Introduction “My Love I Found Two Lovers: Dancing Stone Each Other.”13

introduction “My love I found two lovers: dancing stone each other.”13

Carolee Schneemann wrote this sentence to the composer James Tenney in a letter in 1958. Presenting lovers as if entwined in dance, she located the pair in the context of the inimitable barrier of a stone, bur- dened with its immobility. The incongruity of a “dancing stone” left the rhythmical words open to layers of meaning and multiple interpreta- tions, rescuing them from sentimentality, even as Schneemann offered Tenney an expression of passion. Such is the evocative quality of her letters, epistles through which readers encounter a complex personality simultaneously eloquent and incisive, emotional and rigorous, tender and fierce, confrontational and shy, yielding and intransigent, cautious and spontaneous, as well as determined, energetic, courageous, and full of sorrow and joy. Schneemann’s thoughts ebb and flow in her letters, emphasizing aesthetic associations of language over precise meaning, all the while de- livering information, insight, and reasoned argument. Most of all, her letters are poetic. Indeed, poets were the first to grasp Schneemann’s ability to create a seductive fleshy prose, condensing feeling and experience into expressive, distilled textual form. The poet Robert Kelly was the first to publish Schneemann’s writings in 1963,14 followed by the poets Jerome Rothenberg and David Antin in 1965,15 and the poet Clayton Eshleman in 1969.16 When asked about the qualities that she believed poets admired in her style, Schneemann observed: “They recognized the density of the levels, the erotic texture of meanings—simultaneously tactile, metaphoric, and historical. The words were not just a surface, and their power evoked associations beyond the words themselves and positioned deep images. This was something like the deep

13. Carolee Schneemann (hereafter CS) to James Tenney, 18 March 1958. Tenney died on 24 August 2006. This book celebrates their long devotion to, and lifelong love of, one another. 14. CS, “Hormones Circling” in Kelly’s mimeographed journal Matter (1963): unpaginated. 15. CS, “Meat Joy Notes as Prologue,” Some/Thing 1, no. 2 (winter 1965): 29–45. 16. CS, “Notations, 1958–1966,” Caterpillar 8–9 (1969): 30–44. image poetry of Antin and Rothenberg. I should add that my sixth grade teacher, Rose Wachter, had us do English five hours a day. I learned about poetry from her. You had to write an essay every week and read it to the group in sixth grade. For punishment you would be sent out in the fields to play. She read to us each day from Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, and Shakespeare.”17 Thinking about the historic relationship between painters and poets, the sculptor Clara Westhoff Rilke wrote in 1945: “One of the princi- pal forces of modern art was recognized by a poet.”18 She referred to her husband, the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and to Paul Cézanne. Reflecting on Rilke’s understanding of Cézanne’s paintings, she remembered that he visited a Cézanne exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris nearly every day in the fall of 1907. As Rilke himself explained, these visits were “the turning point” in his understanding of painting and his appreciation that “pictures demand one’s participation.”19 The relationship between Rilke’s discernment of the significance of painting as a medium for connecting art and life and Schneemann’s support by poets, who grasped the participatory poetic form of her writing and visual production, is not accidental. Schneemann’s first muse was Cézanne. She even titled her first artist’s bookCézanne, She Was A Great Painter (1974). Schneemann grasped the implications of Cézanne’s broken line and the fracture of continuity between forms such that the space between definitions equivocated in incremental energy. Art historians refer to this tactile approach in Cézanne’s work as passage, or the inter- penetration of planes created by his short brush strokes that lock the picture surface together in a tightly interwoven structure while simultaneously providing movement throughout. It could be said, in this regard, that Schneemann translated the virtual kinetics of Cézanne’s passages into a dialogue between the eye and the body in space, seeing momentum where the physicality of perception could be felt as movement. The same is true of her understanding of Jackson Pollock’s strokes, where the body follows the eye into the momentum of line. Indeed, Schneemann called her version of happenings “kinetic theater” for how her work emphasized bodily movement and corporeal interaction. Schneemann’s interest in movement transferred to her letters as well.

17. CS in conversation with the author, 8 June 1994. 18. Clara Rilke, ed., Rainer Maria Rilke Letters on Cézanne, trans. Joel Agee (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1985), xvii. 19. Ibid., xxii. introduction xxvi shell sculptures,” for example, she commented: “So I take an opposite an take I “So commented: she sculptures,”example,for shell Portraying correspondents. student’s“pastelideasand to a her express to forms kinetic as words used she adjectives, lush together Stringing mentext, 1979), 264. audacious, of inher Schneemann expressed personalgrief aform art. being to addition in that suggests he that only say can one meaning; Kelly’s precisely fix to impossible is It centuries. fourteenth and twelfth the between current was which ences, Invention!outward! Social! [Kelly’s emphasis].”22 personal of fusion a vigorouslyas work of priority the of woman spokes- deft a & malaises our of diagnost a writer, “a as Schneemann described further he Party)”; Irish an (life chandelier the on there, up son, a clear honest yearning towards hanging the completed work right Emer- of touch a Amerithing, “an was work Schneemann’s of rection” di- “philosophical the that observed Kelly Robert poet meaning,” the “personal to tie its and approach an such esthetically.Understanding kin- correspondent a to distance a at her linked page the on word the as much as spectators, her of herthose bodyown and between change reader’s imagination traverse form its the helps eye,” Schneemann the for touch to “pleasing objects dent’s stu- her finds which sight, of qualities haptic the Emphasizing words. Schneemann’s through life to come art of object and humanity.Body ordermakeinto “smallendowed embodiedshapes” fixed fantasy with pushing”“convexity”movingand intoboth object the “concavity”and dimensionallyfingers.”turningby beginfingers “rolling, These roping, “configured is it as body the with it activates view,Schneemann into comes object the as just language.Then, her through material the of palpability the inhabits and senses, feels, white.”bone One “bleached her reader experience the flow of plaster’schalky qualityand tosee it as Schneemann linked adjective to adjective without punctuation, helping traverse.”20 In order to animate and visualize a plain noun like “plaster,” into small fixed fantasyshapes. They are pleasing to touch forthe eye to sionally by turning fingers: rolling, roping, pushing convexity, concavity dimen- configured plaster white bonebleached the examining keep to be to include or make a border, but to concentrate on the differences . . . silky depth of the pastels . . . the reason you havedark them so the close may with not sculpture white the combine to ideas eager the to tack 22. Robert Kelly, Direction,”“AmericanRobert in 22. audi- secular for troubadours by sung lament funeral medieval a was “planh” The 21. toJan Peacock, 28December1994.20. CS A touc h for the eye is exactly how the artist imagined an erotic inter- above all. Her written texts texts written Her all.above meaning personal (New Paltz, N.Y.:Paltz,(New Docu- Joy Meat Than More as ifas planh the thingthe could be touched. 21 & the most outrageous outrageous most the & 21 xxvii introduction A more practical consequence of Schneemann’s literary abilities was that she theorized the meaning of her own work long before it received serious critical attention. But she did so first and foremost in intimate letters to friends where she discussed her perceptions, processes, pref- erences, and practices. As Schneemann’s renown grew, she developed her theoretical ideas further in epistolary conversations with critics, scholars, and other artists. In this regard, Schneemann belongs to a group of artists associated with the first generation of happenings and Fluxus in the late 1950s through the mid-19 60s that theorized their own art in texts that inspired younger artists, laying the practical and theoretical foundation for body and performance art.23 These artists’ capacity to explicate their own work challenged received aesthetic meanings and critical assumptions about artistic intention and also directly shaped the reception of their art and careers. In essays and letters, Schneemann discussed the changed conditions for making art, offering penetrating and insightful assessments of aesthetics, culture, and society that functioned as tutorials on the politics of culture. She also conducted protracted letter campaigns aimed at promoting an engaged performative paradigm, one that might move aesthetic concepts away from ossified models of art (such as the notion that art must remain autonomous and at an aesthetic distance from its audience). Furthermore, the model that Schneemann advanced would be foundational—however unacknowledged—for “relational aesthetics,” a theory of performance and socially engaged practices that emerged over four decades after she and others of her circle pioneered politically engaged and charged, interactive art.24 It must be said that Schneemann also approached reading letters in a way that was as interactive as her method of writing them and as emotionally engagé as her approach to making art: namely, she wrote and commented directly on the letters she received. Extending perfor- mativity to the inanimate epistolary object, she enlivened it, break-

