ART
Review: Carolee Schneemann at CEPA, Buffalo, NY
/ Julie Perini
05.05.07
Carolee Schneemann: Remains To Be Seen at CEPA, Buffalo, NY
Decades before The Vagina Monologues made talking cunts a bit more acceptable to the general public, Carolee Schneemann gave voice to her own vagina by unraveling from it a long scroll of paper and reading its contents aloud. Schneemann’s Interior Scroll (1975) has become one of the iconographic performances from the 1960s and 1970s. The documentation from this action shows the artist naked, splattered with paint, her feet planted firmly in a warrior pose as she reads comments made about her work by one of her filmmaking contemporaries:
“…you are charming
but don’t ask us
to look at your films
we cannot
there are certain films
we cannot look at
the personal clutter
the persistence of feelings
the hand-touch sensibility
the diaristic indulgence…”
Despite such bald derision and condescension, it is fortunate for us that Carolee Schneemann shook off one bad review and continued to produce artwork. She has remained a major figure in contemporary art for more than forty years, creating work that keeps one finger on the pulse of humanity, addressing the brutal reality of war, and another finger on the collective clitoris, emphasizing female agency and embodiment.
Decades before The Vagina Monologues made talking cunts a bit more acceptable to the general public, Carolee Schneemann gave voice to her own vagina by unraveling from it a long scroll of paper and reading its contents aloud. Schneemann’s Interior Scroll (1975) has become one of the iconographic performances from the 1960s and 1970s. The documentation from this action shows the artist naked, splattered with paint, her feet planted firmly in a warrior pose as she reads comments made about her work by one of her filmmaking contemporaries:
“…you are charming
but don’t ask us
to look at your films
we cannot
there are certain films
we cannot look at
the personal clutter
the persistence of feelings
the hand-touch sensibility
the diaristic indulgence…”
Despite such bald derision and condescension, it is fortunate for us that Carolee Schneemann shook off one bad review and continued to produce artwork. She has remained a major figure in contemporary art for more than forty years, creating work that keeps one finger on the pulse of humanity, addressing the brutal reality of war, and another finger on the collective clitoris, emphasizing female agency and embodiment.