- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Running Press; illustrated edition edition (Nov 1 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1560252936
- ISBN-13: 978-1560252931
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.3 x 2.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 603 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,592,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In 1978, Karen Finley was arrested while portraying "a mix of red-light-district prostitute and locked-up psychopath" in the window of a defunct JC Penney. This was, as she puts it, "the beginning of my career causing psychic disturbances." In a retrospective that should appeal to fans and scholars of performance art, Finley, well-known as one of the NEA 4, presents the full scope of her socially conscious art, from performance texts and elaborate installations to segments of her already-published parodies of the self-help movement and Winnie-the-Pooh. Her direct imagery has forced her audience to look at the hopelessness of the disenfranchised, the cruelty of misogyny and the heartbreaking self-betrayal in a victim's own sense of shame. In short, muddled transitional essays, Finley describes her growth as an artist in the pressure cooker created by an eight-year First Amendment battle, the AIDS crisis and her father's suicide. Numerous photographs, drawings and reproduced documents, including a copy of her father's suicide note, deliver the visual context for her writings. Often distressing and downright ugly, this collection expresses the enormous personal and creative costs Finley absorbed while fighting in the culture wars, but, better yet, it presents the "organic explosion" at the heart of her confrontational art. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"[A] retrospective that should appeal to fans and scholars of performance art." -- Publishers Weekly, October 23, 2000
"[It]ranges[s] from bitterly ammusing . . . to profoundly somber . . . it embodies the spectrum of emotions attendant to any normal personal life." -- Christina Cho, The New York Times Book Review, April 22, 2001
"[It]ranges[s] from bitterly ammusing . . . to profoundly somber . . . it embodies the spectrum of emotions attendant to any normal personal life." -- Christina Cho, The New York Times Book Review, April 22, 2001
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Nothing Deeper than a Jerry Springer Confession,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Different Kind Of Intimacy: The Collected Writings Of Karen Finley (Paperback)
What has Finley really done for Feminisim other than perpetuate this idea of a molested angry female on the verge of tears?Just another semi-biographic book from a women that can only talk about herself and what men have done to her. If you want to feel sorry for yourself or hide it in fits of anger, read this book. She offers no solutions, and no resolution, because she ultimately cannot handle resolution. Without conflict and hate, she's a shell of a person and so is her writings.
5.0 out of 5 stars
In your face senator Helmes,
By Ricky R Renn, yag66@webtv.net (Atlanta Georgia, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Different Kind Of Intimacy: The Collected Writings Of Karen Finley (Paperback)
I saw Karen Finley in Charleston SC years ago. I had no idea what to expect....I had never heard of her before. The tardy Ms. Finley entered the auditorium from the back, totally naked. I knew then that she was like no other person on earth. She yelled and screamed her stories, her anger , her pain....our pain....to the gods above. Through out the performance she gradually clothed herself until she ended the performance fully dressed. I was dumbfounded, changed...and I fully understood how her nudity was necessary to her art...to her connection with her audience. For years I search for information on this woman, hoping to see another performance....to again experience what I felt that night. Catharsis. I was thrilled when an internet search brought me here, to her memoirs. This book did not disappoint. It gave great insight into the life of this very strange, and gifted woman. Though everyone may not agree with her beliefs and politics, they have to admire her intelligence and strength. One suggestion Ms.Finley, get a website so people like myself can let you know how you've made a difference in their lives.R.Renn
5.0 out of 5 stars
The High Priestess of Confrontation, The Muse of Truth,
By
This review is from: A Different Kind Of Intimacy: The Collected Writings Of Karen Finley (Paperback)
forget what you think you know about karen finley, because unless you've actually been to one of her performances and/or read her essays, you don't know much. okay. so let's forget about the yams, the chocolate, the nudity, the naughty words and all of that. just for the space of this review, humor me. still with me? karen finley is amazing. she is the (unwilling) joan of arc of pop culture as we know it. she dared to deconstruct dysfunction, patriarchal power junkies, AIDS hysteria, sexism, homophobia....okay, you get the idea...and she tackled all these things, and so many more subjects, on a human level, on a confrontational level, with compassion and parody combined, with anger and love combined, espousing politically correct ideas in a very unpolitically correct voice during very PC times. while this book is not a "compilation", per se, it is a kind of experimental autobiography, with big chunks of finley's work interspersed throughout - sort of a show and tell exhibit in a book. it works. it's immensely, addictively readable, and quite user-friendly for such a confrontational artist. the only frustration i had with this work was the ending, which frustrated and disappointed me, though the discouraging ending could easily be yet another performance art prank served finley style.....
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