Carolee Schneemann
Born 1939, Fox Chase, Pennsylvania
Died 2019, New Paltz, New York
1959 BA Bard College, New York
1961 MFA University of Illinois, Illinois
Selected museum exhibitions: Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria (2015); The Merchant House, Amsterdam (2015); Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Sweden (2013); Dia Beacon, New York (2012); MOCCA, Toronto (2007); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1997); Kunstraum, Vienna (1995); Syracuse University, New York (1994); Colby-Sawyer College, New Hampshire (1984)
Selected honors: Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Venice Biennale (2017); Aurora Award (2014); Jimmy Earnst Lifetime Achievement Award (2002); Rockefeller Foundation Award (2001); Pollock-Krasner Artist Grant (1997); Guggenheim Fellowship (1993); National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1983); Cassandra Foundation Grant (1970)
Selected public collections: ARCO Museum, Spain; Berkeley Art Museum, California; Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; J. Paul Getty Center, California; Hamburg Kunste Museum, Germany; Hirschhorn Museum, Washington; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Ludwig Collection, Germany; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Muzeum Wspólczesne, Poland; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Whitney Museum of Art
Carolee Schneemann was a pioneer of feminist art and performance. Her multimedia works and performances confronted taboos around creativity, nudity, sensuality, and sexuality. Among Schneemann’s most groundbreaking work is Interior Scroll, a performance from 1975 that is documented in these 13 photographs. During the performance, she entered the space wearing a white sheet and an apron. After undressing, she read from her book Cezanne, She Was a Great Painter and applied paint to her body. She then extracted a scroll from her vagina and read the text on it aloud, a response to a critic who accused her of making messy, female work.