Interview with Karen Finley at RE/Search
by Zora Burden
by Zora Burden
Interview with Karen Finley at RE/Search
Zora Burden: You mentioned in the introduction to Shock Treatment that in your youth, poetry had greatly influenced you, you called it “a language of resistance.” What books had you read that inspired your interest in performance art or art in general?
Karen Finley: As a young adult, I think that many of the City Lights Pocket Poets Series were very important for my development. So were a lot of the San Francisco writers: Richard Brautigan (very influential), plus Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Bob Kaufman. I think that Kaufman’s book Golden Sardine (which I wrote about in my introduction) reading that book, hearing his voice and his language-everything just changed for me. It was a combination of reading poetry, poetic language. Reading Dadaist poets like Tristan Tzara had a big influence on me as well.
ZB: What was it like for you living here in SF, working at the Condor and going to the San Francisco Art Institute? Who were your mentors there?
KF: I moved to San Francisco in the summer of 1977 and lived in North Beach right across the street from the Institute (SFAI). I think one of my interests was the history of the bohemian scene, going against the establishment. The Art Institute had a tradition of teaching new genres, performance and conceptual art; I was studying with Howard Fried. There was music coming out of the school at that time too, many Punk bands. The spirit of the school was going beyond “Color Field” painting, trying to find new directions that weren’t just focused on the object, the gallery or museum system but going out of that system.
I had a very positive experience at the Art Institute, I enjoyed it immensely. I took classes in New Genres and Performance. A lot of my mentors at that time were my peers and we worked as a community, created art together, supported each other’s performances or music, and were each other’s audience. Kathy Acker was my teacher, she was a strong influence on me, very supportive, and seemingly did not have a filter or boundary. She was very accessible, serious about language and listening and she gave me a lot of support in terms of my performance or poetic writing.
Also, Angela Davis conducted a weekly lecture that I used to “sit in” on. I think the Art Institute was her first teaching gig after her arrest. She would conduct lectures on everything from communism to Herbert Marcuse, different philosophers to revolutions. After her prepared lectures there would be a Q & A. Chris Burden also taught classes. This was late ’70s, post-Vietnam, post-disco, when Punk music was questioning everything. San Francisco was finding its own space in terms of conceptual practice, in performance and video. It was all about innovation and research, my colleagues were interested in innovating in all fields of culture toward a new way of thinking, new ways of presenting, and making work that was time-based.
ZB: Will you mention specific bands or artists that were important to you then?
KF: I loved the Mutants, they were an important band. I think the band lived across the street from the bus terminal, pre-gentrification. I loved the Dead Kennedys, The Dils, and Flipper, there were so many bands. I loved the Mabuhay Gardens. I loved Tony Labat’s work, it was incredible and Mike Osterhout’s. Bruce Pollack had a place called the A-Hole Gallery, and Tom Marioni had a museum where he demonstrated his concept of “drinking beer as art.” David Ireland had his Capp Street Project: working on his house and looking at architectural reconstruction as the poetic space of the interior. Survival Research Laboratories was very important to me, Mark Pauline. Romeo Void’s Deborah Iyall. A woman named Ivey who had her own calendar. Ruby Ray, Mark McCloud and his collection of “LSD As An Art Form.” Everybody supported each other.
ZB: What was your approach to art back then in regards to your performances?
KF: It was very serious, intentional, and very adult. There was a standard of artistic integrity. It was about artistic research and innovation in the field: your process, your progress and how you’re contributing to the discourse of art practice. So there were critiques where you’d have to defend your work, discussing the concept and content, thinking about other artists, the engagement in society, and context in the history of art. The type of work I was doing then was about feminist issues: my body, being in my early 20s, it was the presentation of the female body. I think that my first performance was: I put two cantaloupes in my bra and I was scooping out the cantaloupe, the assignment was to “do a piece with food.”
ZB: Was your work then a documentation or self-exploration of your own development and sexual awakening through your art?
KF: I think part of it was; another part of it was research. I remember going to City Lights Bookstore and the library, getting books on psychology and drama, researching certain spaces and consciously being aware of creating language and images that would be connecting to the audience or viewer. So I wouldn’t say my work was primarily a “diary” because then I would just be doing it for myself. I think I always had a relationship to the public, working within a discourse of art as a sort of social engagement or social practice.
ZB: Did your work at the Condor inform your art at all?
