Carolee Schneemann facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carolee Schneemann
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Schneemann (2008)
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| Born | October 12, 1939 Fox Chase, Pennsylvania, U.S.
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| Died | March 6, 2019 (aged 79) New Paltz, New York, U.S.
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| Education | Bard College (BA) University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (MFA) |
| Known for | Visual art, performance art |
| Movement | Feminist art, Neo-dada, Fluxus, happening |
Carolee Schneemann (born October 12, 1939 – died March 6, 2019) was an American artist who created experimental art. She earned a degree in poetry and philosophy from Bard College. Later, she received a master's degree from the University of Illinois.
Schneemann started as a painter, working in a style called Abstract Expressionism. But she soon began to create performance art. Her work often explored visual traditions, things people usually don't talk about, and how the human body is seen in society.
Even though she became famous for her performances, Schneemann always saw herself as a painter. She said, "I'm a painter. I'm still a painter and I will die a painter. Everything that I have developed has to do with extending visual principles off the canvas." Her art has been shown in many important places. These include the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Schneemann also taught art at several universities. She wrote books too, like Cézanne, She Was a Great Painter (1976). Her art is connected to different art styles. These include Fluxus, Neo-Dada, and performance art.
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Who was Carolee Schneemann?
Carolee Schneemann was born Carol Lee Schneiman in Fox Chase, Pennsylvania. As a child, her friends called her a "mad pantheist". This was because she deeply respected and connected with nature.
She often visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art when she was young. Her family supported her freedom with her body. Schneemann believed her father, a rural doctor, helped her feel comfortable with the human body.
Schneemann received a full scholarship to Bard College in New York. She was the first woman in her family to go to college. However, her father did not want her to study art. While at Bard, she met musician James Tenney.
She first learned about experimental film from a friend, Stan Brakhage. After graduating from Bard in 1962, Schneemann went to the University of Illinois for her advanced degree.
Her image is part of a famous 1972 poster. It is called Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.
Her Early Life and Art
Schneemann started her art career as a painter in the late 1950s. Her paintings began to use ideas from Neo-Dada art. She used box-like structures with strong, expressive brushstrokes. These works were very textured, like those by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg.
She felt the art world at that time was unfair to women. Schneemann was influenced by artists like Paul Cézanne. She also learned from the abstract expressionists. Schneemann wanted her art to be expressive, not just popular or easy to understand.
She was a "first-generation feminist artist." This group included Mary Beth Edelson and Judy Chicago. They were part of the feminist art movement in the early 1970s. Schneemann also got involved with "happenings." These were art events where people participated. She organized A Journey through a Disrupted Landscape. For this, she invited people to "crawl, climb, negotiate rocks, climb, walk, go through mud."
She then met Allan Kaprow, a key figure in happenings. Influenced by thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir, Schneemann started to move away from just painting.
Exploring New Art Forms
In 1962, Schneemann moved to New York City with James Tenney. Tenney got a job at Bell Laboratories. Through one of his co-workers, Billy Klüver, Schneemann met famous artists. These included Claes Oldenburg and John Cage. This led her to the Judson Memorial Church's art program.
There, she took part in works like Oldenburg's Store Days (1962). She also appeared in Robert Morris's Site (1964). In this piece, she acted as a living version of Édouard Manet's famous painting, Olympia. Around this time, she began to show her own body in her art.
Schneemann also met many New York musicians in the 1960s. These included Philip Glass and Steve Reich. She was interested in abstract expressionists like Willem de Kooning. However, her painting-constructions did not get much attention from New York galleries. Poets like Robert Kelly were the first to support her work. They published some of her writings.
Her Films and Videos
Her 1964 piece Meat Joy involved eight people dancing. They played with things like wet paint, sausage, raw fish, and raw chickens. It was first performed in Paris. Later, it was filmed and photographed at Judson Memorial Church.
In 1964, Schneemann started making her film Fuses. She finished it in 1967. Two years later, it won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Pop artist Andy Warhol joked that Schneemann should have taken the film to Hollywood. Fuses was the first film in her Autobiographical Trilogy.
Her works from the 1960s shared ideas with Fluxus artists. But she stayed independent of any specific art movement. These early works helped lay the groundwork for the feminist art movement.
Schneemann began her next film, Plumb Line, in 1968. The film starts with a still picture of a man's face. Then, the image begins to burn. Different pictures, including Schneemann and the man, appear on screen. A confusing mix of sounds plays in the background. The sounds and visuals get more intense. Schneemann talks about a time when she was sick. The film ends with her attacking projected images.