23. Such artists include Joseph Beuys, Lydia Clark, Günter Brus, Valie Export, Robert Fil- liou, Dick Higgins, John Latham, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Robert Morris, Otto Mühl, Hélio Oiticica, Hermann Nitsch, Nam June Paik, Yvonne Rainer, Daniel Spoerri, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Emmett Williams, and Peter Weibel, to name just a few whose writings shaped the discourses of art history starting in the mid-twentieth century. 24. Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term in his book Esthétique relationnelle, published in Paris in 1998 by Les Presse du réel. Bourriaud’s concept and argument have been widely debated, especially by Claire Bishop in her “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,” Octo- ber 110 (fall 2004): 51–79. introduction xxviii Schneemann’s uniqueSchneemann’s style. writing conveysin stakes Ink, the Spinsters owner publishing and house the of editor once Drury, M. Joan with exchange An structure. or grammar, behaviors, established to conform to refused she insofar as conflict, to lead however,could objects, and people of world the with connect to will enthusiastic Her read. she that books the of pages the did she as just letter person’s another of sanctity conventional the through ing 92. Mother Journeys: Feminists Write about Mothering eds, (Minneapolis: Spinsters Sheldon, Ink, 1994),Amy T.289– Reedy,and Maureen Roth, Martha Need,”in I More the YouGive con- Drury herself, style.”Contradicting writing existing the enhance to has punctuation the that tolerableway—meaninga in packaged be must incoherence and detachment of sense its structure, of lack very Its can. it irritation.notflowthink into does sion The piece I as as well ten- this transforms punctuation disorderly a of addition the wanted), (chosen, tension of amount certain a creates style writing disorderly slightly the “Whereas format: conventional more a sought Drury ries, memo- and experiences childhood doubled, even and represented, it sis].” fragmentation . . . of sense this effectively. . . [but] experiences recreating childhood the is writing fragmentary as and disjoined, it is clearly meant to be—very the [and] piece this of impact the weakens believe, I chosen, you’ve punctuation in line with normative rules of grammar: “The punctuation Drury,content, in her capacity as editor, attempted to bring the artist’s moving its and writing her on Schneemann complimented having of Regardless excellent.”26 is writing The it. of horror the from ternally, in- shrinking, also while sympathy and empathy in head her nod both reader a makes that writing of kind piece—the strong and evocative wonderfully a is This piece. your on make to like I’d comments few a wrote to the artist a letter worth quoting Drury from differentfrustration, sections: “IIn other.25haveany than child a as life her about more reveals that one and writing of movingpieces evocativeand most ist’s Steal/The More You Give the More I Need),” a text that is one of the art- “Anti- essay ing Schneemann’s Drury Drury grappled with the artist’s idiosyncratic punctuation while edit- Caught in the conundrum of admiring Schneemann’s style for how for style Schneemann’s admiring of conundrum the in Caught 26. Joan M. Drury to CS, 1994. Allquotes by arefrom letter. Drury this toCS, 26. JoanM.Drury 25. Carolee Schneemann, “Anti- exacerbates rather than exaggeratesempha- [Drury’s Demeter: Demeter: De meter (The More I Give the MoreGive I Morethe You (The meter The More I Give the More You Steal/The More xxix introduction cluded by explaining that Schneemann’s text required “a fairly strenu- ous re-doing . . . concentrating primarily on the punctuation.” Next, Drury advised: “The constant use of ellipsis is not only erroneous in this article (in terms of its intention in the English language) but is also counter-productive to meaning and flow.” Finally, in her effort to make Schneemann’s text cohere grammatically, Drury resorted to rewriting Schneemann’s essay herself: “I have enclosed a copy of this article as I think it might best appear. I rarely do editing in this manner, but to edit this piece in the conventional manner—that is, to write all over your existing hard copy, deleting many marks and adding many—would be, visually, very difficult. I wanted you to see how the piece would look on paper with a different approach to punctuation. I am not insisting that you have to comply with the enclosed copy, Ms. Schneemann [Drury’s emphasis]. It might meet with your approval, or you might want to work out something somewhere in between your finished copy and my suggested copy.” Drury’s letter highlights the challenges posed by Schneemann’s participatory mode of writing, wherein lies its quintes- sential poetry. Schneemann enacts her artistry in dots, dashes, delays, and long blank spaces between words that permit a letter (or text) to breathe as if spoken, communicating the temporality of thought. Such writing plunges readers into the mental participation necessary to connect events and ideas, which the punctuation both extends and defers as it integrates a reader into the artist’s epistolary prose.27 Punctuation cannot be reduced to a system, as the feminist scholar Jennifer Brody has pointed out in her book Punctuation, as it performs in contradictory ways and its paradoxical performances produce a poetics and politics of punctuation.28 Thus, while Drury rightly identified the many real dif- ficulties in reading Schneemann’s idiosyncratic style and recognized its integral role in the artist’s creative process and expression, in her effort to provide accessibility to readers, Drury succumbed to an orthodoxy that might have been avoided had she recalled Gustav Flaubert’s pithy