KF: Yes, it did. At that time I wasn’t a dancer, I was a cocktail waitress, which probably made more money than the dancers. There were others from the Art Institute working there. It was very beautiful, an art form of burlesque, it was a different time in terms of looking at standards of beauty. Each woman had a certain attribute which had a beauty or sensuality or tenderness: certain areas of their body, the way they could move, the energy of their performances. Some of the performers were older and did not have the perfect body of botox and plastic surgery. Although Carol Doda was definitely unreal, she acknowledged this, as her breasts were a very early example of silicone enhancement.
ZB: Did the audience back then react in a more appreciative way, as compared to an “objectified” way?
KF: It was more about arousal or desire: female burlesque or strip-tease wasn’t just full nudity, it was all about revealing. I found it quite beautiful; I loved this world and the freedom of the female body in this arena. Women were allowed onstage to be erotic or coy and not to be ashamed of her body.
The entire time I worked there I don’t think I was ever disrespected. I would not have been working there if I had come from a wealthier family; I needed to support myself and pay for school and that’s how I was able to do it. Living in North Beach, I worked evenings until one in the morning and my classes started at 9 a.m. I could work four nights a week.
I also worked in the library at school and remember, the school was across the street. I did take loans out too, but I don’t know how else I could have done it economically, it’s very expensive. I think it happened because I was living in San Francisco in this moment before gentrification, I don’t think it could have happened if I was living in Chicago or New York. There was still a working class in S.F., and things weren’t that expensive. There were a lot less things to do, and I didn’t have a television or a car. You didn’t have cellphones and all these things that are very distracting.
ZB: What do you think of technology in regards to creative expression, it seems like it should come from personal experience. Do you think technology helps or hurts artistic creativity?
KF: I ask myself that all the time! I kind of go back and forth. I’m not interested in having everyone know all about me, or being connected to millions of people. I like “face time”, the human experience. I like talking to people and hearing a person’s voice, much more than email or text. You can hear so many nuances, I love the pauses, I like to hear the tone. Also, I think there’s nothing wrong with “missing”: what happens now is that people don’t have the patience of missing people. But you need that transition time. On the positive side, it becomes an equalizer. I’m thinking of making my work more available at the Art Institute in terms of copyright and access. But if I can have a real experience, I prefer that.
ZB: Now that pornography is rampant online in every kind of fetish or presentation,—compared to the ’90s—does this fact cause resentment, after you going through 8 years of a trial for “obscenity”? What is left that’s taboo?
KF: Everything you’re saying I agree with. My interest is in public shaming: that people not feel ashamed about sexuality. That’s what concerns me: the shaming that goes on. Now there’s more shame with the male body than the female body, you’re still not allowed to see the male body nude.
The shaming that goes on with “sexting” or with being “caught and found out" I just find this so puritanical. I wish we could get past these incidents of shaming. You see young people whose lives are ruined because they sent a picture of their body, or received one. I’m not talking about anything illegal or damaging to someone but I think it’s just horrible, you see it even with high-school kids. There should be more fun and joy with showing and seeing the body. I just don’t like any of the shaming: that you’re supposed to feel bad, or keep quiet, or be secretive. There’s a double standard that goes on, we have all this freedom, but sexually we’re publically shamed.
ZB: What do you think could be a solution to this shaming? How should we address this is?
KF: I think that people should not allow themselves to feel ashamed, it has to be changed. I don’t think that people should be punished for it. Sexuality is in our face, yet the female body is still primarily the sexual mover for us. When I say “mover” I mean that it’s still the focus. It’s very hard if you’re under 18 years old, many are committing suicide because the shaming is so horrific. Transwomen-of-color have more risk of suicide or of being murdered. Sexual expression, sexual identity, that’s what I’m concerned about, and the violence that’s a result. Shaming can be sexualized as well. We have to change it in child-rearing, when we shame children showing their bodies. Everyone has to lighten up! I hope these views will change.
ZB: How much do you think the censorship in the ‘90s and “being persecuted for your self-expression during the NEA trial” had to do with power rather than a moralistic religious issue? That it was about keeping gender roles established in a rigid, patriarchal society? Or was Capitalist Exploitation at its core?
KF: It was difficult for me to turn on the radio or open a newspaper where I was demonized or my work was distorted. I had to get support, 12 years of analysis. I finally realized I was in an abusive relationship with Jesse Helms. It was kinky: I think he was actually turned on by me, a kind of S/M relationship where he was the dominant and I was the submissive on a public stage. When I realized that I was no longer going to be in this relationship, I started laughing about it. So I became the top and it changed, my problems went away!
