Every day for six months, artist Karen Finley recorded a personal message that audiences across the country could access via a 1-900 number. Inspired by America’s growing fascination with the telephone as a personal, yet anonymous outlet for information and companionship, Finley chose to use telecommunications as a vehicle to connect with a national audience.

Finley’s phone commentary responded to a range of topics, including observations relating to news headlines and social injustices, as well as more personal reflections on motherhood and daily life. 1-900-ALL-KAREN was thus an appropriation of a 1-900 exchange (usually associated with the charlatanism of phone sex, horoscopes, and psychics) as a source for artistic free expression.

Photograph by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Karen Finley

1-900-ALL-KAREN

Multiple Locations

1998