in 2008. On the other hand, for a generation too young to have enjoyed her prolific output and exploits in the 1980s and \u201890s, it might have been Chris Kraus\u2019<\/a> coruscating biography, <\/span>After Kathy Acker<\/span><\/i>, published in 2017, which provided the perfect initiation to this godmother of so many contemporary anxieties and traits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, London’s ICA is adding another layer to this historicising endeavour with <\/span>I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Kathy Acker.<\/span><\/a> This powerful exhibition, which opened last week, explores Acker\u2019s literary and performative work whilst situating it in dialogue with some coeval artists, such as David Wojnarowicz, Ellen Cantor, Reza Abdoh and Genesis P-Orridge. What propels this show into an even more productive and un-nostalgic terrain is that it also seeks to trace the seeds of Acker\u2019s vision (and mission) in artists and writers working today. The shrewd selection includes apt entries such as Linda Stupart, Caspar Heinemann, Precious Okoyomon, Candice Lin, Patrick Staff, Jamie Crewe and <\/span>Reba Maybury<\/span><\/a>. Another artist in the line-up is Penny Goring, who straddles both generations in terms of age and production.<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":[{"ID":76502,"id":76502,"title":"EPSON MFP image","filename":"Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","filesize":1042166,"url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/kathy-acker\/epson-mfp-image-4\/","alt":"","author":"1","description":"","caption":"","name":"epson-mfp-image-4","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":76498,"date":"2019-05-08 11:59:43","modified":"2019-05-08 12:04:31","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1277,"height":1920,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","thumbnail-width":64,"thumbnail-height":96,"medium":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","medium-width":1277,"medium-height":1920,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","medium_large-width":1277,"medium_large-height":1920,"large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","large-width":1277,"large-height":1920,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","1536x1536-width":1022,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","2048x2048-width":1277,"2048x2048-height":1920,"trp-custom-language-flag":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","trp-custom-language-flag-width":8,"trp-custom-language-flag-height":12,"wpvr_mobile":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-In-Memoriam-to-Identity-1990.jpg","wpvr_mobile-width":1277,"wpvr_mobile-height":1920}},{"ID":76501,"id":76501,"title":"EPSON MFP image","filename":"Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","filesize":1009808,"url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/kathy-acker\/epson-mfp-image-3\/","alt":"","author":"1","description":"","caption":"","name":"epson-mfp-image-3","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":76498,"date":"2019-05-08 11:59:01","modified":"2019-05-08 12:04:37","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1331,"height":1920,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","thumbnail-width":67,"thumbnail-height":96,"medium":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","medium-width":1331,"medium-height":1920,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","medium_large-width":1331,"medium_large-height":1920,"large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","large-width":1331,"large-height":1920,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","1536x1536-width":1065,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","2048x2048-width":1331,"2048x2048-height":1920,"trp-custom-language-flag":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","trp-custom-language-flag-width":8,"trp-custom-language-flag-height":12,"wpvr_mobile":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-Empire-of-the-Senseless-1988.jpg","wpvr_mobile-width":1331,"wpvr_mobile-height":1920}}],"settings":{"fit_width":"4","caption":"EPSON MFP images"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

But I won\u2019t go on to describe what’s on view at the ICA and whether it made sense for it to be there, curatorially speaking \u2014 although I felt it totally did, in case you are curious. Because the brief given to me for this piece was not a review of the show, but a feature on \u201cAcker\u2019s legacy\u201d \u2014\u00a0 a remit as broad as anyone could imagine. Helpfully, though, Acker was asked a similar question in her last interview, given to Kasia Boddy a couple of months before her death: what did she think she had given other writers?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve freed other writers,\u201d Acker replied. \u201cI think it\u2019s different with men and women. But I broke rules [\u2026] What is said to me most often is that people felt freed by my writing to do what they want to do rather than what they are told to do. Here I\u2019m guessing, but I think for women, there\u2019s this real empowerment. Coming out of the \u201860s and \u201870s women so felt that they had to write in certain ways, that they couldn\u2019t talk about certain things, have certain attitudes. I think I gave a lot of women a lot of freedom to say I can still be strong and yet I can talk about this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":[{"ID":76499,"id":76499,"title":"Kathy Acker at ICA, 2019, Photo Tomas Rydin (1)","filename":"Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","filesize":777161,"url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/kathy-acker\/kathy-acker-at-ica-2019-photo-tomas-rydin-1\/","alt":"","author":"1","description":"","caption":"","name":"kathy-acker-at-ica-2019-photo-tomas-rydin-1","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":76498,"date":"2019-05-08 11:57:58","modified":"2019-05-08 11:57:58","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1500,"height":1001,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","thumbnail-width":128,"thumbnail-height":85,"medium":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","medium-width":1500,"medium-height":1001,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","medium_large-width":1500,"medium_large-height":1001,"large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","large-width":1500,"large-height":1001,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","1536x1536-width":1500,"1536x1536-height":1001,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","2048x2048-width":1500,"2048x2048-height":1001,"trp-custom-language-flag":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","trp-custom-language-flag-width":18,"trp-custom-language-flag-height":12,"wpvr_mobile":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Kathy-Acker-at-ICA-2019-Photo-Tomas-Rydin-1.jpg","wpvr_mobile-width":1500,"wpvr_mobile-height":1001}}],"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":"Kathy Acker at ICA, 2019. Photo: Tomas Rydin"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

