Semiotext(e) Saturday
Join us for a reading and talk with an eclectic and international group of writers. Hedi El Kholti and Chris Kraus, co-editors and stewards of Semiotext(e), shall share the afternoon with Constance Debré, Jane Delynn, Jennifer Doyle, William E. Jones, Jarett Kobek, Veronica Gonzalez Peña, John Tottenham, Noura Wedell, and others to read short excerpts from the independent press’ backlist of 200+ titles published over the last fifty years.
This event celebrates Desert Islands—Semiotext(e)‘s Bookshelf Residency at ICA LA that spotlights the iconic work of this Los Angeles-based press. Founded in 1974 by the late writer and critic Sylvère Lotringer, Semiotext(e) is known for its provocative, timely, and dazzling mix of contemporary art, philosophy, queer culture, literature, analysis, and activism.
These readings will accompany an in-depth conversation with Semiotext(e)’s managing editor, artist, and writer Hedi El Kholti and writer and co-editor Chris Kraus; moderated by Lauren Mackler, independent curator.
Born in Rabat, Morocco in 1967, Hedi El Kholti is a writer, artist and editor. Moving to LA from Paris in 1992 he worked in the film industry before attending ArtCenter College of Design. Since 2004 he has been a co-editor and Managing Editor of Semiotext(e), expanding the scope of the press, creating the magazine Animal Shelter, an occasional journal of art, sex and literature and the Intervention Series.
Chris Kraus is the author of five novels, most recently The Four Spent the Day Together. She has published three books of art and cultural criticism and the literary biography After Kathy Acker. She is a co-editor of Semiotext(e) and lives in LA.
Lauren Mackler is a French-American curator, writer, and designer based in Los Angeles. She has organized exhibitions and catalogues for MOCA LA, the Hammer Museum, MCA Chicago, Frieze Projects, Artissima, the MAK Center, and MoMA PS1. She co-organized Made in L.A. 2020 at the Hammer Museum and The Huntington. Mackler has been on faculty at Art Center, SVA, UCLA, and Otis, and served as managing editor of Sublevel, CalArts’ literary magazine. Her writing has appeared in Frieze, BOMB, Flash Art, and Numéro, among others. She is the co-editor of Reynaldo Rivera: Provisional Notes for a Disappeared City, Propiedad Privada, and the forthcoming issue of Animal Shelter, published by Semiotext(e). In 2010, she founded Public Fiction, a forum for staging exhibitions, performances, and programs by contemporary artists and writers, as well as a print journal.
