karen finley | Performance Space New York

Impulse to Suck: The Performance of The Apology and The Separation of Sex and State

finley
finley

Karen Finley was in Albany, New York on March 10 waiting to hear a speech from Eliot Spitzer on Reproductive Health. Instead later that day, Spitzer performed an apology with his supportive, devastated wife standing beside him. Finley will speak about the performance of the apology, the erotic transference of the media’s fixation on Spitzer’s frown and the emotional starring role for his wife, Silda.

Finley will perform her latest spoken word text which examines the confession, the apology, the imagining of the sexual encounter, the travel of the escort, the compulsion, the immigrant father’s plan for his son to succeed and the couples imagined therapy sessions. Looking at the psychodrama in the intimacy of our political leaders, Finley poses to see the agony of the son’s need for the approval from the father and the ancient wrestling of the ancient wrestling of the feminine archetypes of mother and whore.

Conceived and performed by Karen Finley
Artwork by Karen Finley
Photo courtesy of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

August 14, 2008 at 8pm
Tickets from $20
$15 (students/seniors),
$10 (P.S. 122 members)

All rights reserved by Performance Space New York
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