Carolee Schneemann
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Carolee Schneemann (b. 1939) is an American performance artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois. A member of the Fluxus group, her work is primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the individual in relationship to social bodies. Her most famous works include Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions (1963), Meat Joy (1964), Fuses (1967), and Interior Scroll (1975)
She has published widely, producing works such as Cezanne, She Was a Great Painter (1976) and More than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings (1997).
Interior Scroll
In 1975, Schneemann performed Interior Scroll, a Fluxus piece featuring her use of text and body. In her performance, Schneemann entered wrapped in a sheet, under which she wore an apron. She disrobed and then got on a table where she outlined her body with dark paint. Several times, she would take "action poses", similar to those in figure drawing classes. Concurrently, she read from her book Cezanne, She Was a Great Painter. Following this, she dropped the book and slowly extracted from her vagina a scroll which she read from. Schneemann's feminist scroll speech, according to performance theorist Jeanie Forte, made it seem as if "[Schneemann]'s vagina itself is reporting [...] sexism".