Karen Finley is an icon of American Performance Art, and WordSpace is excited to present her on April 1 at The Kessler Theater.
In Dallas, Karen Finley will take on the role of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in The Jackie Look, one of her “Persona Series.” Other texts in that series have examined such figures as Terry Schiavo and Laura Bush. As Mrs. Onassis, Finley examines our culture’s fascination with images of trauma. When she performed The Jackie Look at the Eli Broad Museum in Los Angeles, Charles McNulty, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said, “She is at her most persuasive when most wayward…[S]he is never more dangerous than when wielding herself as a theatrical weapon.”
Finley began her career in San Francisco as part of that city’s punk scene in the late 1970’s. When she moved to New York City, she collaborated with The Kipper Kids and David Wojnarowicz , and at the legendary club Danceteria, where she also worked, she performed some of her earliest monologues to a disco beat. Her material was revelatory, political, shocking, and unsparing. She broke taboos in monologs on topics ranging from her father’s suicide to child abuse to the female body. Her performances have always been a flashpoint for honors and controversy. In 1990, Senator Jesse Helms included her among artists whose “indecent” work had been awarded grants by the National Endowment of the Arts. The grants that they were denied were restored by the Supreme Court in 1993.
This will be Ms. Finley first appearance in Dallas since she performed at The Theater Gallery and the Starck Club in the 1980’s. Please join WordSpace in welcoming her back. Following The Jackie Look, Ms. Finley will be signing books at the Kessler.
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