Honest Signals

Karen Finley is a New York--based artist whose raw and personal performances, literature,installations, and visual art have long provoked controversy and debate. Herperformances include I'm an Ass Man, focusing on sexual abuse and violence (1985);The Constant State of Desire (1989); A Suggestion of Madness, honoring the10th anniversary of her father's death (1988); A Certain Level of Denial, a responseto the AIDS epidemic (1992); and The American Chestnut, a parallel between theillnesses of nature and the illnesses of society (1993), for which she received a Guggenheimfellowship. Finley was one of four artists whose NEA grant applications were vetoedin 1990 due to content considered "indecent." The four sued for reinstatement ofthe grants and won the case in 1993 in the ninth circuit court in Los Angeles. Thisruling was appealed and the case went to the Supreme Court and lost, in a decision thatallowed the government to place restrictions on funding based on "decency standards."Finley wrote and performed The Return of the Chocolate-Smeared Woman, arebuttal to Jesse Helms, in 1998 during the Supreme Court proceedings. She has madenumerous dance records and has written and directed plays, among them The Theoryof Total Blame (1988) and The Lamb of God Hotel (1992). She is the author ofShock Treatment (City Lights, 1990), Enough Is Enough (Poseidon, 1993), PoohUnplugged (Smart Art Press, 1999), A Different Kind of Intimacy: The CollectedWritings of Karen Finley (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2000), and has editedand contributed to Aroused: A Collection of Erotic Writings (Thunder's MouthPress, 2001).