27. In this way, Schneemann’s letters exude the kinesthetic qualities that the artist prized and presented in her “Kinetic Theater” in the early 1960s, a relation to movement from the eye to the body from which her kinetic assemblages and performance art also developed. As Schneemann herself noted, in her Kinetic Theater “the audience may become more active physically than when viewing a painting or assemblage; their physical reactions will tend to manifest actual scale—relating to motions, mobilities the body does make in a specific envi- ronment [Schneemann’s emphasis]. Schneemann in More Than Meat Joy, 10. 28. Jennifer Devere Brody, Punctuation: Art, Politics and Play (Durham, N.C.: Duke Uni- versity Press, 2008). introduction xxx the straightness of lines and the perfection ofsurfaces.”29 perfection the and oflines straightness the than Art to more is “There process: creative writer’s a about comment artists from whom the Swiss filmmaker, artist, and composer had in- had composer and artist, filmmaker, Swiss the whom from artists various by works miniature containing drawers of chest a (1970–77), on an object she was making for Distel’sHerbert “Museum of Drawers” reported Schneemann this, all of midst the In tends. she garden the or Kitch cat her of pictures poster than importance more no gives artist horses head from old slide) box which goes into 17/8″a 1 21/4″, ture museum in Switzerland; I’m completing this tiny glass (mirror and minia- fora project pleasing a on work at I’m beans, late planting ing, printers, year- a the and at is Cézanne, edition, New promises. waiting papers, pouting the all with/to hold/up catch to underway push big quicky; a is “This brief: be would letter her why explaining quicky”—before a is comment—“This flip a with letter her introducing sex, of round short a to allusion teasing a with began Schneemann life. her of pects enliveningskill in exemplifies as- Schneemann’s the routine most even quotidianthe in anything acommonplace but way. communicate letters her if even life, everyday of structures social tive norma- the with content was her.bySchneemann solicited Otherwise, parameters, or complicity with convention. But this is onlytrue within very precise conformity against rebellion existential an represents writing mann’s Schnee- correspondence. her throughout demonstrate colleagues and friends by advice unsolicited such to rejoinders sharp her as failure, to doomed was Schneemann instruct or scold to attempt any Indeed, “Sure!” snarled, sarcastically an- Schneemann rewrote Then work. “rarely” author’s other she that statement Drury’s to next margin the words the circling course, of letter, edition edition of be or written answered. stage bills share the Outstanding new the with to wait they as sulk papers” “Pouting activities. her all of integration Schneemann’s words topple over each other in her effort to capture the rary artists).”30 In this single paragraph, with its abbreviated sentences, partment. The entire museum is housed in ten drawers contempo- (500 trans. AlanBass(Chicago:University of ChicagoPress, 1978), 3. 29. See Flaubert’s Th Schne 30. CS toStanBrakhage, 10July 1975. 30. CS e opening paragraph of a letter written in 1975 to Stan Brakhage Stan to 1975 in written letter a of paragraph opening e emann’s response to Drury’s efforts? She wrote on the editor’s editor’s the on She wrote efforts? Drury’s to response emann’s Cézanne, Cézanne, She Was A Great , Painter to which, significantly,the by only only if well- - yea Préface à la vie d’écrivain in Jacques Derrida, pse o Kth Tdy ewe weig mulch- weeding, between Today Kitch. of poster r mea ning advice was upon imposed than rather re- do and and ing counter- Writing Writing and Difference , pr in oductive 11 / 16 ″ com- xxxi introduction vited contributions. Schneemann’s letter, however dashed off, is the artist at her most intimate: at home, surrounded by beloved cats, work- ing in nature, making art, and communicating with friends and lovers in letters.31 By and large, Schneemann’s circle received gracious, encouraging, and generous epistles. But the weight of her growing public success, which grew in the late 1970s, swelled with the boom of the art market in the 1980s. This is not to say that her art became more lucrative; on the contrary, there were simply more demands on her time and energy, as her letters prove. In fact, the title of this book derives from a work of art, Correspondence Course (1980), which Schneemann made during the period when she first became inundated with letters that would only increase over the following decades from students, curators, scholars, and art administrators whose requests, demands, and sometimes insensitive and even preposterous appeals exhausted her. Correspondence Course is Schneemann’s visual reply (figures 4–9). The work consists of a series of eighteen paired texts and images; each pair includes an excerpt from one of the annoying letters and a photographic self-portrait of the artist in the nude, striking a ribald position. Schneemann appears at her most waggish, mischievous, irreverent, and humorous self in Correspondence Course.32 For example, an “Assis- tant Professor of Fine Arts” hoping to include Schneemann in a book on women artists, wrote to the artist: “We are anxious for you to send us a complete bibliography, statement of purpose, future intentions, past influences, membership in clubs or societies, grants received, etc., to include in our proposed Dictionary of Women Artists.” Responding to these unwieldy demands, Schneemann drew up her legs to expose a feather duster protruding from her vagina, as if to say: “Kiss my feminist pussy.” In another image, the same duster wags from Schneemann’s

31. Schneemann lives in Springtown, a small settlement north of New Paltz, New York. Her home, left to her in 1965, is one of the few unaltered stone houses constructed in the 1750s after the Lenape Indians granted Dutch and French Huguenot settlers in the Hud- son Valley permission to build. Known as the DuBois-Deyo House, it was added to the Na- tional Register of Historic Places in December 1994. 32. See Schneemann’s photographic essay Correspondence Course in The Dumb Ox 10/11 (spring 1980): unpaginated. The artists Allan Kaprow and Paul McCarthy edited this special issue on “Performance” and insisted that Schneemann’s contribution be published after the editor, James Hugunin, refused to include her photographs, describing them as “pornographic.” Kaprow and McCarthy threatened to withdraw their own work if Schnee- mann’s photo-essay was not published. “That was so splendid when the guys came in and fought for my work,” CS in conversation with the author, 8 August 2006. introduction xxxii This letter ends with the eager but impertinent demand: “We need your “a lot renownedof exposure.” Schneemann already internationally the offers but contribution” [your] forpay havingfunding to “noto fesses from a nonprofit “Feminist ArtCentre” Research inCanada, which con- ment “na na na na na na,” with a letter irritation registers Schneemann tongue like a naughty little girl. Another image, expressive of the senti- her out sticks and ears, her from over,fingers her bends wags camera, butt: “Kiss my feminist ass.” In still another, Schneemann peers into the lan, 1985), xi. the subject. In too, this and respect, DylanSchneemann Thomas would thinkingon her better understand ideascameto she her as redraft and rewrite would she time which during months several over sometimes mulling of practice over her by typified is topic a correspondents, with significant letters in conversations her considered Schneemann which to degree The life.”35 his throughout letters of drafter laborious often careful, “a be could ThomasDylan Welshpoet thelike artist an which part her letters are thoughtful and, in this regard, resemble the most ways in the for But increased. time her on demands the as perfunctory more them made necessity 1990s, the by when, even remained letters Schneemann rebuff Higgins for advice that was both sexist and ageist.34 did Thus entrendre. double the summoning letters capital the DICK,” middle- her for substitute to artists female younger hire mann Schnee- that suggested he which in Higgins Dick artist the from letter a of instance the is Such intolerablecircumstances. in support as faces sur- alwayshumor inimitable artist’s the situations, such In demands. over epistolary irritation and with frustration the from art making her triumph in toXeroxing”! access of“unlimited ther compensation fur- absurd the offered then and $200” of honorarium [for an] mance an “Alternative Space her breasts and growlingbared her teeth, to the directorin response of material yesterday!” In still another visual retort, Schneemann grabbed his letter, Schneemann finally responded using the salutation, “Dear salutation, the using responded finally Schneemann letter, his of topic the on exchanges several After performances.33 her in body This assertive riposte demonstrates how considered Schneemann’s Schneemann’s considered how demonstrates riposte assertive This 35. Paul Ferris, Introduction, Ferris,Paul 35. toDick Higgins, 25June 1981. 34. CS 10March1981. 33. Dick HigginstoCS, Schne emann’s acute sense of the absurd and sensitivity to hypocrisy hypocrisy to sensitivity and absurd the of emann’ssense acute Correspondence Correspondence , Course the bawdy content of which displays US A (New York:(New Letters Macmil- Collected The Thomas: Dylan ” wh o wanted her to present “a major perfor- ag ed ed xxxiii introduction (facing pages) 4, 5, and 6. Carolee Schneemann, “Correspondence Course,” in The Dumb Ox 10, no.11 (spring 1980), n.p. Self-shot silver prints mounted on silk-screened text (32″ × 30″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann and James Hugunin.

