Further Live Research: Carolee Schneeman Exhibition

 As part of my research, I visited the Carolee Schneemann exhibition Body Politics, at the Barbican in London.  this exhibition was a retrospective of the life and work of Schneemann (1939-2019).

As the exhibition catalogue states Schneemann 'experimented with paint, found objects, her own body, text, performance, film and multimedia installations' (Carolee Schneemann, Body Politics)  I originally was drawn to her work through the performance, using her body and her feminist perspective.  As stated before many argue that a woman using her body is exhibitionist and worse, a pretty woman using her body in art is just a crowd pleaser.  However, this missed the point and the title of the exhibition body politics is exposing what is most important and that is that a woman's body is political.  Schneemann reclaimed her body and used it for art to expose 'the history of patriarchy and the abuse of power across global conflicts' (Carolee Schneemann, Body Politics)

Schneemann starts with the personal and then moves into the universal and in using her own and other bodies in 'kinetic theatre' Schneemann was using experimental techniques which 'explored desire, challenged the male gaze, and took her daily life and relationships as source material' (Carolee Schneemann, Body Politics)  The idea in Meat Joy of using meat and fish and moving together, men and women's bodies entwined in a carnal dance, in the resulting film of the performance, has a kind of beauty.  Below in Eye Body Schneemann used paint and her body to express herself as an 'active maker' not just a passive muse for male pleasure. 

the film 'Fuses' is most interesting as it was filmed over three years and recorded 30 seconds of footage at a time using a Bolex camera.  'The camera was positioned hanging from the ceiling, and atop the furniture, vantage points that share a consistent framing of the couple having sex.  Fuses is unapologetically erotic' (Carolee Schneemann, Body Politics). The film was then treated with acid, rain, lightning, baked, and exposed to the sun. The resulting footage is erotic, and moving and gives the viewer an insight into; 'a heterosexual woman invested in non-reproductive sex'  (Carolee Schneemann, Body Politics).  Again, there is a raw beauty to this footage that is sensory and moving, intimate and dynamic. This piece of work has always moved me and seeing it on the big screen allowed me to experience this in a deeper way as it could wash over me, and be inside me. 

Schneemann also created films from war zones, her own breast cancer, and her own life.  Schneemann is the work and as she stated to a friend 'I do not show my naked body!  I AM BEING MY BODY!' (Carolee Schneemann, Body Politics)