ART-PRESENTATION: Carolee Schneemann-Kinetic Painting,Part I
Along with other protagonists of the ‘60s New York City art world, Carolee Schneemann questioned the boundaries of traditional artistic disciplines as well as their overall cultural context. In the process, she arrived at intriguingly new and challenging forms of a visionary, multidisciplinary art. The artist was awarded the Golden Lion 2017 of the Biennale di Venezia (Part II).
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: MMK Archive
Spanningthe entire six-decades of Carolee Schneemann’s career, the exhibition “Kinetic Painting” introduces the genealogy of a painting approach that literally entered into motion and led to a number of significant artistic innovations and breakthroughs. The works on view range from early paintings and assemblages to “kinetic theatre” performances, experimental films, and contemporary installations. The exhibition presents 270 works, including loans from the Generali Foundation and the mumok (museum moderner kunst) in Vienna, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and the artist’s Collection. Carolee Schneemann studied painting at Bard College, Columbia University, and the University of Illinois. Early on, she started setting her paintings in motion using simple mechanisms and integrating photographs and everyday objects into her “Painting Constructions”. The exhibition features numerous examples of this genre, in which the artist also pioneered the use of fire as a creative material; some of them have never been on public display. In 1961, Schneemann moved to New York and threw herself into the downtown arts scene, contributing to Avant-Garde film and dance projects, happenings, and events. Artists such as Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Robert Morris photographed Carolee Schneemann and invited her to participate in their performances. Questioning the traditional role attributed to women in art as beautiful and silent onlookers, in 1962 she ultimately began experimenting with choreography herself. She was the first visual artist to choreograph for the Judson Dance Theater (1962–1964) and appeared as Manet’s Olympia in Robert Morris’s “Site” (1964). Aiming to take painting beyond the canvas and to be “both image and image-maker”, she created a hybrid performance photography by melding her body into an environment that included “Four Fur Cutting Boards” (1962) to produce “Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions for Camera” (1963). Many of Schneemann’s works and texts focus on the female body in its social and historical contexts and explore eroticism and sexual pleasure from a female perspective. Her sexually explicit film “Fuses” (1965) portrayed herself and her partner, the composer and music theorist James Tenney, in the midst of lovemaking that revealed a mutual intimacy and subverted the tropes of mainstream pornography. “Interior Scroll” (1975-77), one of her most renowned works, posits the artist’s body as a wellspring of “interior” knowledge: cm by cm, she pulls a paper scroll from her vagina and reads a monologue from it decrying the sexism and disparagement that women confront in the worlds of art and experimental film. Perhaps her best known work is the pioneering “kinetic theater” piece “Meat Joy” (1964), an opulently ecstatic celebration of sexuality, pop music, and flesh. Turning back to cast a critical eye on the painting of the Abstract Expressionists, she developed “Up to and Including Her Limits” (1973-77), a performance installation that highlights the artist’s body as a medium of artistic mark-making. Recent works such as the sculpture installation “Flange 6rpm” (2011-13) attests to Schneemann’s undiminished creative energy.
Info: Curator: Sabine Breitwieser, Curatorial Advice: Branden W. Joseph, Assistance Curator: Tina Teufel, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, MMK 1, Domstraße 10, Frankfurt, Duration: 31/5-24/9/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-sun 10:00-18:00, Wed 10:00-20:00, http://mmk-frankfurt.de
