Schneemann, Carolee, 1939–2019, American multimedia artist, b. Fox Chase, Pa., B.A. Bard College, 1959, M.F.A. Univ. of Illinois, 1961. Her art encompassed numerous genres, including painting, collage, installation art, performance art, dance, photography, and film, and deals with gender politics, sexuality, and the role of feminism in overcoming social taboos. Interested in action painting and assemblage, she created environments in the early 1960s in which she posed for a series of photographs titled Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions for Camera (1963). A theater work and film, Meat Joy (1964), featured partially clad figures interacting with paint, sausages, raw chickens, and each other. In 1964 Schneemann joined the Judson Dance Theater in New York City, where she took part in happenings and other avant-garde performances. Her Autobiographical Trilogy, consisting of the films Fuses (1967), Plumb Line (1971), and Kitch's Last Meal (1978), intimately explores her life with her partners, including her cat. In the performance piece Interior Scroll (1975) she applied paint to her nude body and then read from a scroll she extracted from her vagina. Schneemann's written works include Cezanne, She Was a Great Painter (1975), More than Meat Joy (1979, 1997), Early and Recent Work (1983), and Erotics (2002).
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