Performance art legend presents a special new show inspired by her provocative new book.
July 15 - August 12 at Laurie Beechman Theatre
“Karen Finley is a profound theater-artist. Her artistry is due in part to her ability to alchemize ‘news’ and make it art … She is irreplaceable.” —Hilton Als
"Ms. Finley hasn’t lost the power to disturb.” -- Ben Brantley, The New York Times
KAREN FINLEY, a name synonymous with Performance Art, will present a special new show inspired by her new book GRABBING PUSSY from OR Books. It will be presented July 15 - August 12, Sundays at 7pm at The Laurie Beechman Theater (inside West Bank Cafe at 407 West 42nd Street -- at Ninth Avenue, accessible from the A,C,E,N,R,V,F,1,2,3 trains at 42nd Street). Tickets are $22 for general admission or $35 for VIP tickets that include a signed book and a one-of-a-kind bookmark handmade by Finley. Please note that there is also a $20 food/drink minimum at all performances at this venue. To purchase tickets, call 212-352-3101 or visit www.SpinCycleNYC.com.
In GRABBING PUSSY, celebrated performance artist KAREN FINLEY offers a breathless cascade of poetry and prose that lays bare the psychosexual obsessions at the surface of today’s American politics. Alternately funny and disturbing, the evening also includes new work not included in the book that responds to the separation of families at the border, the suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, and the #MeToo movement. Standing in the tradition of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, GRABBING PUSSY speaks to a world increasingly divided into predators and victims.
GRABBING PUSSY is currently available in paperback or E-book from OR Books at www.orbooks.com.
Since her first performances in the early 1980's, KAREN FINLEY has become synonymous with performance art. A performer, artist, writer, musician, poet, teacher and lecturer, she is the recipient of two Obies, two Bessies, and multiple grants from the NEA and NYSCA. She has toured internationally with pieces including Make Love, George & Martha, The Jackie Look, The American Chestnut, A Certain Level of Denial and The Return of The Chocolate Smeared Woman, and Written in the Sand. In 1990, Finley became an unwilling symbol for the NEA when she, along with Tim Miller, Holly Hughes & John Fleck, sued the NEA for withdrawing grants on the grounds of indecency; the controversial case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Among Finley's books are Shock Treatment, Enough Is Enough: Weekly Meditations for Living Dysfunctionally, the Martha Stewart satire Living It Up: Humorous Adventures in Hyperdomesticity, Pooh Unplugged, and A Different Kind of Intimacy. Her art is in the collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among other places. Finley is a professor in the department of Art and Public Policy at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.