"I take the position that I do not ask anyone else to do what I myself
would not do and using myself as subject . . ." Carolee Schneemann.
Carolee Schneemann received the Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement this year after long being ignored. Venice Biennale site wrote, ''Schneemann was a pioneer of feminist performance in the early 1960s and has been one of the most important figures in the development of performance and Body Art.''
A major retrospective titled, Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting, has opened at MoMA PS1, New York which would run through March 11, 2018.Paintings from the 1950sand her more recent assemblages, installations, films, poems, and performances will travell to New York from Museum der Moderne Salzburg in Austria where her first retrospective was held in 2015.
2017
Wiki introduced Carolee Schneemann (born October 12, 1939) as ''an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender.
Schneemann cites her earliest connections between art and sexuality to
her drawings from ages four and five, which she drew on her father's prescription tablets.Her family was generally supportive of her naturalness and freeness with her body.She attributed her father's support to the fact that
he was a rural physician who had to often deal with the body in various
states of health.
Schneemann was awarded a full scholarship to New York's Bard College. She was the first woman from her family to attend college, but her father discouraged her from an art education.While at Bard, Schneemann began to realize the differences between male and female perceptions of each other's bodies while serving as a nude model for her boyfriend's portraits and while painting nude self-portraits
Schneemann acknowledges that she is often labeled as a feminist icon and that she is an influential figure to female artists, but she also notes that she reaches out to male artists as well.Unlike much other feminist art, Schneemann's revolves around sexual expression and liberation, rather than referring to victimization or repression of women.
After winning the Venice award Carolee opened her heart to Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist about her legacy, Award, Amercian politics, countryside, Syria, sex, relaxation and cats.
On recieving the Lion,
''It’s made me very depressed and confused. I’m used to working with neglect and misunderstanding, so this has been really challenging. It’s a different psychic realm. The Lion did not land easily here.''
On holding an exibit in rural Pennsylvania where she grew up,
RIST: Could we restage your PS1 retrospective in your hometown?
SCHNEEMANN: No...They’d burn down my barn. They’d chop down my trees. They might even think they should rape me. My work is all about forbidden aspects of the female experience. If I have a piece that says “blood” or “vagina” or “intercourse” or “sex,” that would have no deeper meaning to them than to be provocative.''
On American politics
''how do we get utopian thinking in a dystopian world?.... A primitive fury has been unleashed by a president who has no culture, who cannot read, and who wants to determine power and aggression...... The militarists do not want dialogue. They want what they want. They’re psychotic. They’re greedy, they’re narcissistic, and they’re dangerous.You can’t restore the ocean when you’ve polluted it beyond its absorption of toxicity.''
On Feminist Misinterpretations
SCHNEEMANN: And there was Eye Body [36 Transformative Actions for Camera, 1963], .... I didn’t understand that after I made that photo sequence, the culture would just look at the body. It wouldn’t understand the integration.
RIST: In those works, you were speaking not only about the female body, but about the human body.
SCHNEEMANN: Exactly. It took many years, but feminist analysis, feminist principles, and the social dynamics of women redefining their lived experience has all come together to support my motives. It’s been very gratifying. It was very painful when the cultural historians who were feminists took my work to be playing into male hands because of the use of the body.
RIST: I’ve had similar experiences with things being misinterpreted. It will probably take several more generations before the female body can be considered a stand-in for the human body.
SCHNEEMANN: We might not have that chance, Pipi.With this fascist swell of political deformations, we might be going backwards.''
On Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir,
''It was before the era of women’s self-determination had taken off. My teachers always said, “You’re very talented, but don’t set your heart on art. You’re only a girl.” I was inspired by Virginia Woolf in 1960, but they wouldn’t let me write about her. They said she was a trivializer. I also wanted to do a paper on Simone de Beauvoir, and my philosophy teacher said, “Why would you write about the mistress? Write about the master.” That was Sartre.
On Syria
RIST: You mentioned you are also working on some new pieces that involve Syrian corpses.
SCHNEEMANN: Yes, corpses of hundreds of men, tortured, starved, thrown around. I’ve been concentrating on that work. And I have a lot of smaller projects as well. It takes so much time because I have a lot of health issues. It’s a very difficult age when the forces of time want to destroy us and take us away
On Relaxation, Sex And Cats
RIST: How do you relax? That’s something I find particularly difficult as an artist.
SCHNEEMANN: I don’t even like the word! If I have a partner and we make love a lot, then I’m in a very pure state of being. But here on my own, I relax by watching my cats.
Carolee once described herself, “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.” While asked by Pipi if she was still holding the same position, Carolee confirmed.It also got to be remembered that she also declared herself ''A painter who has left the canvas to activate actual space and lived time'.For that Carolee made up her German sounding last name which means cold, brilliant, icy water.Carolee was her name, but not Schneemann. When she was really young, she saw
there were no female painters, there were no female artists.She saw
that the men had big names, so she thought, she needed one like that.Like a strong brush stroke, larger than life she painted her own last name!
