Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is delighted to present a talk by LA based writer and art critic Chris Kraus on Monday, August 18th at 7PM. Kraus will present on her recent book of art criticism Kelly Lake Store and Other Stories (2013). The event is free and all are welcome.

Selected by curator Richard Birkett for White Columns’ “Best of New York” exhibition, Kelly Lake Store challenges received ideas about social practice and participant art. In it, Kraus expands ideas first explored in the 2012 Artists Space exhibition “Radical Localism: Art, Media and Culture from Pueblo Nuevo’s Mexicali Rose,” that she co-curated with Birkett and Marco Vera.

In this charged, observational essay, Kraus shuttles between “outpost” locales in northern Baja, where the word “culture” connotes a family and personal history as well as high art; an abandoned country store in northern Minnesota; and international MFA programs and research centers where she observes a trend towards activities that have little or nothing to do with visual art.

Questioning Jerry Saltz’s celebration of “Post-Art,” Kraus argues that the art world has become the last refuge for the humanities and its debased professions of social work, school-teaching, translation and literature.

Chris Kraus is the author of four novels, most recently Summer of Hate, and two books of art and cultural criticism. Her monograph “Lost Properties” on conceptual art and economic activism was produced as part of Semiotexte’s contribution to the 2014 Whitney Biennial. She is a co-editor of Semiotexte and writes for various magazines. She lives in LA and spends summers in northern Minnesota.