I was recently introduced to the publishing house “semiotext(e)” by a friend of mine, who recommended that I read I Love Dick by Chris Kraus. Still being in the world of art criticism and essays from reading Rich Texts, I was interested in the vast array of topics that semiotext(e) covered, as well as the interesting scope of authors on their website.
I found out that I Love Dick was arguably Kraus’ most popular piece, but I was totally unfamiliar with her writing style and voice. So, I began with her books Where Art Belongs, and Video Green: Los Angeles and the Triumph of Nothingness, both of which fell within more traditional boundaries of art criticism. They also left generous room for artistic experimentation within the focus of the text, allowing Kraus to draw several connecting lines between the personal, political, and the artistic.
Although these two books were very interesting, I agree with the general public that I Love Dick is Chris Kraus’ best work. The book operates as a middle ground between autobiography, fiction, art criticism, non-fiction, and memoir, with enough artistic finesse being given to allow all to exist and breathe their own air. The basis of the story revolves around Chris and her (now ex) husband Sylvère Lotringer’s obsession with the mystery character of “Dick” (who, upon further research, is revealed to be popular subculture/punk writer Dick Hebidge). They both have a spontaneous soirée with Dick at his house in California, and, after spending the night at his place (Chris develops a massive crush), are forced to deal with their deathly interest in a man that is either very hard to reach, or wants nothing to do with the two (the latter proves to be true as the story progresses). Their solution to this overnight progression of a one-sided relationship is to write imaginary letters to Dick where the two dish out all of their hyper-personal thoughts and fantasies about Dick in combination with their daily routines as artists and writers (if you choose to read the book, it is important to note that it was Sylvère’s idea to begin these letters, even though it was Chris who expressed intense sexual attraction towards Dick).
Chris and Sylvère are being both intensely romantic, and quietly relatable towards Dick, leaving his imaginary responses in a limbo between erotic fanfiction and harmless narration of his academic workings. This paradigm of intensity and banality opens space for the transactional genres to become more prominent. I argue that the sexual tension within the letters exists in the “fictional” realm of the genres, while the real life elements of the book, such as Chris and Sylvère’s relationship, their jobs, their friends, etc. outlines the idea of autobiography. Somewhere in between these two, Chris finds space for art criticism and theory that outlines the mechanisms of the previous two genres, specifically how they operate in a relational sense.
In the beginning of the book, we are introduced to a blatant aspect of the autobiographical, with the narrator saying off-handedly: “Tuesday that term was the day that Chris Kraus and Sylvère Lotringer spent in Pasadena, teaching at Art Center College of Design” (Kraus 24). The utilization of the full names of Chris and Sylvère solidifies their characters in direct relation to the people that they are outside of the book. In this sense, there is a big difference between “Chris and Sylvère” and “Chris Kraus and Sylvère Lotringer,” as the latter refers to their names as academics, authors, and artists, therefore allowing all subsequent actions by them to fall in relation to the personalities, biases, and arguments they express within their work. With sentences such as these, Kraus is allowing the real life routines (autobiographical/memoir) to infiltrate the intensity of the letters to Dick, therefore providing secret layers of context that inform the research of each individual’s writing.
Regarding the voice and genre of art criticism, it most strongly comes out in the chapter titled “K**e Art” (censored), where Chris spends 19 pages diving into the painting practice of R.B. Kitaj. This criticism is centered around his exhibition at the Met. Chris occupies the general (perceived) language of an art critic, saying things such as “the viewer encounters the first in a series of large-scale placards explaining Kitaj’s strange career” and “But Kitaj’s paintings never pander and they aren’t disappointing” (Kraus 188,189). Most importantly, all of her sophisticated observations around a controversial practice take place within a letter to Dick, with the beginning of the chapter addressing Dick directly: “He’s a painter you’re probably familiar with because he lived so many years in London” (186). This wistfully illustrates the transactional relationship between Chris’ assertion of her individual self (art criticism), and her background connection to Dick (medium for the art criticism to exist within).
There are two sides to this chapter. On the one hand, Chris is simply sharing with Dick what she did that day of March 14th 1996, and on the other, Chris Kraus is also providing a detailed criticism of what she saw and experienced that day. The chapter goes back and forth between direct, personal addresses to Dick that are tainted in intimacy, and complete indulgence in painting and creative thought. The unpredictable seamlessness of these transitions is what makes I Love Dick so interesting and intriguing.
Within these thoughts around art criticism, Chris continuously inserts theoretical thought, speaking to her relationship with Sylvère (a French theorist), as well as her own research. While I am not familiar with the references she makes, they occupy a similar field as they become backdrops and foundations for the more personal aspects of the novel, providing a framework for how these personal things are meant to unfold.
The idea of fiction within I Love Dick is very loose, as you slowly come to realize that all of the details that make the story are completely autobiographical. It is more useful to outline Chris Kraus’ use of fiction as being embodied through the quality of obsessiveness akin to the language within the letters.
The fiction here comes from the idea that the relationship that Chris and Sylvère desire from Dick is entirely unattainable; not from Dick, and not from anybody. Chris is not a fool, and she realizes the impossibility of a symbiotic obsession, therefore choosing to use it as a means of empowerment, superiority, and individuality. She puts herself in a dominant position, where Dick becomes more of her imaginary play-thing that she can string along (imaginatively) when she wants to, and use the idea of him to further her personal development (i.e: realizing her individuality and divorcing Sylvère). This is where the feminist notions of I Love Dick come into play, with Chris subverting the notion that the reciprocation of affection and desire from the male counterpart dictates the general well being of the female main character. Instead, it can be argued that Dick’s rejection pushes Chris’ further, and allows her to write this book in its entirety, therefore furthering her career. She refuses the plot from making her into another woeful woman, rejected by the man she yearned for so dearly, and rather chooses to use his rejection as a vehicle for creation.
Her dominance over Dick, and refusal to allow his ignorance to make her uncontrollably depressed, comes out in a letter on page 75: “Dear Dick, I’m not sure I still want to fuck you. At least, not in the same way. Sylvère keeps talking about us disturbing your ‘fragility’ but I’m not sure I agree. There’s nothing so remarkable in one more woman adoring you. It’s a ‘problem’ you’re confronting all the time. I’m just a particularly annoying one, one who refuses to behave…” In this letter, Chris begins to adopt a tone of mockery towards Dick, one which drives her towards a sense of purpose in the rest of the letters. They begin to leave the realm of unreciprocated longing, and enter an idea of a fully fleshed novel, that merely rests on the framework of letters to some man who’s only significance is in the address.
With all of these examples in mind, the book is, above all, entertaining. It encapsulates the state of mind of a harmless crush, and exaggerates it in a way that speaks to a sense of humanness, one that is specific to Chris Kraus’ position in general society, and the inner workings of the art world. It is Chris’ ability to take the most recent idea presented in the novel, and stretch it to new boundaries, new genres, and new corollaries, that makes I Love Dick occupy such a highly specific world of literature.
