Performance – Carolee Schneemann

Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions (1963)

35mm black & white film

Photographed by Erró

Eye Body was Schneemann’s first use of her physical body as an active agent in her art work. The piece was a performance of sorts, but was displayed through the photographs taken by the Icelandic photographer, Erró. The piece revolved around Scheemann’s naked body interacting with objects such as: paint, plastic, feathers, plastic snakes, glass, ect. This was the beginning of her journey in using the human body as a new organic form of canvas, because, as the artist, stated herself, “…I establish my body as a visual territory.”

Site (1964)

Performance piece at Stage 73 Surplus Dance Theater, New York City
By Robert Morris (featuring Carolee Schneemann)

In this performance, Morris (who is wearing a mask of his own face sculpted by Jasper Johns) silently moves around large sheets of plywood, revealing a nude Schneemann who represents Edouard Manet’s Olympia. This conceptual art piece focuses on anonymity and the fascination with the passive nude female form within art.

Up To And Including Her Limits (1973 – 1976)

Performance painting

In this performance, Carolee Schneemann would strap herself into a tree climber’s harness (while in the nude) and let herself swing around the space she was in. As she ‘floated’ about the area she would write and draw on the walls and floor in multicolored crayons. There was also a live video feed capturing these performances. The inspiration for the piece was largely due to Jackson Pollock’s use of the physical body in his art.

Interior Scroll (1975)

In probably her most infamous performance piece, Carolee Schneemann first performed a reading from her 1976 book “Cezanne, She Was A Great Painter” all while standing on a table wrapped only in a towel. She then removed the cloth, stood naked on the table, and slowly removed a scroll from her vagina which she read out loud to the room. The text used on the scroll was from a forgotten film project of Schneemann’s titled “Kitch’s Last Meal” (1973) – it is supposed to reflect a male critique of women in the art field.

The idea for the piece came from a dream in which Schneemann saw a woman, with her leg in the air, removing a scroll from her vagina that said “Interior Knowledge.”