Carolee Schneemann

Book excerpt: This publication has been produced on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, encompassing more than six decades of the œuvre of the influential American artist Carolee Schneemann (born 1939). In it, renowned scholars and experts approach various aspects of the artist's work based on new research. Starting with Schneemann's early portraits and landscapes of the 1950s, the book traces the developments that led to the assemblages and painting constructions created in the 1960s. During this period, she combined painterly investigations of the figure with art historical inquiries while incorporating photographs and other objects of personal significance into her works. An early proponent of techniques designed to reduce the influence of subjective creative choices, she resorted to unusual expedients: fire, for example, became a constitutive part of her process. Schneemann's ambition to expand painting beyond the canvas's confines was evident early on, and her explorations quickly encompassed other media and disciplines including dance, performance, photography, and film. She was a leading protagonist in New York's downtown avant-garde arts scene, which flourished in these fields, while also synthesizing different disciplines in the forms of Happenings and events. Schneemann soon became a vital element in the visual compositions that, in the role of artist, she was creating, posing herself the question “Can I be both image and image-maker?” The same irreverent spirit and embrace the sensuality is palpable in her experimental films, dances, Kinetic Theater pieces, and radical performances, culminating in her multimedia installations, all of which can be seen to grow out of her efforts to expand painting. --