Since her first novel, I Love Dick, was published in 1997, peripatetic but decidedly L.A.-based art writer Chris Kraus has enjoyed a sort of cult following among the grittier elements of the artsy West Coast intelligentsia. Kraus was an early practitioner of a now-familiar, hybrid kind of prose and e.e. cummings–style, on-page choreography that does double duty as evocative art criticism. Her surprisingly (for critique) energetic and tumultuous writings are both investigations of, and inspired by, the socially engaged and genre-blurring art and artists she studies, so it makes sense that tonight's reading is presented by an art magazine (Artillery) at a hotel (the Standard) known for embracing cutting-edge culture. Chris Kraus: Where Art Belongs — her newest release from smarty-pants indie press Semiotext(e) — more than lives up to her reputation for crafting full-throttle literary art criticism. Her treatments of artists as far-flung and stylistically diverse as Jorge Pardo and the Bernadette Corporation meld with memoir-inflected reportage, the better to prove by example that everything comes down to context.

Tue., March 22, 7-9 p.m., 2011

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