From 1973 to 1976, Schneemann created Up to and Including Her Limits. In this ongoing piece, she explored the male-dominated art world. She focused on artists like Jackson Pollock. Schneemann would arrive at the museum when it opened and stay until it closed. She explored how the place where art is made and shown can become one.
In 1975, Schneemann performed Interior Scroll. This was a notable piece influenced by Fluxus. It featured her use of text and her body.
In 1978, Schneemann finished Kitch's Last Meal. This was the final film in her "Autobiographical Trilogy."
Later Works and Themes
Schneemann said that in the 1980s, some feminist groups felt her work did not fully address feminist issues. Her 1994 piece Mortal Coils honored fifteen friends and colleagues who had died. These included Hannah Wilke and John Cage. The artwork had spinning parts with coiled ropes. Slides of the artists were shown on the walls.
From 1981 to 1988, Schneemann's piece Infinity Kisses was shown. This wall art had 140 photos she took herself. They showed her kissing her cat from different angles.
In December 2001, she showed Terminal Velocity. This work included photographs of people during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Schneemann wanted to make the victims of the attack feel more personal. She made the figures in the photos larger and clearer.
Schneemann continued to create art later in her life. Her 2007 installation Devour showed videos of recent wars. These were contrasted with everyday images of American life on two screens.
She was interviewed for the 2010 film !Women Art Revolution.
Her Painting Style
Schneemann believed her photographic and body art pieces were still based on painting. She called herself "A painter who has left the canvas to activate actual space and lived time." She said her art teacher, Paul Brach, taught her to see a brushstroke as an "event in time." She thought of her performers as "colors in three dimensions."
Schneemann took ideas from her 1950s paintings. In those, she cut and removed layers of paint from the surface. She then used these ideas in her photographic work Eye Body. Art history professor Kristine Stiles says Schneemann's entire body of work explored ideas like how figures stand out from backgrounds. She also explored relationships, often using her own body. And she looked at similarities, using cats and trees in her art. For example, Schneemann connected the colors and movement in Fuses to brush strokes in painting. Her 1976 piece Up to and Including Her Limits also used the idea of brush strokes. Schneemann swung from ropes and drew with crayons on different surfaces.
Why was Carolee Schneemann Important?
Much of Schneemann's work was performance-based. So, photographs, videos, sketches, and notes are used to study her art. It was not until the 1990s that her work became recognized as a very important part of feminist art. The first major exhibition of her work was in 1996. It was called Up To and Including Her Limits.
Critic Jan Avgikos wrote in 1997 that before Schneemann, the female body in art was silent. It was mostly used to show what men wanted. Critics have also noticed that people's reactions to Schneemann's work have changed. Nancy Princenthal noted that modern viewers of Meat Joy still feel a bit uncomfortable. This is sometimes due to the raw chicken or how men carried women.
Schneemann's art from the late 1950s still influences artists today. This includes Matthew Barney and many women artists. "Carolee's Magazine" shows how her visual style has influenced newer artists. It places her work next to art that shows her style. In 2013, Dale Eisinger ranked Interior Scroll as one of the best performance art pieces ever. He wrote that Schneemann helped balance the gender roles in art with her 1975 piece.
Awards and Recognition
- 1993 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
- 2003: Eyebeam Residency
- 2011: United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow for Visual Arts
- 2011: The Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award.
- 2012: One of that year's Courage Awards for the Arts from Yoko Ono.
- 2017: Venice Biennale's Golden Lion Award For Lifetime Achievement
- 2018: Maria Anto & Elsa von Freytag-Lorignhoven Art Prize, Warsaw
Some of Her Artworks
- 1962–63: Four ~Fur Cutting Boards
- 1963: Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions
- 1964: Meat Joy
- 1965: Viet Flakes
- Autobiographical Trilogy
- 1964-67: Fuses
- 1968-71: Plumb Line
- 1973-78: Kitch's Last Meal
- 1972: Blood Work Diary
- 1973-76: Up to and Including Her Limits
- 1975: Interior Scroll
- 1981: Fresh Blood: A Dream Morphology
- 1981-88: Infinity Kisses
- 1983-2006: Souvenir of Lebanon
- 1986: Hand/Heart for Ana Mendieta
- 1986-88: Venus Vectors
- 1987-88: Vesper's Pool
- 1990: Cycladic Imprints
- 1991: Ask the Goddess
- 1994: Mortal Coils
- 2001: More Wrong Things
- 2001: Terminal Velocity
- 2007: Devour
- 2013: Flange 6rpm
See also
In Spanish: Carolee Schneemann para niños