It’s complicated. There’s different answers for the individual, society, and the nation: issues with gender and relationships and personal autonomy. I can say that usually when people become so adamant and heated consciously, it’s a projection. I feel the “culture wars” of the nineties were a projection of their own fears, their own sexuality and repressed desires—their own relationship with morality and ethics. When you see these movements happening at a time before there is going to be a change in the world, that is what happens. You see now there are more rights for women, it’s better than it was for women fifty years ago: women have more power, more access, more ambition. This is what I see before there is social shift.
ZB: Humor is a good way to deal with trauma. So looking at it with humor—or satirizing it—helped to take your power back?
KF: When I became the dominatrix in my engagement towards this archetype of Helms, I used humor. I posed in Playboy, started doing television, I used humor. I agreed with them: if I didn’t argue with them, then I ended the engagement, I was no longer the victim. I don’t think it was “right” politically, but at that moment it was something to “change the playing field.” Nevertheless, that situation changed my access to the institutions of culture. That’s one of the reasons I’m teaching, because my opportunities with institutions changed. For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art had one of my sculptures returned because they didn’t want to have it in their collection, due to my involvement with the NEA. At that time I was, I guess, blacklisted…
ZB: How many women do you think were inspired by the ordeal you went through (during the NEA trials) to become artists or changed their whole attitude towards their sexuality? When they saw the fight you engaged in, you empowered women to express themselves-
KF: I try to create the best way that I possibly can. I try to be "authentic", I hope that I’ve been able to inspire. That is what is very inspiring to me: thinking that in my life (or maybe in my career) I’m not able to walk the entire staircase, but I’ve walked a few steps and that other generations of artists can take further steps. I might not be the one to have certain opportunities or access, but other generations can. Besides women, I have been very interested in equal access for all artists and artists who are marginalized in freedom of expression as a whole. Whether you’re gay, transgender, artists of color, artists of the working class or artists that haven’t necessarily been academically trained, I think that there are many issues that need to be addressed in terms of voices being heard, and having opportunities to express them.
ZB: What are your thoughts on society’s opinion of sexuality in art compared to pornography? Orlan had said it’s the difference between one breast exposed rather than two. Irina Ionesco says that it is solely defined in the mind of the viewer. Eroticism seems to be an art form as a personal expression of one’s sensual self, whereas pornography is just a generic product. Do you think pornography affects the censorship (or attitudes) towards women’s bodies? That it helps or hurts how women are viewed?
KF: These are very important questions. All these questions have gone before the Supreme Court regarding what is "obscene." There are shifts throughout time and culture where these definitions change. I think that in art, pornography isn’t the only definition you’re looking at in court. There are other relationship dynamics, questions, critical thinking, placement, site, where the artist is critiquing society with that work. It’s also about the placement of the work. There has been in terms of pornography and art, a question since the beginning of time, looking back through the ages, you know a woman’s ankle was considered pornographic, Madame X. There’s nudes outside of temples that have been looked at as pornographic.
The artist always has to take on the entire loaded arena of the floating boundaries of what is "obscene." There are other industries, from architectural design to horticulture. where you see aspects of the human body’s sexuality. I’d like to see that aspect explored, whether it’s looking at food or perfume; other areas. It’s exasperating that the artist is the one that’s supposed to know all the answers. The artist doesn’t know the answers. The artist is basically trying to question, search, and innovate to have a discussion about society, whether it’s a literal, figurative or abstract representation in rethinking the definition of "social order."
ZB: You’re in the RE/Search Pranks! book [still available from RE/Search] as one of the few women who engage in them. Do you find humor or satire is more powerful in getting a message across, with the impact of your performance pieces?
KF: I think there is a personal enjoyment with these pieces. I think I’m able to do these pranks because of my whiteness, my gender, my personality. The performance in the JC Penney window was on Market Street, San Francisco. Mike Osterhout had organized a series of performances. I came up with this idea to perform as if I were having a fit in the window. I don’t think that people believed it when they saw me there, they thought I was crazy and called the police. They thought that I was on drugs or insane. The police came and put me in the squad car and I continued performing while I was in the squad car. I don’t know if I could do that now, at that time, I was able to do it but it was a dangerous thing to do.
ZB: But that is part of the excitement—the danger, right?
KF: I think part of it was an anger towards society, that I really wanted to have an "interruption" and subvert traditional society, change people and the way they think. I’ve done other things, too, like throwing dollars bills into this huge audience and watching everyone look for the bills on the dirty floor. Recently, what I like to do is drive through suburban neighborhoods with disco on really, really loud, just to interrupt their spaces of quiet.