(facing pages) 7, 8, and 9. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980.

differ from a writer like Virginia Woolf, whose letters were all “written in haste.”36 In particular, Schneemann would increase her labor over a letter if she believed that she had suffered an injustice or been misrepresented in someone else’s letter. In such instances, she might “recoil like an angry dog.”37 But one had to be a trusted friend for her to feel safe enough to unleash her wrath. The rare enemy might warrant an angry draft, but Schneemann hardly ever sent such letters. The constraints on the length of this volume made it impossible to include any of Schnee- mann’s livid drafts, but such documents disclose the artist’s vigilant effort to harness her emotional responses in order to present a mea- sured tone. Moreover, letters that began as rants often end as models of nuanced self-restraint. Schneemann’s fury is, nevertheless, palpable in her exchange with the poet Clayton Eshleman about his poem “The Woman Who Saw through Paradise,” written in 1975. (The poem is included in this volume along with Eshleman’s letters.) Incensed by Eshleman’s character- izations of her, Schneemann snapped: “I don’t work out of anguish, I leave it for letters or notes!”38 The series of letters between the artist and the poet indicate the critical role letters played as an emotional outlet for Schneemann. Letters served her pain. Her epistolary habits allowed her to preserve her art as the public expression of aesthetic en- joyment and/or social outrage. In a youthful letter of 1960 accounting for the origins of her art, Schneemann laid out the process by which she transferred the content of an anguished life into her art. Her explanation about her purpose is surprising for how it reflects none of the exuberance of the period com- monly associated with the emergence of happenings. Rather, Schnee- mann explained that her art provided a refuge from suffering:

When my life was most a nightmare . . . the art—like a monster— gained a devouring strength for itself developing in spite of my misery and carrying me along, a crazed puppet: misery “it” did seem to use as would a crippled magician sending a servant into horror which the magician could then vicariously comprehend, and worse, transform into glorious spectacles. The servant is forever trapped in the wonder

36. Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann, eds., The Letters of Virginia Woolf, vol. 6, 1936–1941 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), xii. 37. CS in conversation with the author, 5 June 1994. 38. CS to Clayton Eshleman, 12 September 1975. introduction xxxviii broken glass. of shards through looking her as well as pelts, fur ofdisarray a and objects, “junk” found and assembled umbrellas, torn of front in body her on snake a with appearing and horns, over-face her with artist the of images its with series photographic the letter,especially this in commentary her through letter the time, same the creates.”At magician the role wonder the in “trapped and vision herown of webthe in caught herart, to servant a neously two contradictory positions as an artist. Her letter shows her as nize this aesthetic conundrum attests to her ability to maintain simulta- appreciated “glorious spectacles” worse: far something into vision horrific transforms that bind double the aware of be to enough detached remain to able was she process, ative cre- tortuous a explicating while For sophistication. aesthetic as well adapting the wildart- ] of [capable endlessly . . . art an “like or art” an life “Make claiming: pro- by dilemma this resolved Schneemann force. life the servant, its “mutilat[ing]” without replaced be or dienot could (art) ablemonster unshak- the and inspire; and nourish, sustain, to life upon dependence life “tragically replaceable” for the young Schneemann, regardless of its servant’s “horror” by recommitting the artist to her own pain. Art made (artist) its doubles monster the magiciansuffering, by Fueled misery. her the by “crippled” becoming by it serves who puppet” “crazed a into hostits (Schneemann) feeding monster—turns on itself. Art—that strength devouring its art, monster the to birth gives that force the as Schneemann’s Schneemann’s letter demonstrates a precocious self- authors.40 favorite her of one Artaud, Antonin as poet/artists such of writings Dionysian the as well as traditions, Surrealist and Symbolist, Romantic, with work expressiveher of continuity the divulges source “magician” the or whose artist, work sorrow.vicariouslyon fed a Such an hadbecome she believed she that by which processes the of origins This dense and brilliant description pictures a nightmarish misery misery nightmarish a pictures description brilliant and dense This art- endlesslytheadapting wild art, an likemake life to art: an makelife vant in us is mutilated and alwaystries for a double role:entendre to pend on her . . . no, but the art cannot be replaced or if it dies the ser- art- all how matter no replaceable role the magician creates. The life servant—or capacity—is tragically 40. Schneemann’s early paintings, assemblages, and performances call out for a reading toMonaMellis,1960. 2February 39. CS In t In his extraordinarily revelatory letter, Schneemann unmasked the the unmasked Schneemann letter, revelatory extraordinarily his magi cian tricks to temporal utility.39 totemporal tricks cian magi cian tricks to temporal utility.” totemporal tricks cian painted in painted magi art. Her capacity to recog- to capacity Her art. as cian discoveries seem to de- to seem discoveries cian black marks, sometimes wearing wearing sometimes blackmarks, cr itical aptitude as (1963) Body Eye xxxix introduction conveys how the artist resisted the absorption of her art into the spec- tacle applauded by museums and other mainstream art institutions that have ignored her work. In audacious actions that staged her beautiful and widely desired nude body, Schneemann created spectacles of “the ideal woman” and the female body that undermined both the paradigm she mimed and the capacity of art institutions to absorb her imagery, meaning, and content. This is as true today as it was in the early 1960s, a contradiction vividly exemplified in the response to my proposal to curate a retrospective exhibition of Schneemann’s work at the Walker Art Center in 1994. Then curator Richard Flood responded: “In the case of Carolee, we were compelled by the case that you made but, while she may indeed be the stem, we felt that our audience would be better served by the apple.”41 As this book goes to press in spring 2010, no museum yet plans to offer Schneemann a retrospective after fifty years of pioneering work. Museum officials refusing to consider such a comprehensive exhibition cite various excuses: an inability and unwillingness to “expose the public to the nudity and sex” in her work; the “board of advisors” are “uncertain” about “the long-term value of her art”; “she already had a retrospective” (a reference to the important, but small, selection of Schneemann’s work curated by Dan Cameron at the New Museum in 1998);42 and so on. That Schneemann transmogrified unhappiness into an encompassing “life capacity” that fed (as it resisted) art in the service of the magician’s spectacles may, in part, answer the question as to why, while being internationally acknowledged, her work has not yet received the institutional support it deserves.43 This is not the place to unpack that observation except to point out that the pain which she replaced with joy is, nevertheless, embedded in Schneemann’s powerful work and clear throughout: from the shards of glass in assemblages and performances to burned and torn materials in paintings and sculptures; from

