American author Kathy Acker was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Working through an experimental and avant-garde tradition, she wrote numerous novels, essays, poems, and novellas from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. As a postmodernist, plagiarist, and post-punk feminist, she continues to inspire generations of writers, philosophers, and artists. Get Rid of Meaning is the first comprehensive publication on Acker’s work from an artistic and literary perspective. It includes previously unpublished material from Acker’s personal archive and other collections. The publication is the compilation of a multipart research project including an exhibition and a symposium at Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe.

With contributions from: Kathy Acker, Eleanor Antin, Dodie Bellamy, Hanjo Berressem, Ruth Buchanan, William S. Burroughs, Anja Casser, Georgina Colby, Leslie Dick, Claire Finch, Johnny Golding, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Anja Kirschner, Chris Kraus, Sylvère Lotringer, Douglas A. Martin, Jason McBride, Karolin Meunier & Kerstin Stakemeier, Avital Ronell, Carolee Schneemann, Daniel Schulz, Matias Viegener & McKenzie Wark.

“Containing, restraining, reforming, hurting, compressing, binding, transforming a lumpy shape into a clean smooth line,” is how American artist Christina Ramberg once described the drawings of corsets in her sketchbooks. Ramberg was one of the most intriguing painters to emerge within a generation of Chicago Imagists. She left a significant body of comic, formally elegant, erotically sinister paintings.

Produced on the occasion of The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 14 September, 2019–5 January 2020. Christina Ramberg’s work was shown alongside of other artistic positions such as Alexandra Bircken, Sara Deraedt, Gaylen Gerber, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Konrad Klapheck, Ghislaine Leung, Hans-Christian Lotz, Senga Nengudi, Ana Pellicer, Richard Rezac, Diane Simpson, Terre Thaemlitz, Kathleen White.

With texts from Dodie Bellamy, Kathrin Bentele, Jen George, Larne Abse Gogarty, Anna Gritz, Judith Russi Kirshner & Léon Kruijswijk.

“Richard Porter’s Queer Anthology of Healing is a subtle, devastating mix of cuteness and embarrassment, beauty and confession, magic tricks and pain. The artworks and writings in this collection suggest that healing can be achieved through revelation, invocation, observation and disclosure. It’s a much-needed gift right now.”—Chris Kraus

With Clay AD, Harry Agius, Barney Ashton-Bullock, Dodie Bellamy, Jack Bigglestone, Nick Blackburn, Helen Cammock, Charity Coleman, Swithun Cooper, Paul Gabrielli, Evan Garza, Erica Gillingham, Daniel Givens, Pete Hammond, Benedict Hawkins, Georgie Henley, Lubaina Himid, Fanny Howe, Jasmine Johnson, G.B. Jones, Kevin Killian, Wayne Koestenbaum, Nic Lachance, Olivia Laing, Benedict Leader, Paul Lee, Mary Manning, Ben Miller, D. Mortimer, Monique Mouton, Annie Murrells, Chuck Nanney, David Nash, Isobel Neviazsky, Paul P., Richard Porter, Peter Scalpello, Hyacinth Schuss, Ryan Skelton, Verity Spott, Edward Thomasson, Timothy Thornton, Declan Wiffen, Ian Wooldridge

Dodie Bellamy’s Cunt-Ups, first published in 2001 and recipient of the Firecracker Award for Innovative Poetry, was immediately a controversial and celebrated work. Using the “cut-up” method of William S. Burroughs, Cunt-Ups is a work of sex magick, based on source texts from old lovers and Jeffery Dahmer transcriptions. The resulting spell queers everything around it.

The Bigness of Things surveys the intersection of New Narrative, San Francisco’s queer-and-punk-infused writing avant-garde, and visual culture, through photographs and essays on visual art, literary journals, and film. Including essays by Matt Sussman, Brandon Callender, Jamie Townsend, Stephanie Young, Ismail Muhammad, Syd Staiti, Brandon Brown; art from the Homes of Bruce Boone, Robert Glück, Jocely Saidenberg, Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian; and stills from the Films of Marc Huestis, Abigail Child, Cecilia Dougherty, and Leslie Singer.

Driven by the central question “What are we learning from artists today?” the first volume of the new series edited by Anthony Huberman and Jeanne Gerrity at the CCA Wattis, A Series of Open Questions, is informed by themes found in the work of Dodie Bellamy, such as contemporary forms of feminism and sexuality, the rebirth of the author, and ways in which vulnerability, perversion, vulgarity, and self-exposure can be forms of empowerment. With texts By Sara Ahmed, Nicole Archer, Georges Bataille, Dodie Bellamy, Michele Carlson, Thomas Clerc, Combahee River Collective, Bob Flanagan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Johanna Hedva, Glen Helfand, Juliana Huxtable, Alex Kitnick, Julia Kristeva, Audre Lorde, Lisa Robertson and comprises a broad array of contributions by Marcela Pardo Ariza, Justin G. Binek, Kaucyila Brooke, Tammy Rae Carland, Mary Beth Edelson, Mike Kuchar, Anne Mcguire, Patrick Staff, Frances Stark, Rosemarie Trockel.

Designed by Scott Ponik.