Kristine McKenna is a widely published critic and journalist who wrote for the Los Angeles Times from 1977 through 1998. Her profiles and criticism have appeared in Artforum, The New York Times, Artnews, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone Magazine, and in 2001 a collection of her interviews, Book of Changes, was published by Fantagraphics. A second volume of interviews, Talk To Her, came out in 2004. She was co-curator of Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & his Circle, a group exhibition that opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2005, and traveled to five U.S. museums, and she co-edited the monograph, Wallace Berman Photographs, which was selected as one of the 50 best art books of 2007 by AIGA. In 2009 she launched the publishing imprint, Foggy Notion Books, in partnership with designer Lorraine Wild, and editor Donna Wingate, and that same year her book, The Ferus Gallery: A Place to Begin, was published by Steidl. She edited a monograph on work by Ann Summa, The Beautiful & the Damned: Punk Photographs by Ann Summa, that was published in fall of 2010 by Foggy Notion Books. She produced and co-wrote The Cool School, a documentary about L.A.’s first avant-garde gallery that was released in 2009, and that year she organized She: Work by Wallace Berman & Richard Prince, an exhibition at Michael Kohn Gallery, and edited the exhibition catalogue, published by D.A.P. Her 2011 survey exhibition of photographer Charles Brittin, at Michael Kohn Gallery, was accompanied by the monograph, Charles Brittin: West & South, published by Hatje Canz. In 2011, she edited The Collected Writing of Richard Prince, for Foggy Notion Books, and in 2012 co-edited Notes From a Revolution: Comco, the Diggers & the Haight, published by Foggy Notion/Fulton Ryder, Inc, She is presently working on Feelin’ Groovy: Clothing & Costume in the American ’60s, Panic in Detroit: Leni Sinclair’s Photographs of the Michigan Underground, 1963-1973, a compilation of writings on Jewish mysticism, and Los Angeles in the ‘60s: Images from the LAPD Photo Archive.

Optional prep for Christine’s visit:
Find out about the film she produced and co-wrote, The Cool School, and watch the trailer here.