ZB: Do you still like to do pranks like this?
KF: Yes. In certain ways I still have my forms of subversion and interruption. I think though now, living in New York, there isn’t as much room for subversion. Some are just personal, private pranks I do in the world. When I was performing a couple of weeks ago, I took over the stage in a very controlling way: I was told that I was to be given 10 minutes to perform, and I decided I was just going to take more time. I thought: I’m not performing in this way that you’re telling me, compartmentalizing it. There are a lot of little places where I rebel. I even find that academia is a place that I can infiltrate my students' exposure to content and meaning, try to influence them thinking differently, to subvert conventions into a deeper, authentic gesture.
ZB: Do you have advice for artists (or anyone in general) towards critical thinking, especially now that the Internet encourages memes, and social media is rewiring people’s brains to be solely visual, limiting thought processes?
KF: I think that it’s important to be patient: a combination of patience, dedication, passion… and to allow the mystery. With the Internet, it’s about fame for a day, the notoriety or recognition before the work, the artwork. I think that if one puts the focus on themselves and their work, that is what matters. It really doesn’t matter if it’s Facebook or the Internet, it could be any kind of distraction from the intention of the art. There’s always going to be development in communication and electronics and it’s better to be friends with developments of the world. You don’t want to become addicted to it but at the same time you have to find a balance: focus on yourself and your artwork.
Patience is the key. Everyone is different; I don’t think there’s one way. You don’t have to be on the Internet all the time to create work, some people like to be loners with a notebook and pencil. What is important is that individuals feel secure in the way they want to relate to the world.
ZB: Would you like to talk about the NEA Four Reunion project?
KF: I did that in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the piece I did didn’t get videotaped. It was a wonderful experience; I got to meet old friends and create work. I was reexamining and looking at my performance that caused the debate, the controversy. That took place at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, California State Long Beach. I decided that I wanted to relook at that work and discover what was behind the imagery and why I created that work.
ZB: Out of all the different types of art you create, what gives you the most joy, or feels the most liberating?
KF: I try to find joy in making art, in the work and finding joy in meeting people as part of my artistic practice, in each transaction that I do. While I’m sitting here right now, I am feeling the joy of having this moment of conversation with you. All the events that brought me here to have this conservation with you now, all the years that brought you too, there is a joy with that! Our life experiences, the time that you took for preparation, I feel that appreciation, that joy of human engagement. That is what I work with in terms of a "humanist experience" in living, not to get bogged down in terms of other people’s projections, the politics, or the evils of the world. To still have some type of awareness in the humanness and the joy of being human, even within the challenges and the controversy of life.
ZB: Will you mention some memories you have of your peers and collaborators, especially David Wojnarowicz?
KF: I treasure the many artists and peers I have had relationships with. One of the most satisfying parts of my artistic life has been time spent creating art, sharing the passion for making social change with art. But also the feeling of being able to be understood by your peers, and be accepted. David was a close friend. We just liked each other as people, we're both a bit cynical! We were multidisciplinary and concerned and active in arts and politics.
ZB: What are some of the current pieces you're working on now?
KF: My recent work in the past two years are: Sext Me if You Can, where I create commissioned portraits in gallery settings from sexts. Written in Sand is a compilation of my writings on AIDS that is performed as Spoken Word with musical collaboration with Paul Nebenzahl. This will be performed at the Barbican in London. The Jackie Look: performing as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, I'm giving a talk on "Trauma and Photography."Last Call: a series of portraits and reflections on those in the NYC Night Life. Unicorn, Gratitude and Mystery is a triptych performance exploring projected desire onto imagined beasts, the conflict/rage transactions in liberal-sanctioned sacred spaces, and the universal mass grieving over mysterious traumatic events such as Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Artist Anonymous: An artist support group. Sea Glass Mermaid: an interactive walk through a beach land fill. And of course, my teaching at NYU.
ZB: Who do you see as contemporary rebels or iconoclasts in the art world today that you admire?
KF: John Sims, Tony Labat, Kathleen Hanna, Catherine Opie, Bruce Yonemoto, Deborah Willis, Jack Tchen, Clifford Owens, Andrew Ross/Gulf Labor, Tania Brughera, there are many interesting artists working today..
ZB: I just wanted to say Thank You for all the profound work you do. It’s an honor to speak to you. Your book Shock Treatment is incredibly touching, humorous and powerful. I especially like the new introduction in the reissue. [end]
Zora Burden: You mentioned in the introduction to Shock Treatment that in your youth, poetry had greatly influenced you, you called it “a language of resistance.” What books had you read that inspired your interest in performance art or art in general?
