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.