41. Richard Flood to the author, 1 August 1994. See my “Schlaget Auf: The Problem with Carolee Schneemann’s Paintings,” in Carolee Schneemann: Up To And Including Her Limits (New York: New Museum, 1996). 42. See the small exhibition catalogue produced on the occasion of this exhibition: Caro- lee Schneemann: Up to and Including Her Limits, with an introduction by Marcia Tucker and essays by Dan Cameron, Kristine Stiles, and David Levi Strauss. 43. Although Schneemann had not read Walter Benjamin’s essay “Theses on the Phi- losophy of History” when she wrote this passage in her letter, her explanation of the “monster” art recalls his formulation of the hunchback and puppet manipulating history in a chess game. See Benjamin’s essay in Illuminations, trans. Henry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 253–64. introduction xl women’s difference took place in Schneemann’s writing habits; letters letters habits; writing Schneemann’s in place took women’sdifference be to understood she what untangling of task the beginning, the From fense of a woman’s right to represent herself and to control her future. controlher to and woman’sherself a of rightfense represent to de- in energy furious artist’s the to illness of representations the from over- her John Benjamins, 1999), 2. long-many her to self- for battle relentless her demonstrate friends and colleagues male such to letters Schneemann’s devotion. their to blind sometimes her made ist art- an as acceptance for drive ardent Schneemann’s if even and bias, male their of ignorance displayed both if even work, her for support and in belief unconditional an demonstrate letters whose Eshleman, and Brakhage with exchanges her of true particularly is This letters. her of leitmotifs the of one considered be must principles feminist for battle Schneemann’s culture. patriarchal in women and men corded ac- valence different the of analysis systematic a began and 1950s late very early. started subjugation ofwomen todomestic tasks well- and beautiful a kept always of “household chore[s] part like any role, other.”46 domestic Nevertheless, while woman’s Schneemann a always was diligent, so was mann Schnee- which about correspondence, of maintenance Ironically,the to be her mother’s “submissive behavior” and “frequent depressions.”45 domestic duties that she identified as other the source ofperform whatshe to considered and siblings younger of care the in share to pected ex- was she where family a in up grew she childhood: in raised been already had consciousness Her feminism. her of tools veritable were differencethe canswing way either forvalue but meaningswillbequitedifferent. the Van life. processof the asthe GoghandCézannegive usart They aremen. Yes, we are processof ourlives aboutthe of our writing that morethan art: T her history. epistolary All these aspects of Schneemann’s art become accessible in and through he Writer as Woman 46. David Barton and Nigel Hall, eds., Hall, Nigel and Barton David 46. inconversation author, the with 6June 1994.45. CS toNaomiLevinson, 19 March 1960. 44. CS Schne repres emann read Simoneemann de Beauvoir’s pain ted body to the recurring themes of death and war; and and war; and death of themes recurring the to body ted entation, independence, and equality, while her letters letters her while equality, and independence, entation, te rm female friends and women colleagues confer in womencolleagues confer and friends female rm (Amsterdam: Practice Social a as Writing Letter orga nized home, her critique of the the of critique her home, nized The The Second Sex (1949) in the 44 xli introduction critiques of patriarchy. Indeed, her extensive and persistent analysis of gender in her art, essays, and letters has been inspirational for artists of a range of sexual identities. But it was in a letter of 1974, in response to a request from the feminist artists Miriam Schapiro and Sherry Brody for a contribution to an exhibition they were in the midst of curating, that Schneemann most clearly articulated her aims in relation to women. “All my writing has been implicitly or—more recently—explicitly addressed to unknown ‘young women artists,’” she explained. It derived from “a persistent and desperate need on my part to serve as [a] possible precedent since my own [role models] were a private company of suicided or demeaned historical women.”47 In her aim to mentor younger women artists, Schnee- mann may have remembered the importance that a book by the Russian artist Marie Bashkirtseff, which she read in the late 1950s, played in her own impressionable beginnings.48 For later in her letter Schneemann declared her dedication to the recuperation of women’s place in history and offered Schapiro and Brody the possibility to reproduce sections of her artist’s book, Parts of a Body House Book (1974), in their catalogue. They chose an entry dated October 1971, which included the following sentence: “We are on-lookers, observers to our given definitions, our own integration.”49 Such a comment recalls Schneemann’s decision to write herself into history. Analyzing herself and her art from inside out and outside in, Schnee- mann performed reversals that required dissociating from emotional experiences. Separating from her feeling facilitated making radi- cal choices and decisions that challenged social conventions for, and even laws controlling, the behavior of women. Perhaps the most intimate decision was Schneemann’s conviction about a woman’s right to chose whether or not to continue a pregnancy, a decision that required deep self-knowledge, as well as the capacity to distance oneself from one’s body in order to envision a different future for that self. In her belief, Schneemann confronted what other women artists have faced for generations. One has only to read the writings of such artists as

47. CS to Miriam Schapiro and Sherry Brody, 5 March 1974. 48. See Marie Bashkirtseff, The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, trans.and intro. Mathilde Blind (London: Cassell, 1891). See also Schneemann’s letter to Naomi Levinson of 22 Feb- ruary 1958 in this volume. 49. See Schneemann quoted in Miriam Schapiro, ed., Anonymous Was a Woman: A Documentation of the Women’s Art Festival, A Collection of Letters to Young Women Artists (Valencia: Feminist Art Program California Institute of the Arts, 1974), 116. introduction xlii motherhood that they have psychically and socially endured. In addi- In endured. socially and psychicallyhave they that motherhood over struggle emotional the understand to artists, women other many among Chicago, Judy and Hesse, Eva Cassatt, Mary Hosmer, Harriet in New York City, 2008. of record a of establishment the and memory on emphasis Her cate. dupli- carbon in letters his type not did he if longhand in written had even asked one of her howcorrespondents he could remember what he sense of her life, reinforcing reality by narrating it to others. In fact, she make and organize to which through instrument an was writing letter opposite, the Quite narcissism. of result the not is that record a life, her throughout herfrom correspondents saved those and letters her of self- to will mined are children the most private, as the issue and, such, raise of her deter- lives. their impacts ways pregnancy in which the right of women to govern their bodies and the different and uneven also testify to the emotional and social struggles that couples wage over that decisions upon; agreed mutually McCall, Anthony husband, ond cisions that and Schneemann her first husband, James Tenney,and sec- chronicle the effect that the abortion decisions had on her marriage: de- tion in the days before and joyousto pregnancies of references termina- their announcements anguished include letters abortion Schneemann’s decisions. life their of consequences the through thinking in women younger assisting to her abortions is perhaps the most tangible evidence of her commitment about letters of publication the permit to decision courageous mann’s her as a “monster of nature” for having made decisions.51these Schnee- described who practitioner, general and doctorfamily a father, her of sadness and humiliation, alienation, the She bore also abortions. three undergoing children, have to unwillingness her in oppositions social Yoko had Ono, also abortions.50 artist- and motherhood; of questions on art their focused often mothers, became Kelly,who Mary Murray,and Elizabeth Neel, bands, and the culture at large for their decisions. Even artists like Alice hus- lovers, families, by condemned been have and art their for riage, mar- even and children, having sacrificed artists women many tion, 51. CS inconversation author, the with 6June51. 1994. CS 50. Ono included this revelation in her exhibition “Yoko Ono: Touch Me” at Galerie LeLong For Th e letters that Schneemann kept about her conviction not to have to not conviction her about kept Schneemann that letters e her her part, Schneemann rejected the most determined parental and do cument. Schneemann made carbon copies of all of copies carbon made Schneemann cument. Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. The letters also mo thers, like thers, xliii introduction her life again calls to mind the poet Dylan Thomas, who “planned his life [and] set up his biographers in advance . . . [in a] self-conscious approach to the business of being a poet.”52 Schneemann learned to be self-conscious about self-documentation from such literary mentors as de Beauvoir, Bashkirtseff, and Anaïs Nin who taught that a woman artist might be forgotten without such records. Another way in which Schneemann documented herself in letters, photographs, and works of art was through her abiding relationship with animals, especially cats. Her affinity for cats began “before I could walk,” she would say.53 Schneemann wrote extensively about Kitch, the cat that she and Tenney were given in 1956 (plate 1); the animal whose portrait she painted at the breakfast table with Tenney in 1958; the observer in her erotic film Fuses (1964–67), where Kitch, seated in the window of their bedroom, witnesses the couple having loving sex; the feline that figured as a co-performer in Schneemann’s installation/performance Up To And Including Her Limits, 1975; and the cat about which the artist made the film Kitch’s Last Meal (1973–76) (plate 2). This is how Schneemann introduced Kitch in a letter written in 1956, twenty years before the cat died: “Somebody gave us a kittenish face with a weeney grey body: Kitch-frighty example of Kitchhood; fearsome war- ringer. Sphinx of the bent knee and curly lap, conqueress of hairy sum- mits, naily peaks and pitfall valleys. Guardian of the sleepers, gong and scratch of the morning. Moth snatcher, egg lapper, cat napper, wood tapper, eyed latcher, neat crapper. Fluff ball. Din and Gammon. furr purr fuss buzz.”54 This loving attention to the description of the small young animal, along with the sights, sounds, smells, and experiences of Schneemann’s life with Tenney and Kitch, represents what the feminist scholar Carol Gilligan described as the “different voice” of women in their attentiveness to relationships, self and morality, crisis and tran- sition, rights and judgment, and the cycle of life.55 To this list must be added the enormity of Schneemann’s love of her cats. While Kitch was the observer of erotic trysts, she was never a par- ticipant like the male cat Cluny II, about whom Schneemann would ask in a letter: “Did we really speak about the Cat replacing/replicat-

