Since the early 1960s, Dorothy Iannone (born 1933) has occupied herself with the attempt to represent "ecstatic unity"—"the union of gender, feeling and pleasure," as she describes it—resulting in a body of frequently autobiographical work encompassing painting, drawing, collage, objects and publications. This volume examines the censorship of Iannone's work, using her 1970 artist's book
The Story of Bern
as a starting point. Iannone's works were removed from an exhibition at Kunsthalle Bern in 1969, after the museum director demanded that the genitals in her paintings be covered. Iannone responded with
, reclaiming her work from the controversies surrounding it by making her perspective public. In a nod to the censorship of Iannone's work, the explicit image on the cover of this book is hidden by a belly band.