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Karen Finley

Nation Building

October 24–December 1, 2007

Nation Building (2007)

Nation Building (2007)
Installation view
Alexander Gray Associates

Nation Building (2007)

Nation Building (2007)
Installation view
Alexander Gray Associates

Nation Building (2007)

Nation Building (2007)
Installation view
Alexander Gray Associates

Nation Building (2007)

Nation Building (2007)
Installation view
Alexander Gray Associates

Condoleeza Quartet 1 (2006)

Condoleeza Quartet 1 (2006)
Graphite on paper
18h x 24w in (45.72h x 60.96w cm)

Condoleeza Quartet 2 (2006)

Condoleeza Quartet 2 (2006)
Graphite on paper
18h x 24w in (45.72h x 60.96w cm)

Condoleeza Quartet 3 (2006)

Condoleeza Quartet 3 (2006)
Graphite on paper
18h x 24w in (45.72h x 60.96w cm)

Condoleeza Quartet 4 (2006)

Condoleeza Quartet 4 (2006)
Graphite on paper
18h x 24w in (45.72h x 60.96w cm)

Considering Condoleeza (2006)

Considering Condoleeza (2006)
Mixed media
20h x 36w in (50.8h x 91.44w cm)

December 27 - The View (2006)

December 27 - The View (2006)
Ink on paper
11h x 14w in (27.94h x 35.56w cm)

Dreams of Laura Bush (Anna Nicole) (2006)

Dreams of Laura Bush (Anna Nicole) (2006)
Ink on paper
9h x 20w in (22.86h x 50.8w cm)

January 1, 2007 - Gerald Ford/Saddam (2007)

January 1, 2007 - Gerald Ford/Saddam (2007)
Ink on paper
6.25h x 8.75w in (15.88h x 22.23w cm)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-1 (2006)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-1 (2006)
Ink on paper
19h x 24w in (48.26h x 60.96w cm)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-2 (2006)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-2 (2006)
Ink on paper
19h x 24w in (48.26h x 60.96w cm)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-3 (2006)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-3 (2006)
Ink on paper
19h x 24w in (48.26h x 60.96w cm)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-4 (2006)

Laura Bush Dream Quartet-4 (2006)
Ink on paper
19h x 42w in (48.26h x 106.68w cm)

My Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Eyes of Condoleezza Rice (2007)

My Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Eyes of Condoleezza Rice (2007)
Wallpaper
168h x 84w in (426.72h x 213.36w cm)

Press Release

The exhibition included two bodies of drawings, in Finley’s signature pen-and-ink style. In the first group, The Dreams of Laura Bush, Finley channels the First Lady’s unconscious through illustrations and text that imagines inner psychological conflicts, incorporating sexual fantasy, popular culture, and current political events. Imagining the personal lives of the White House and their Freudian impact on global politics, Finley satirically morphs the personal and the political. In one journal entry, Laura Bush writes to her husband, begging him to go to therapy for help with his depression, “You have destroyed the trust of the nation, but do you have to destroy us, too?” A second suite of drawings considers another powerful female political figure its subject. Media images of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice are extracted and analyzed, isolating wisps of hair, eyes, hands and shoes, transforming familiar gestures into small figure studies reminiscent of post-Impressionist sketchbooks. In a large-scale graphic work, Rice’s eyes are dropped as bombs from a military plane, transforming Iraq war imagery into a Surrealist landscape.

An installation made of rope occupied the gallery’s main wall, consisting of nooses based on Sadaam Hussein’s execution. At first glance, this dense arrangement of ropes reads as a single textile work, evoking Eva Hesse’s sculptural work and 1970s craft-oriented Feminist work. In this installation, Finley questions the cancerous way that violence breeds more violence. While specifically rooted in the former Iraqi dictator’s death, Finley is also interested in what was familiar about the image of Hussein being noose-hung—images of the Salem Witch trials and KKK lynchings, for example—placing global capital punishment further into an United States context. In the same space, a media-based installation continuously polls the deaths in Iraq; one station showing the names of U.S. soldiers who have died; the second, a list of Iraqi citizens whose death count has gone largely unnoticed by the U.S. public.