52. Ferris, Introduction, ix. 53. CS in telephone conversation with the author, 26 February 1996. 54. CS to Jack Ludwig, July 1956. 55. Carol Gilligan. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982). introduction xliv answered: “There is no way to speak of the ‘erotic cat’ without being without cat’ ‘erotic the of speak to way no is “There answered: Schneemann question, own her to Responding lover?” human the ing as their mortality,as their to istied. vitality which sexuality, their well as taboo and sacred rendered and identified mals, ani- to opposition in humans, when moment the also was this Bataille, Forhuman.”60 a into turning just man of animal—and the before man self- extreme this is image] the [before there us holds Bataille concluded, “What brings us to an amazed, bewildered halt and humankind.”59 in fascinating is what suggests that image the give to order] [in themselves than rather animality chose . . . them painted who “declare they continued, that Bataille Lascaux, in pictures animal Thelost.”58 had they grace animal the with marvel nascent a clothe to obliged felt had they though shedding —as were they animality the of municating about human animality was to leave “innumerable pictures com- for means their noted, us,”Bataille “resembled painters Lascaux book his in dered pon- Bataille Georges that one animal, human the and animals tween be- interrelationship mysterious the examined she end, that Toward exaggerated them in an effort to expose the folly of female stereotypes. animals.57 with intimacy in her exacerbated ofdecorum putative lack Schneemann’s is Thus devil. the and demons with copulated have to with cats and often of accused coitus with animals, is equally surmised swan. a of form the in her to comes who Zeus, god the with copulates Sparta of queen mythic the which in swan, the and Leda of story the in fied is common throughout historythe of and art myth, especially exempli- 17b). Regardless of such prohibitions, imagery like that of animal- the hu maintain to need the over, anxieties phobic and about, taboos cultural ignores art of work transgressive This 17). (plate 1987 series photographic her in resulted Schneemann with kissing tongue of initiation His demonstration.”56 erotic to tion affec- domestic shifted temperament unique his II, Cluny to specific 60. Ibid.,33. 59. Ibid. (Lausanne:Skira, 1955), 11. ofArt 58. GeorgesBataille, Lascaux,ortheBirth 57. OnSchneemann’s seemy relationshiptodecorum, essay “SchlagetAuf.” to Tom56. CS McEvilley, 14 March1988. Th man boundary broken by bestiality and zoophilia (plates 17a and and 17a (plates zoophilia and bestiality by broken boundary man ese references were not lost on Schneemann.Toon lost contrary.not were the She references ese Infinity Kisses also the specter raises of the witch who, associated (1955). Although the the Although (1955). Art of Birth the or Lascaux, , 1981– Kisses, Infinity ef Infinity Kisses facement of facement xlv introduction The profundity of Schneemann’s writings about and images of interaction with animals inheres in the way in which she depicts the animal as an equal, not through self-effacement but through respect. Her description of Cluny II in a letter to the artist Sam Francis exhibits just such esteem: “Your appreciation (on visit here) of Cluny’s colors—grey & white, piebald . . . my especial delight in his aspect seen through your eyes: white of light, grey of foam or shadow; his incredible multi- toned blue green eyes connection to the ocean vista framed in these windows—edge moving water foam onto sand . . . blue green radiations of sky, vegetation carrying eye to something felt as tactile, as tactile as fur can be.”61 Schneemann’s observations of the sensuality of animals and nature represent the very sensuality that infuses her art. Her intrinsic sensuality and extrinsic eroticism, work with animals, and feminism all drew a criticism of Schneemann that was also leveled against Dylan Thomas, who was condemned for having “flaunted himself . . . in public [doing] harm to his reputation.”62 Similarly, Schnee- mann was repeatedly charged with flamboyant exhibitionism, an indict- ment that expresses envy as much as censure. A picture of Schneemann riding naked on Robert Rauschenberg’s shoulders during a party in New York in the late 1960s is a case in point. In gales of laughter, both artists delight in their play, the very kind of activities and display underpin- ning mythic notions of the 1960s as a historical period of unreserved, socially sanctioned abandon. The spirited independence of Rauschen- berg and Schneemann taunted the managers of propriety, but it was only Schneemann who was criticized for a lack of lack of inhibition. Schneemann is also the woman who appears in the smoky chiaro- scuro images in her artist’s book, ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards (1976), or in popular magazines like Vogue (figures 10 and 11). These images of Schneemann recall the paragon of nude female perfection in Venetian paintings by Titian and Giorgione or compositions like Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus (1599–1660). Such images form the basis on which Schneemann became a fantasy figure for male artists like Joseph Cornell and the artist and art historian Sir Lawrence Gowing, as the letters in this collection confirm. The documentary photographer W. Eugene Smith also wrote to Schneemann, whom he had never met, reaching out to her in a difficult time of his life with a request to col- laborate on erotic imagery.63 Not only men but also a host of women

