Richard Kern

Born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina in 1954. Graduated University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977 with a BFA. Kern moved to NYC where he met up with artists, writers, actors and bohmemains such as David Wojanarowicz, Lydia Lunch, Nick Zedd, Lung Leg and others. With the most basic of filming equipment Kern set out to show the seedier, drug-ravaged side of NYC in Regan's Eighties. _Manhattan Loves Suicides (1985)_ is a classic example of this type of film making.

Kern's masterpiece is Fingered (1988). A hardcore story based on the sex-violence fantasies of Lydia Lunch. This movie is the most traditional in form and style than his other works. Lunch plays a hornier-than-thou phone sex worker who begins a tear through the Californian landscape with real-life former lover Marty Nations. Along the way there are hardcore sex scenes, including one with a loaded gun. At the film's climax Nation and Lunch abuse and defile Lung Leg. Lung Leg claimed to be tripping on Acid the whole time.

Kern is probably known best for his photography, which ranges from city shots to hardcore bondage series. Also directed videos by Sonic Youth and Marilyn Manson.