Karen Finley: As a young adult, I think that many of the City Lights Pocket Poets Series were very important for my development. So were a lot of the San Francisco writers: Richard Brautigan (very influential), plus Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Bob Kaufman. I think that Kaufman’s book Golden Sardine (which I wrote about in my introduction) reading that book, hearing his voice and his language-everything just changed for me. It was a combination of reading poetry, poetic language. Reading Dadaist poets like Tristan Tzara had a big influence on me as well.
ZB: What was it like for you living here in SF, working at the Condor and going to the San Francisco Art Institute? Who were your mentors there?
KF: I moved to San Francisco in the summer of 1977 and lived in North Beach right across the street from the Institute (SFAI). I think one of my interests was the history of the bohemian scene, going against the establishment. The Art Institute had a tradition of teaching new genres, performance and conceptual art; I was studying with Howard Fried. There was music coming out of the school at that time too, many Punk bands. The spirit of the school was going beyond “Color Field” painting, trying to find new directions that weren’t just focused on the object, the gallery or museum system but going out of that system.
I had a very positive experience at the Art Institute, I enjoyed it immensely. I took classes in New Genres and Performance. A lot of my mentors at that time were my peers and we worked as a community, created art together, supported each other’s performances or music, and were each other’s audience. Kathy Acker was my teacher, she was a strong influence on me, very supportive, and seemingly did not have a filter or boundary. She was very accessible, serious about language and listening and she gave me a lot of support in terms of my performance or poetic writing.
Also, Angela Davis conducted a weekly lecture that I used to “sit in” on. I think the Art Institute was her first teaching gig after her arrest. She would conduct lectures on everything from communism to Herbert Marcuse, different philosophers to revolutions. After her prepared lectures there would be a Q & A. Chris Burden also taught classes. This was late ’70s, post-Vietnam, post-disco, when Punk music was questioning everything. San Francisco was finding its own space in terms of conceptual practice, in performance and video. It was all about innovation and research, my colleagues were interested in innovating in all fields of culture toward a new way of thinking, new ways of presenting, and making work that was time-based.
ZB: Will you mention specific bands or artists that were important to you then?
KF: I loved the Mutants, they were an important band. I think the band lived across the street from the bus terminal, pre-gentrification. I loved the Dead Kennedys, The Dils, and Flipper, there were so many bands. I loved the Mabuhay Gardens. I loved Tony Labat’s work, it was incredible and Mike Osterhout’s. Bruce Pollack had a place called the A-Hole Gallery, and Tom Marioni had a museum where he demonstrated his concept of “drinking beer as art.” David Ireland had his Capp Street Project: working on his house and looking at architectural reconstruction as the poetic space of the interior. Survival Research Laboratories was very important to me, Mark Pauline. Romeo Void’s Deborah Iyall. A woman named Ivey who had her own calendar. Ruby Ray, Mark McCloud and his collection of “LSD As An Art Form.” Everybody supported each other.
ZB: What was your approach to art back then in regards to your performances?
KF: It was very serious, intentional, and very adult. There was a standard of artistic integrity. It was about artistic research and innovation in the field: your process, your progress and how you’re contributing to the discourse of art practice. So there were critiques where you’d have to defend your work, discussing the concept and content, thinking about other artists, the engagement in society, and context in the history of art. The type of work I was doing then was about feminist issues: my body, being in my early 20s, it was the presentation of the female body. I think that my first performance was: I put two cantaloupes in my bra and I was scooping out the cantaloupe, the assignment was to “do a piece with food.”
ZB: Was your work then a documentation or self-exploration of your own development and sexual awakening through your art?
KF: I think part of it was; another part of it was research. I remember going to City Lights Bookstore and the library, getting books on psychology and drama, researching certain spaces and consciously being aware of creating language and images that would be connecting to the audience or viewer. So I wouldn’t say my work was primarily a “diary” because then I would just be doing it for myself. I think I always had a relationship to the public, working within a discourse of art as a sort of social engagement or social practice.
ZB: Did your work at the Condor inform your art at all?
KF: Yes, it did. At that time I wasn’t a dancer, I was a cocktail waitress, which probably made more money than the dancers. There were others from the Art Institute working there. It was very beautiful, an art form of burlesque, it was a different time in terms of looking at standards of beauty. Each woman had a certain attribute which had a beauty or sensuality or tenderness: certain areas of their body, the way they could move, the energy of their performances. Some of the performers were older and did not have the perfect body of botox and plastic surgery. Although Carol Doda was definitely unreal, she acknowledged this, as her breasts were a very early example of silicone enhancement.
