WALLS & BRIDGES : CELEBRITY

THE MAGICAL SIDE OF CELEBRITY
Cécile Guilbert, Laura Kipnis, Wayne Koestenbaum
Hosted by: Paul Holdengräber

Who has never dreamed of becoming famous? What is in a famous name? Why do we love stars and icons so much and why are we fascinated by them? Aren’t fame and celebrity all relative? In the era of the Internet, do we finally have a good chance to get our 15 minutes of fame, or are we just a few clicks away from suddenly becoming ephemeral stars against our will?

Essayist and literary critic Cécile Guilbert has written outstanding essays on icons like Andy Warhol, Guy Debord and Lawrence Sterne, poet and critic Wayne Koestenbaum is the author of Andy Warhol and Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting An Icon, and cultural theorist Laura
Kipnis has recently published How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior.

CECILE GUILBERT writes essays, novels and literary criticism. Her highly personal and polymorphous work surveys the heritage of noted artists and writers. In Sans entraves et sans temps morts (With neither barriers nor time out), she shares her views on writing in a collection of brilliantly bold, ambitious literary essays. She was awarded the prix Médicis for her essay Warhol spirit, and her most recent book is Animaux & Cie.

LAURA KIPNIS is a cultural critic whose work focuses on sexual politics, emotion, acting out, bad behavior, and various other crevices of the American psyche. Her most recent book is How To Become a Scandal, and previous books include Against Love: A Polemic and The Female Thing, which have been translated into fifteen languages. Her essays have appeared in Slate, Harper’s, The Nation, Playboy, and The New York Times Magazine, and she has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. She is a professor in the Radio/TV/Film Department at Northwestern, where she teaches filmmaking.

WAYNE KOESTENBAUM has published five books of poetry: Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films, Model Homes, The Milk of Inquiry, Rhapsodies of a Repeat Offender, and Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems. He has also published a novel, Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, and five books of nonfiction: Andy Warhol, Cleavage, Jackie Under My Skin, The Queen’s Throat, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, and Double Talk. His most recent book, Hotel Theory, is a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction, and his next book, Humiliation, will be published by Picador in Summer 2011. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center, and also a Visiting Professor in the painting department of the Yale School of Art.

PAUL HOLDENGRABER is the Director of LIVE from the NYPL

WALLS & BRIDGES
TRANSATLANTIC INSIGHTS
debates, readings, performances
http://www.wallsandbridges.net/en

Over the course of three 10-day series in 2011 in New York City, WALLS & BRIDGES, curated by the Villa Gillet and presented by the Conseil de la Création artistique will present nearly 50 cultural events, combining about 100 speakers and artists, 30 partners and over 20 venues.

The Villa Gillet (Lyon, France) is a unique cultural institute interested in thought in all its expressions. It brings together artists, writers, novelists and researchers from all over the world to encourage public debate on the big issues facing the world today.

The Conseil de la Création artistique is a laboratory for cultural experimentation created by the French Government in 2009 whose aim is to support innovative projects in the cultural field.