Carolee Schneemann | |
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Born |
Fox Chase, Pennsylvania |
October 12, 1939
Education | Bard College, University of Illinois |
Known for | Visual art, performance art |
Movement | Feminist art, Neo-dada, Fluxus, Happening |
Carolee Schneemann (born October 12, 1939) is an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. from Bard College and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois. Her work is primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the individual in relationship to social bodies. Her works have been shown at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the London National Film Theatre, and many other venues. 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. Additionally, she has published widely, producing works such as Cézanne, She Was a Great Painter (1976) and More than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings (1997).
Schneemann's works have been associated with a variety of art classifications including Fluxus, Neo-Dada, Performance art, the Beat Generation, and happenings.
When she was a child, her friends described her as "a mad pantheist," due to her relationship and respect for nature. 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. Schneemann's family was generally supportive of her naturalness and freeness with her body. Schneemann herself has 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.