LAFF: Carolee Schneemann Q&A Part 3 - April 20, 2008

April 20, 2008.
Carolee Schneemann Q&A - Part 3
Moderator: Adam Hyman
Location: The Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian Theatre.

Carolee Schneemann has never ceased to cross mediums and boundaries to make work that resonates with raw poetic power. From her collaged war or diary films and provocative performances to her photos, paintings and installations, Schneemanns varied creations deconstruct our ingrained preconceptions and everyday assumptions. In words, images and actions, her art is deeply personal, sharply critical, intensely expressive, and always innovative. (Notes by Berenice Reynaud)

Infinity Kisses (2008, 10 minutes, video, color, sound)
Since he was a kitten, my cat Cluny woke me every morning with deep kisses. During each week (even half-asleep) I reached for a hand-held Olympus camera to film our kissing. Lighting, angles, exposure, and focus were always unpredictable. The intimacy between cat and woman becomes a refraction ofthe viewers attitudes to self and nature, sexuality and control, the taboo and the sacred. Cluny died in 1988 after being bitten on his mouth by a rat. He was reborn as Vesper in 1990 and continues the kissing expressivity until his death of leukemia in 1999.

Kitch's Last Meal (1973-78, 54:06 minutes, originally super 8, projected as dual 16mm, separate sound. New restoration of original film reels/separate sound May 2007.)
Part III of "Autobiographical Trilogy".
The preservation of Kitch's Last Meal was supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and realized by the Anthology Film Archives. Print from Anthology Film Archives. Schneemanns cat, Kitch, which was featured in works such as Fuses, was a major figure in Schneemann's work for almost twenty years. The moving conclusion to the autobiographical trilogy was originally shot on Super-8. The film documents the routines of daily life whilst time passes, a relationship winds down and death closes in: filming and recording stopped when the elderly cat died. The soundtrack mixes personal reminiscences with ambient sounds of the household, and includes the original text used for Schneemann's 1975 performance Interior Scroll.

--------------------

The history of Carolee Schneemanns work is characterized by research into archaic visual traditions, pleasure wrested from suppressive taboos, the body of the artist in dynamic relationship with the social body. Her work questions the exclusivity of traditional western categories by creating a space of complementarity, mutuality, and integration and she has transformed the very definition of art, especially with regard to discourses concerning the body, sexuality, and technology.

Born in Fox Chase, Pennsylvania, she received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois. She began her art career as a painter in the late 1950s. Her painting work began to adopt some of the characteristics of Neo-Dada art, as she used box structures coupled with expressionist brushwork. In 1962, Schneemann and her then-husband composer James Tenney moved to New York, where they became involved in the art and music scene and met Claes Oldenberg, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, George Brecht, Malcolm Goldstein, Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Schneemann started working with the artists of the Judson Church, and participated in works such as Oldenberg's Store Days (1962) and Robert Morriss Site (1964) where she played a living version of Edward Manets Olympia. She began to use her nude body in works, feeling that it needed to be seized back from the status of a cultural possession. Production on her work Eye Body began in 1962. Schneemann created a "loft environment" filled with broken mirrors, motorized umbrellas, and rhythmic color units. To become a piece of the art herself, she covered herself in various materials including grease, chalk, and plastic. In 1964, the reworking of original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy in Paris, London and New York City ushered Schneemann into film and video-making. In 2007, a dual exhibit at CEPA Gallery, Buffalo NY & MOCCA Toronto featured recent video installations. Electronic Arts Intermix NYC and Anthology Film Archives NYC collaborated on presentations of newly restored and current film & videos November 2007. Schneemann has taught at several universities, including the California Institute of the Arts, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunter College and Rutgers University, where she was the first female art professor hired.


All Rights Reserved.
http://lafilmforum.org

Category:

People & Blogs