Irresponsible Magician

As any good magician or psychoanalyst knows, it's the deliberate chalking of a particular square that allows for the discovery of personal order and private mythology. -- fromThe Irresponsible Magician

Sharp, acerbic, and often humorous, Rebekah Rutkoff's writings about contemporary culture reflect the present in ways reminiscent of Renata Adler's and Joan Didion's writings about urban life in the late twentieth century. Moving freely between fact and fiction, utilizing imaginary interviews, accidental stories, and critical essays,The Irresponsible Magician approaches psychoanalysis and celebrity on a first-name basis. Writing about cultural figures as diverse as Oprah Winfrey, Michel Auder, the Kennedy women, William Eggleston, Gregory Markopulos, and Hilda Doolittle, Rutkoff interprets protagonists as if they were figures in a dream. Navigating a world of painting, cable television, video art, avant-garde film, memories, or Rutkoff's own photographs, these texts read images like tea leaves, opening up a space in which shadows speak more eloquently than symbols or signs.

Rebekah Rutkoff is a New York-based writer, artist, and teacher. She is currently completing books on the American filmmakers Robert Beavers and Gregory Markopoulos and is the editor of a forthcoming volume of writings by and about Beavers. Her work has appeared in publications including Artforum, Bookforum, Fence, Animal Shelter, and World Picture. She is the recipient of a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for a new project on the artist Lillian Schwartz.