I think there\u2019s a lot of truth to that statement. The spectacular rise of confessional (or \u201cautofiction\u201d) writing, a fertile literary domain where authors like Chris Kraus, Rachel Cusk, Maggie Nelson, Sheila Heti and Olivia Laing (whose recent self-fictional novel <\/span>Crudo<\/span><\/i> channels the spirit of Acker) draw from their vulnerabilities as much as their strengths, surely attests to this. Still, I\u2019m not entirely sure if there\u2019s so much real freedom to be found in the fields of visual arts and academia in a post-Acker world where anything deemed \u201coffensive\u201d is anathema \u2014 swiftly signalled, pilloried and neutralised. In fact, Acker, whose protagonists belied an ever-shifting amalgamation of personas and points of views and who considered second-wave feminism too \u201cstrident,\u201d wasn\u2019t a fan of identity politics. In the same interview, she told Boddy that she thought identity politics was \u201cvery dangerous\u201d and \u201crepulsive\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that you have to be really careful that when you are asserting identity you are only asserting in a certain time and place, and that you don\u2019t make it an absolute,\u201d she said. \u201c[\u2026] I think that my work is extremely difficult given this sign of the times because I don\u2019t fit into any identity. I can\u2019t be marketed as gay, I don\u2019t even look good in the feminist sections, and I\u2019m not ye old straight novelist. There\u2019s no way to categorise the writing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":[{"ID":76503,"id":76503,"title":"Portrait of Kathy Acker, San Francisco, 1991. Photo Kathy Brew. (3)","filename":"Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","filesize":802598,"url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/kathy-acker\/portrait-of-kathy-acker-san-francisco-1991-photo-kathy-brew-3\/","alt":"","author":"1","description":"","caption":"","name":"portrait-of-kathy-acker-san-francisco-1991-photo-kathy-brew-3","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":76498,"date":"2019-05-08 12:00:15","modified":"2019-05-08 12:03:01","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1500,"height":993,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","thumbnail-width":128,"thumbnail-height":85,"medium":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","medium-width":1500,"medium-height":993,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","medium_large-width":1500,"medium_large-height":993,"large":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","large-width":1500,"large-height":993,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","1536x1536-width":1500,"1536x1536-height":993,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","2048x2048-width":1500,"2048x2048-height":993,"trp-custom-language-flag":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","trp-custom-language-flag-width":18,"trp-custom-language-flag-height":12,"wpvr_mobile":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Portrait-of-Kathy-Acker-San-Francisco-1991.-Photo-Kathy-Brew.-3.jpg","wpvr_mobile-width":1500,"wpvr_mobile-height":993}}],"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":"Kathy Acker, San Francisco, 1991. Photo: Kathy Brew."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

Perhaps it is in less predictable realms \u2014 not sex, not identity, and not process\u2014 that one can find the spectre of Acker truly alive and kicking. One of them, for example, is the re-telling of Greek myths as a way to understand contemporary issues, from kinship and citizenship to taboo and desire. Acker was trained as a Classicist and the characters of Eurydice, Orpheus, Oedipus, Electra, Antigone and Medea recur in her novels. Mythology was huge in the literary mainstream last year, for example, which saw the publication of Madeline Miller’s take on <\/span>Circe<\/span><\/i>; Pat Barker’s retelling of the Iliad, <\/span>The Silence of the Girls<\/span><\/i>; Daisy Johnson\u2019s phenomenal version of the Oedipus myth, <\/span>Everything Under<\/span><\/i>; and Kamila Shamsie\u2019s <\/span>Home Fire<\/span><\/i>, which takes the myth of Antigone as a starting point.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another salient aspect of her oeuvre today, meanwhile, could be the anxieties towards capitalism, terrorism, populism and state control and surveillance. In her 1988 novel <\/span>Empire of the Senseless<\/span><\/i>, written in the throes of the Reagan presidency, Acker cooked up a discombobulating speculative fiction to deplore the state of America in what she called a \u201cpost-cynical\u201d period in which politicians and intelligence agencies are as much in the apocalyptic rampage consuming the world order as the terrorist cyborg protagonist. From the films of Adam Curtis and Laura Poitras to the multidisciplinary works of Trevor Paglen, Hito Steyerl, James Bridle and Sidsel Meineche Hansen (the latter\u2019s work is included in the ICA show), the preoccupation with dystopian presents is pretty much everywhere now.<\/span><\/p>\n

And there\u2019s then the person behind it all. How she relentlessly crafted her own persona: the charismatic and polarising writer as much a creation of hers as any of her books. Or her professional ambition, which propelled her forward but was constantly marred by her ambivalence towards the literary and art worlds of her time, her desire to belong hindered by disappointments in persons and scenes. Self-branding, self-exploitation and nagging ambivalence. Tell me what is more <\/span>du jour<\/span><\/i> in contemporary culture than that.<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Kathy Acker<\/span><\/i><\/a> is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London through to 4 August 2019.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

All Kathy Acker\u2019s quotes taken from her interview with Kasia Boddy, published in <\/span>Kathy Acker, The Last Interview & Other Conversations<\/span><\/i> by Melville House Publishing in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n"}]},"yoast_head":"\nHow the radical legacy of post-punk literary icon Kathy Acker lives on How the radical legacy of post-punk literary icon Kathy Acker lives on<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/kathy-acker\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How the radical legacy of post-punk literary icon Kathy Acker lives on How the radical legacy of post-punk literary icon Kathy Acker lives on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/kathy-acker\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-05-08T13:00:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-05-10T08:28:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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