Karen Finley - The Dreams of Laura Bush & The Passion of Terri Schiavo
Saturday 18th February
In The Dreams of Laura Bush, Karen Finley performs a reconstructed first person illustrated dream journal of America's First Lady. Mrs. Bush has dreams with a cast of celebrities and politicians including Tony Blair and Goldie Hawn.
The Passion of Terri Schiavo is based on a recent news story which captivated the American public. Finley's live action ink drawing becomes the abstracted soul projection of a culture obsessed with saving Terri Shiavo. Terri became brain dead and was kept alive by a feeding tube. Her husband sued in order to allow her to die, and then her parents counter-sued to keep her body alive.
Throughout her career, from earlier and now iconic pieces such as A Constant State of Desire to her most recent work, Finley has fought for the human right to freedom of expression, and has harnessed the power of live performance to critique social conventions and beliefs. She was one of four artists whose NEA grant applications were vetoed due to content considered indecent
. Finley and the other three artists sued for reinstatement and won the case in 1993 in the ninth circuit court in Los Angeles. The ruling was appealed and the case went to the Supreme Court and lost, in a decision that allowed the government to place restrictions on funding based on decency standards
.
Besides her numerous performances, plays, installations and artworks Finley has also made dance and spoken word recordings alone and in collaboration with various artists including Jerry Hunt and Sinead O'Connor. She has appeared in many independent films and in the film Philadelphia. She is currently a Professor at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. For the 2004 U.S. election Finley created George and Martha, a performance about an affair between George Bush and Martha Stewart, which is being published as a novel later this year. She is working on a series of studies on Condoleezza Rice, which she plans to add to the pieces on Laura Bush and Terri Shiavo to form a trilogy.