ZB: Did the audience back then react in a more appreciative way, as compared to an “objectified” way?
KF: It was more about arousal or desire: female burlesque or strip-tease wasn’t just full nudity, it was all about revealing. I found it quite beautiful; I loved this world and the freedom of the female body in this arena. Women were allowed onstage to be erotic or coy and not to be ashamed of her body.
The entire time I worked there I don’t think I was ever disrespected. I would not have been working there if I had come from a wealthier family; I needed to support myself and pay for school and that’s how I was able to do it. Living in North Beach, I worked evenings until one in the morning and my classes started at 9 a.m. I could work four nights a week.
I also worked in the library at school and remember, the school was across the street. I did take loans out too, but I don’t know how else I could have done it economically, it’s very expensive. I think it happened because I was living in San Francisco in this moment before gentrification, I don’t think it could have happened if I was living in Chicago or New York. There was still a working class in S.F., and things weren’t that expensive. There were a lot less things to do, and I didn’t have a television or a car. You didn’t have cellphones and all these things that are very distracting.
ZB: What do you think of technology in regards to creative expression, it seems like it should come from personal experience. Do you think technology helps or hurts artistic creativity?
KF: I ask myself that all the time! I kind of go back and forth. I’m not interested in having everyone know all about me, or being connected to millions of people. I like “face time”, the human experience. I like talking to people and hearing a person’s voice, much more than email or text. You can hear so many nuances, I love the pauses, I like to hear the tone. Also, I think there’s nothing wrong with “missing”: what happens now is that people don’t have the patience of missing people. But you need that transition time. On the positive side, it becomes an equalizer. I’m thinking of making my work more available at the Art Institute in terms of copyright and access. But if I can have a real experience, I prefer that.
ZB: Now that pornography is rampant online in every kind of fetish or presentation,—compared to the ’90s—does this fact cause resentment, after you going through 8 years of a trial for “obscenity”? What is left that’s taboo?
KF: Everything you’re saying I agree with. My interest is in public shaming: that people not feel ashamed about sexuality. That’s what concerns me: the shaming that goes on. Now there’s more shame with the male body than the female body, you’re still not allowed to see the male body nude.
The shaming that goes on with “sexting” or with being “caught and found out" I just find this so puritanical. I wish we could get past these incidents of shaming. You see young people whose lives are ruined because they sent a picture of their body, or received one. I’m not talking about anything illegal or damaging to someone but I think it’s just horrible, you see it even with high-school kids. There should be more fun and joy with showing and seeing the body. I just don’t like any of the shaming: that you’re supposed to feel bad, or keep quiet, or be secretive. There’s a double standard that goes on, we have all this freedom, but sexually we’re publically shamed.
ZB: What do you think could be a solution to this shaming? How should we address this is?
KF: I think that people should not allow themselves to feel ashamed, it has to be changed. I don’t think that people should be punished for it. Sexuality is in our face, yet the female body is still primarily the sexual mover for us. When I say “mover” I mean that it’s still the focus. It’s very hard if you’re under 18 years old, many are committing suicide because the shaming is so horrific. Transwomen-of-color have more risk of suicide or of being murdered. Sexual expression, sexual identity, that’s what I’m concerned about, and the violence that’s a result. Shaming can be sexualized as well. We have to change it in child-rearing, when we shame children showing their bodies. Everyone has to lighten up! I hope these views will change.
ZB: How much do you think the censorship in the ‘90s and “being persecuted for your self-expression during the NEA trial” had to do with power rather than a moralistic religious issue? That it was about keeping gender roles established in a rigid, patriarchal society? Or was Capitalist Exploitation at its core?
KF: It was difficult for me to turn on the radio or open a newspaper where I was demonized or my work was distorted. I had to get support, 12 years of analysis. I finally realized I was in an abusive relationship with Jesse Helms. It was kinky: I think he was actually turned on by me, a kind of S/M relationship where he was the dominant and I was the submissive on a public stage. When I realized that I was no longer going to be in this relationship, I started laughing about it. So I became the top and it changed, my problems went away!