To conclude the unconcluded we can say
Carolee Schneemann received the Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement this year after long being ignored. Venice Biennale site wrote, ''Schneemann was a pioneer of feminist performance in the early 1960s and has been one of the most important figures in the development of performance and Body Art.''
A major retrospective titled, Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting, has opened at MoMA PS1, New York which would run through March 11, 2018.Paintings from the 1950sand her more recent assemblages, installations, films, poems, and performances will travell to New York from Museum der Moderne Salzburg in Austria where her first retrospective was held in 2015.
Wiki introduced Carolee Schneemann (born October 12, 1939) as ''an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender.
 |
| Water Ligt, Water Needle, 1970 |
Schneemann was awarded a full scholarship to New York's Bard College. She was the first woman from her family to attend college, but her father discouraged her from an art education.While at Bard, Schneemann began to realize the differences between male and female perceptions of each other's bodies while serving as a nude model for her boyfriend's portraits and while painting nude self-portraits
Schneemann acknowledges that she is often labeled as a feminist icon and that she is an influential figure to female artists, but she also notes that she reaches out to male artists as well.Unlike much other feminist art, Schneemann's revolves around sexual expression and liberation, rather than referring to victimization or repression of women.
 |
| Personae: JT and the 3 Kitchs, 1957, oil on canvas |
On recieving the Lion,
''It’s made me very depressed and confused. I’m used to working with neglect and misunderstanding, so this has been really challenging. It’s a different psychic realm. The Lion did not land easily here.''
On holding an exibit in rural Pennsylvania where she grew up,
RIST: Could we restage your PS1 retrospective in your hometown?
SCHNEEMANN: No...They’d burn down my barn. They’d chop down my trees. They might even think they should rape me. My work is all about forbidden aspects of the female experience. If I have a piece that says “blood” or “vagina” or “intercourse” or “sex,” that would have no deeper meaning to them than to be provocative.''
On American politics
''how do we get utopian thinking in a dystopian world?.... A primitive fury has been unleashed by a president who has no culture, who cannot read, and who wants to determine power and aggression...... The militarists do not want dialogue. They want what they want. They’re psychotic. They’re greedy, they’re narcissistic, and they’re dangerous.You can’t restore the ocean when you’ve polluted it beyond its absorption of toxicity.''
 |
| Eye Body, 36 Transformative Actions, 1963 |
SCHNEEMANN: And there was Eye Body [36 Transformative Actions for Camera, 1963], .... I didn’t understand that after I made that photo sequence, the culture would just look at the body. It wouldn’t understand the integration.
RIST: In those works, you were speaking not only about the female body, but about the human body.
SCHNEEMANN: Exactly. It took many years, but feminist analysis, feminist principles, and the social dynamics of women redefining their lived experience has all come together to support my motives. It’s been very gratifying. It was very painful when the cultural historians who were feminists took my work to be playing into male hands because of the use of the body.
RIST: I’ve had similar experiences with things being misinterpreted. It will probably take several more generations before the female body can be considered a stand-in for the human body.
SCHNEEMANN: We might not have that chance, Pipi.With this fascist swell of political deformations, we might be going backwards.''
 |
| Eye Body, 1963 |
''It was before the era of women’s self-determination had taken off. My teachers always said, “You’re very talented, but don’t set your heart on art. You’re only a girl.” I was inspired by Virginia Woolf in 1960, but they wouldn’t let me write about her. They said she was a trivializer. I also wanted to do a paper on Simone de Beauvoir, and my philosophy teacher said, “Why would you write about the mistress? Write about the master.” That was Sartre.
On Syria
RIST: You mentioned you are also working on some new pieces that involve Syrian corpses.
SCHNEEMANN: Yes, corpses of hundreds of men, tortured, starved, thrown around. I’ve been concentrating on that work. And I have a lot of smaller projects as well. It takes so much time because I have a lot of health issues. It’s a very difficult age when the forces of time want to destroy us and take us away
On Relaxation, Sex And Cats
RIST: How do you relax? That’s something I find particularly difficult as an artist.
SCHNEEMANN: I don’t even like the word! If I have a partner and we make love a lot, then I’m in a very pure state of being. But here on my own, I relax by watching my cats.
 | |
| Flange 6rpm, 2013 |
To conclude the unconcluded we can say
Choyon Khairul Habib
11/6/17
Brittany, France
Sources : Venice Biennale Site, MoMA Site, New York Times, Wikipedia, Interview Magazine
Sources : Venice Biennale Site, MoMA Site, New York Times, Wikipedia, Interview Magazine