61. CS to Sam Francis, 8 June 1985. 62. Ferris. Introduction, xi. 63. Smith’s estate would not grant the publication of his letter of 5 January 1968, but it introduction xlvi the television serial serial television the (figuretion 12). Twenty- revolu- sexual 1960s the of leader cultural a as recognized nationally of her happening Paris the after seductress of role the into Catapulted tion to be, and remain, what both men and women imagined her to be. paradoxical obliga-the it with brings that privilegedubious ativity—a cre- beauty, and eroticism, of icon an as Schneemann perceived have search Institute, LosAngeles California. may be read in the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Re- right. that defended that in letters also but books sculptures, assemblages, films,performances, photographs,and artist’s paintings, in only not art of history the into makers image own their be to women of authority the painted Schneemann 13). (figure 1993 cover the of painteron the of brushes the holding woman mature a as artist the of image iconic the to 1980s and 1970s the in manifestations strident the its infrom and 1960s, body the of celebration the to 1950s the in articulation early and stirrings nascent its from feminism Schneemann’s of corpus a ing acclaim. tounprecedented ample, rose ex- and promiscuity, tradition her workingfromwhile younger artists, unacceptable an with unjustlyassociated was 1990s,Schneemann and inglyevangelicaldominatedby 1980s and the in “values” conservative increas- nation puritanical a In (1981). Women American against War in analyzed Faludi Susan that repercussions reached a peak in the so- of contagion epidemic the to eroticism such of ship barrassment of “hippie” expressivity,sensual and the residual relation- em- the 1960s, the of “mess” the with associated be then also would sexuality that But feminism. pioneering its for respected and known precisely during the when period Schneemann’s art began to be widely H the of advent the by the widely perceived failure of in Sixties” “the mid- the Soho in the peared Weekly 1990. News on12March Ginsberg’s titled article “Sexon Schneemann and the Single ap- Artist” Th Th e letters in this volume chronicle these historical changes, form- changes, historical these chronicle volume this in letters e e celebration of sexual liberation that came to a crashing end with Meat Joy (1964) was Schneemann instantly and inter- Sex and the City the and Sex I six six V- cal A years later (but still almoststill a decade before (but years later led culture wars of the late 1980s and 1990s, I D in Art and Performance of Journal A PAJ: S epid emic in the early 1980s, occurred occurred 1980s, early the in emic drew millions of viewers), Merle viewers), of millions drew Backlash: The Undeclared The Backlash: AI succès de scandale de succès D 197 S , a , 0s, followed0s, ll of which which of ll xlvii introduction 10. Carolee Schneemann, detail from ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards, 1976, artist book with 158 note cards, photographs, and text, in a boxed edition of 151, published by Brummense Uitgeverij Van Luxe Werkjes in Beuningen, Netherlands. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

(opposite) 11. “Vogue’s Own Boutique of Suggestions,” Vogue, 1 March 1969, 206. Carolee Schneemann appears in Claes Oldenburg’s contribution to the “Fashion Show Poetry Event,” held 14 January 1969 at the Center for Inter-American Relations (now known as the Americas Society). Schneemann wore high heels and a ribbon in her ponytail and carried a tape recorder as a purse, which played Oldenburg’s voice describing a large white plaster wedding dress. The program for the event stated: “The poets will provide her clothes.” Photographs by Berry Berenson and Maurice Hogenboom. © Condé Nast Publications. Photograph of Schneemann by Peter Moore. © Estate of Peter Moore/VAGA, New York, N.Y. [Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.] 12. Mary Perot Nichols, “Scandal Ripens in My Fair City,” cover of Village Voice, 26 November 1964. Review of Schnee- mann’s performance Meat Joy, which pre- miered in Paris 30 May 1964, moved to London [Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. in June, and was last To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.] performed in New York City in November 1964. Research Library, the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (9500001). © 1964, Village Voice Media. Reprinted by permission of the Village Voice. Photograph by Fred W. McDarrah. © Fred W. McDarrah. to believe about herself and facilitated correspondents’ views of the the of views correspondents’ facilitated and herself about believe to lover, friend, a to present orto enabled her colleague shewhat wanted also Letters outside. from if as herself observe to her permitting tion, imagina- own her excite and confirm would letters her how intuited Schneemann self. of construction the in letters of value and purpose special attention girlfor and her deserves uncommon awareness of the self- surprisingly is expresses she ment senti- The First. Elsa friend her to letter a in sentence this typed she when 1950s the in College Bard at undergraduate an was Schneemann to myself were Isomeoneelse.” “I decidedto write,sinceit’s somuch like aletterIwould make T he Artist as he Artist S omeone Else consc ious for a late- a for ious Publications. Yoshida andPAJ of Barbara Courtesy by Barbara Yoshida. 44 (1993). Photograph of Performance andArt cover of PAJ: AJournal Schneemann onthe 13. Carolee ad olescent olescent

li introduction image she constructed of herself. In other words, there is a “distance between the writing subject and the masks of identity which she wears and mobilizes so deftly,” a comment Tamar Garb made in writing about Marie Bashkirtseff that applies equally to Schneemann.64 The mirroring function of the interaction of letters augmented the identity Schneemann formed, which, in turn, informed her art. As much as a means to keep in touch with others, Schneemann’s letters served her own intimate self-discovery, self-creation, and self-determination. Schneemann’s writing evinces her will to write herself into being. At the same time, she understood that she was not the historical being that she knew she would become. Nevertheless, she had the presence of mind to know that writing would augment that future self. In other words, the phrase “a letter I would make to myself were I someone else” suggests that a letter was something through which Schneemann could perform her self for others, as well as perform for herself. For that matter, all letters represent an exercise in the formation of an autobiographical self- representation in an unfolding dialogue with an interlocutor. Such mi- metic “acting out or role playing within the text . . . allows the woman writer better to know and hence expose what it is she mimics.”65 In Schneemann’s case, she had the temerity to mime the artist she imagined she would become and then the audacity to become her. Such an epistolary self-creation and creation for the self demonstrates how Schneemann used letters as a transitory space to become what she wanted to be, all the while being what she was and confirming that being and becoming in a text. Her letters attest to this process of becoming, one that Jacques Derrida described, “in the course of writing on writing,”66 as “différance within the economy of the same.”67 Among the many meanings Derrida assigned to the concept of différance, one is particularly relevant to thinking about Schneemann’s sense of becoming in letters: différance represented to Derrida “neither a word nor a concept,”68 but rather a “metaphysical trace” that occurred “between