It’s complicated. There’s different answers for the individual, society, and the nation: issues with gender and relationships and personal autonomy. I can say that usually when people become so adamant and heated consciously, it’s a projection. I feel the “culture wars” of the nineties were a projection of their own fears, their own sexuality and repressed desires—their own relationship with morality and ethics. When you see these movements happening at a time before there is going to be a change in the world, that is what happens. You see now there are more rights for women, it’s better than it was for women fifty years ago: women have more power, more access, more ambition. This is what I see before there is social shift.
ZB: Humor is a good way to deal with trauma. So looking at it with humor—or satirizing it—helped to take your power back?
KF: When I became the dominatrix in my engagement towards this archetype of Helms, I used humor. I posed in Playboy, started doing television, I used humor. I agreed with them: if I didn’t argue with them, then I ended the engagement, I was no longer the victim. I don’t think it was “right” politically, but at that moment it was something to “change the playing field.” Nevertheless, that situation changed my access to the institutions of culture. That’s one of the reasons I’m teaching, because my opportunities with institutions changed. For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art had one of my sculptures returned because they didn’t want to have it in their collection, due to my involvement with the NEA. At that time I was, I guess, blacklisted…
ZB: How many women do you think were inspired by the ordeal you went through (during the NEA trials) to become artists or changed their whole attitude towards their sexuality? When they saw the fight you engaged in, you empowered women to express themselves-
KF: I try to create the best way that I possibly can. I try to be "authentic", I hope that I’ve been able to inspire. That is what is very inspiring to me: thinking that in my life (or maybe in my career) I’m not able to walk the entire staircase, but I’ve walked a few steps and that other generations of artists can take further steps. I might not be the one to have certain opportunities or access, but other generations can. Besides women, I have been very interested in equal access for all artists and artists who are marginalized in freedom of expression as a whole. Whether you’re gay, transgender, artists of color, artists of the working class or artists that haven’t necessarily been academically trained, I think that there are many issues that need to be addressed in terms of voices being heard, and having opportunities to express them.
ZB: What are your thoughts on society’s opinion of sexuality in art compared to pornography? Orlan had said it’s the difference between one breast exposed rather than two. Irina Ionesco says that it is solely defined in the mind of the viewer. Eroticism seems to be an art form as a personal expression of one’s sensual self, whereas pornography is just a generic product. Do you think pornography affects the censorship (or attitudes) towards women’s bodies? That it helps or hurts how women are viewed?
KF: These are very important questions. All these questions have gone before the Supreme Court regarding what is "obscene." There are shifts throughout time and culture where these definitions change. I think that in art, pornography isn’t the only definition you’re looking at in court. There are other relationship dynamics, questions, critical thinking, placement, site, where the artist is critiquing society with that work. It’s also about the placement of the work. There has been in terms of pornography and art, a question since the beginning of time, looking back through the ages, you know a woman’s ankle was considered pornographic, Madame X. There’s nudes outside of temples that have been looked at as pornographic.
The artist always has to take on the entire loaded arena of the floating boundaries of what is "obscene." There are other industries, from architectural design to horticulture. where you see aspects of the human body’s sexuality. I’d like to see that aspect explored, whether it’s looking at food or perfume; other areas. It’s exasperating that the artist is the one that’s supposed to know all the answers. The artist doesn’t know the answers. The artist is basically trying to question, search, and innovate to have a discussion about society, whether it’s a literal, figurative or abstract representation in rethinking the definition of "social order."
ZB: You’re in the RE/Search Pranks! book [still available from RE/Search] as one of the few women who engage in them. Do you find humor or satire is more powerful in getting a message across, with the impact of your performance pieces?
KF: I think there is a personal enjoyment with these pieces. I think I’m able to do these pranks because of my whiteness, my gender, my personality. The performance in the JC Penney window was on Market Street, San Francisco. Mike Osterhout had organized a series of performances. I came up with this idea to perform as if I were having a fit in the window. I don’t think that people believed it when they saw me there, they thought I was crazy and called the police. They thought that I was on drugs or insane. The police came and put me in the squad car and I continued performing while I was in the squad car. I don’t know if I could do that now, at that time, I was able to do it but it was a dangerous thing to do.
ZB: But that is part of the excitement—the danger, right?
KF: I think part of it was an anger towards society, that I really wanted to have an "interruption" and subvert traditional society, change people and the way they think. I’ve done other things, too, like throwing dollars bills into this huge audience and watching everyone look for the bills on the dirty floor. Recently, what I like to do is drive through suburban neighborhoods with disco on really, really loud, just to interrupt their spaces of quiet.
ZB: Do you still like to do pranks like this?
