The dark side of the American dream Richard Kern's hardcore photographs of New York girls are created by a practiced Peeping Tom. They show girlie sex, splatter scenes, girls with guns (bang-bang), girls trussed up like chickens, manacled, tattooed and pierced; but above all they show girls looking back at the camera in a way that makes us wonder who is in control. These challenging, beautiful and mysterious photographs grew out of Richard Kern's performance and film work. In 1983 he bought his first Super 8 camera and began to film, and then photograph, his friends and collaborators such as Lydia Lunch and the band Sonic Youth. With Lydia Lunch he made the classic film, "Fingered," (now recognized as a masterpiece of the "Cinema of Transgression"), a film that John Waters has called "the ultimate film for psychopaths." Kern's photographs document the dark side of the American dream where narcissistic fantasies, aggressive phobias, and powerful desires come under the transgressive scrutiny of Kern's keen eye.