Exhibition and Reading
Exhibition & Reading: Kathy Acker in Seattle, 1980

Thu, 09/12/2019
6:00 PM - 21:00 Goethe Pop Up Seattle

This evening at the Goethe Pop Up Seattle is dedicated to the important experimental and feminist author and proto-Riot Grrrl Kathy Acker, who came to Seattle's Center on Contemporary Art for residencies in 1980 and 1989.
 
The exhibition is divided into three sections, presenting three thresholds in Acker’s evolution as a writer represented by three novels -- Kathy Goes to Haiti, Blood and Guts in High School, and Great Expectations -- she presented and worked on in Seattle. In collaboration with the University of Cologne, home of Acker’s personal library, the exhibition is an invitation to indulge in Acker’s writing and imagery, as well an introduction into her life as part of Seattle’s art community. Other artifacts on display include works by Acker’s contemporaries Randy Ericksen, Marilyn Stablein, and others.

The accompanying reading is a staging of a reading held by Acker with artist and poet Marilyn Stablein and writer Paul de Barros at Gary Wilkie’s Context Bookstore in 1980. The reading features all three as witnesses to the original event, reading selected texts from their missing comrade.

The exhibition is the first part of the three-day Kathy Acker in Seattle Symposium 1980-1989. The symposium is organized by Larry Reid, advocate for visual and performing arts in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, and curator and events coordinator at Seattle’s Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, and by Daniel Schulz who, most recently, completed his MA in History and English Studies at the University of Cologne with a study of Acker’s personal library, also known as the Kathy Acker Reading Room at the University of Cologne.

Find more information at