KF: Yes. In certain ways I still have my forms of subversion and interruption. I think though now, living in New York, there isn’t as much room for subversion. Some are just personal, private pranks I do in the world. When I was performing a couple of weeks ago, I took over the stage in a very controlling way: I was told that I was to be given 10 minutes to perform, and I decided I was just going to take more time. I thought: I’m not performing in this way that you’re telling me, compartmentalizing it. There are a lot of little places where I rebel. I even find that academia is a place that I can infiltrate my students' exposure to content and meaning, try to influence them thinking differently, to subvert conventions into a deeper, authentic gesture.
ZB: Do you have advice for artists (or anyone in general) towards critical thinking, especially now that the Internet encourages memes, and social media is rewiring people’s brains to be solely visual, limiting thought processes?
KF: I think that it’s important to be patient: a combination of patience, dedication, passion… and to allow the mystery. With the Internet, it’s about fame for a day, the notoriety or recognition before the work, the artwork. I think that if one puts the focus on themselves and their work, that is what matters. It really doesn’t matter if it’s Facebook or the Internet, it could be any kind of distraction from the intention of the art. There’s always going to be development in communication and electronics and it’s better to be friends with developments of the world. You don’t want to become addicted to it but at the same time you have to find a balance: focus on yourself and your artwork.
Patience is the key. Everyone is different; I don’t think there’s one way. You don’t have to be on the Internet all the time to create work, some people like to be loners with a notebook and pencil. What is important is that individuals feel secure in the way they want to relate to the world.
ZB: Would you like to talk about the NEA Four Reunion project?
KF: I did that in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the piece I did didn’t get videotaped. It was a wonderful experience; I got to meet old friends and create work. I was reexamining and looking at my performance that caused the debate, the controversy. That took place at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, California State Long Beach. I decided that I wanted to relook at that work and discover what was behind the imagery and why I created that work.
ZB: Out of all the different types of art you create, what gives you the most joy, or feels the most liberating?
KF: I try to find joy in making art, in the work and finding joy in meeting people as part of my artistic practice, in each transaction that I do. While I’m sitting here right now, I am feeling the joy of having this moment of conversation with you. All the events that brought me here to have this conservation with you now, all the years that brought you too, there is a joy with that! Our life experiences, the time that you took for preparation, I feel that appreciation, that joy of human engagement. That is what I work with in terms of a "humanist experience" in living, not to get bogged down in terms of other people’s projections, the politics, or the evils of the world. To still have some type of awareness in the humanness and the joy of being human, even within the challenges and the controversy of life.
ZB: Will you mention some memories you have of your peers and collaborators, especially David Wojnarowicz?
KF: I treasure the many artists and peers I have had relationships with. One of the most satisfying parts of my artistic life has been time spent creating art, sharing the passion for making social change with art. But also the feeling of being able to be understood by your peers, and be accepted. David was a close friend. We just liked each other as people, we're both a bit cynical! We were multidisciplinary and concerned and active in arts and politics.
ZB: What are some of the current pieces you're working on now?
KF: My recent work in the past two years are: Sext Me if You Can, where I create commissioned portraits in gallery settings from sexts. Written in Sand is a compilation of my writings on AIDS that is performed as Spoken Word with musical collaboration with Paul Nebenzahl. This will be performed at the Barbican in London. The Jackie Look: performing as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, I'm giving a talk on "Trauma and Photography."Last Call: a series of portraits and reflections on those in the NYC Night Life. Unicorn, Gratitude and Mystery is a triptych performance exploring projected desire onto imagined beasts, the conflict/rage transactions in liberal-sanctioned sacred spaces, and the universal mass grieving over mysterious traumatic events such as Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Artist Anonymous: An artist support group. Sea Glass Mermaid: an interactive walk through a beach land fill. And of course, my teaching at NYU.
ZB: Who do you see as contemporary rebels or iconoclasts in the art world today that you admire?
KF: John Sims, Tony Labat, Kathleen Hanna, Catherine Opie, Bruce Yonemoto, Deborah Willis, Jack Tchen, Clifford Owens, Andrew Ross/Gulf Labor, Tania Brughera, there are many interesting artists working today..
ZB: I just wanted to say Thank You for all the profound work you do. It’s an honor to speak to you. Your book Shock Treatment is incredibly touching, humorous and powerful. I especially like the new introduction in the reissue. [end]
(c)2015-2016, Zora Burden; All Rights Reserved
This site is for informational and educational purposes.
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site may contains some copyrighted material which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
This site is for informational and educational purposes.
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site may contains some copyrighted material which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.