64. Tamar Garb, “Unpicking the Seams of Her Disguise: Self-Representation in the Case of Marie Bashkirtselff,” Block 13 (1987/88), reprinted in The “Block” Reader in Visual Culture (London: Routledge, 1996), 117. 65. Mary Jacobus, Romanticism, Writing, and Sexual Difference: Essays on “The Pre- lude” (Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 40. 66. Jacques Derrida, “Différance,” in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1982), 3. 67. Jacques Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” in Writing and Difference, 198. This book was first published under the title L’écriture et la différence by Editions du Seuil (Paris, 1967). 68. Ibid. introduction lii thereby escaping inflexible categories of being. Letters enhanced the enhanced Letters being. of categories inflexible escaping thereby time, she represented a dislocated simulacrum in her letters, a histori- a letters, her in simulacrum dislocated a represented she time, same the At correspondents. her among especially others, among tion Being,as wellexisting in in continualas present, the a transi- presence fluid a as dialogues epistolary her in emerged presence Schneemann’s itself.”69cates dislo- that presence a of simulacrum the but presence a “not also was trace the beings”; and Being “between and present” the and presence Press, 1986), 345–59. ed., writing. and speech between distinction the underscoring thus not, were meanings their identical, two werewordsthe of pronunciations the while that fact draw the to différenceto attention wouldSchneemann also write at a young age, “For me to write is to see a painting peruse then to her body in action sharing the gaze of others. ephemeral form of performance, moving from eyes that both make and self. It is in not to the she that express herself chose then, coincidental, ited the “I do not know” that was an “I” at the edge of her knowledge of exhib- Schneemann letters, her copying and writing In knowledge.”70 to belongs that knowledge but of limit the at is that know’ notdo ‘I an is “There way: another in idea the put would Blanchot Maurice 1963 in woman, college young a as 1950s the in sentence this wrote mann Schnee- While else.” someone I were myself to make would I letter a like much so it’s since write, to decided “I sentence the in express to permitted Schneemann to be become an actual historical personage over the years of writing. Letters presence that was, that became through the literary act, and that would congealed categories. otherwise of being between trace that Derrida identified as neither onething noranother but a state augmented being letterin, as well as the Being—something akin to the metaphysical sense, this In being. same the of economy the within différance as existence explored she while unfold might presence her which in others with conversation for space a opened writing Letter be. to order in being into Being a wrote Schneemann persona, torical his- a and history of trace a Simultaneously others. of minds and eyes the in and letters through being into coming constantly presence cal Thus could Schneemann be herself herself be Schneemann could Thus 70. Maurice Blanchot, “TheTraceBlanchot, Maurice 70. Other,” the of C. Mark 1963,Lingis,in trans. A. Taylor, 69. Derrida, “Différance,” 26. Derrida intentionally altered the spelling of the French word Fo Re (Chicago: University of Chicago Universityof (Chicago: Philosophy and Literature Context: in Deconstruction llowing this intricate line of thinking, it is possible to imagine how ferring to all that she might imagine about herself and the world, the and herself about imagine might she that all to ferring and be which present, is what she seemed a someone else in letters, letters, in else someone nd liii introduction it.”71 She understood that her gift for writing could materialize presence through a process of envisioning that would enhance her own and her correspondents’ abilities to see the world differently. Intuitively grasp- ing the existential condition discussed above, she also understood that she could communicate about art and the world in direct ways that, in part, she credited to reading Proust: “I read everything he wrote— novels, letters. He gave me the permission to bring in what I was ob- sessed with—Jim’s underpants, cats, shards of a pot—that was not permitted in the culture, things that had that holding power.”72 Such ideas not only authorized her innate desires as well as concepts of self, they also allowed her to change culture by introducing images and actions otherwise “not permitted.” Holding fast to the material world, Schneemann would also present herself in multiple roles infused with the domestic, as a way to visualize and narrate her becoming: “I am an artist first, a student, a daughter, a secret wife (‘Mistress’ as Mother calls it). Cleaning, cooking, dragging groceries up the steps: a sack of potatoes, coffee, oranges, beans, chicken wings.”73 This litany of personas-dragging-groceries presents the artist wrestling with the demands of domestic tasks and ordinary life—just like her “Mother”— but, unlike her mother, for the ways in which Schneemann relentlessly fashioned her Being as an artist first. To become an artist Schneemann needed to write. She utilized language and writing as strategic tools. Letters helped her both to decipher and to alter herself and, therefore, to change her art. In this regard, writing would become a crucial element in a number of the performances that she realized in rapid succession in the mid-1970s: Up To And Including Her Limits (1974); Interior Scroll (1975); Moon In A Tree (1976); and ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards (1976). These performances (and others in which she used texts) entail the integration of writing with her art, demonstrating that language is not in opposition to the female body, as has so often been argued, but rather belongs squarely to it and its emotions and capacity to reason. The writing/drawing visual dyad central to Schneemann’s art and

71. CS to Jack Ludwig, July 1956. 72. CS in telephone conversation with the author, 26 February 1996. 73. This undated fragment of what may have been a draft for a letter was written after her marriage to James Tenney in the summer of 1956, before the couple moved to Vermont. This piece of writing is not included in the present work but may be found in the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Center, Los Ange- les, California. introduction liv ness, she moved within the configured space while drawing and writ- and drawing while space configured the within moved she ness, tree- a in naked Suspended 1974. April 11 on California, in Berkeley, University at the Museum developedArt performance this in 1973.74Coop London Film fully the Schneemann at projector” film a of light the in performed experiment, blind “asa began she which 14), in vivid especially is aesthetics menced when the museum opened that day and ended with its closure at the end of the day. text without psychical origin, there is no domain of nor the psychic machine without neither is there If . . . machine writing a by represented be will apparatus psychical the of structure “The continued: Derrida tent will be represented by a text whose essence is irreducibly graphic.” way, this stagingfirst of memory.”77“the accordingis, tation Derrida, to Viewed represen- and (“breaching”) rupture simultaneous a Such path.”76 ing conduct- a up opens [that] trail a . . . “tracing consciousness, to path a ing. She inscribed the trace of presence, breaching absence and opening communicate the interconnection between verbal and nonverbal know- ofmaking production in the her artist tothe art. back tension, viewer’s eye back to the- ments through the trance- chat bathroom, and with spectators, so Augmentingforth. move- these to her performance walk eat goher lunch, through museum, to the the and complimented the artist’s own needs: Schneemann would interrupt mirrored performance the during sleep and box, litter her use about, move eat, to need cat’s trance The well. as the participated Kitch in performance. breaks during spectators with conversations had and interacted also limits,”Schneemann her including and to “up literally two. in the drawings,and immersed literally texts by surrounded body her show performance the of photographs and images that mapped her artistic and physical processes in time. Still words into thoughts and movements, sensations, physical her scribed tran- that device tracking/tracing hypnotic a liketrance something drawing, or writing, automatic of form a as marks her envisioned She her.75 below and around floor and wall the to attached paper on ing Inviting her audience to witness direct unguarded acts of making, of acts unguarded direct witness to audience her Inviting 77. Ibid.,201. “Freud76. Derrida, Sceneof Writing,” and the 200. mixed- This 75. inconversation author, the with 74. 8August 2006. CS Schne emann used both writing and drawing in this performance to performance this in drawing and writing both used emann UpTo how visualizes “psychical con- Limits Her Including And media vn icue promne isalto, n vdo n com- and video and installation, performance, included event bo text dy- , the artist physically drew and wrote the th (figure Limits Her Including ToAnd Up at- se es- and- ac ts- in- cont ext and, by ex- surge on’s har- on’s

lv introduction 14. Carolee Schneemann, Up To And Including Her Limits, 1973–76, performance with drawing (crayon on paper), rope, harness, six monitors with two-channel video, Super 8 film projector. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

text.”78 In this manner, the psychic content of mind, bound inextricably to the text, is manifest in the mechanism of writing. Following Freud, Derrida declared: “Life must be thought of as trace before Being may be determined as presence.”79 In Up To And Including Her Limits, Schneemann rendered the trace of consciousness verbal and visual so that she might share her cognitive and sensate being in a direct declaration of a corporeal and intellectual present. This work offers an inchoate nonverbal image as an alternative

78. Ibid., 199. 79. Ibid., 203. introduction lvi ducing “seen” the as“abody.”80 the around scene wrapped work shows how bound Schneemann’s verbal communication is to pro- a interiority.Such psychic decoding in partner to languageemploys it as time same the at knowing, and being of conditions logocentric to the manifestation ofthe allforms. for male female. manyand people, both raises art Schneemann’s that anxiety the with consistent is censorship covertof Thisform premises.83 the removedfrom quickly hecopies all But when one male of sawthe flyer, curators desk. the information the Forty- cost ca low- from title the 15). (figure Taking performances upcoming her for bydates accompanied scroll, the reading and her extracting of picture commentary.82 and content textual and visual both of communication graphic the for site the artist, the may is the also for traces speak the absence void, that text,”81 the psychicwithout the of domain no is “there that formulation Derrida’s Complementing and fecundity of that place that is often understood otherwise as a void. fullness the to voicegiving world, the to pathway the as vaginathe of text presence- exterior visible doubling words, own her read and extracted slowly she performance foldingprecise and oiling of a narrow coil of the thin paper. During the to fit engineered into she her then vaginathrough a of delicate process formance, Schneemann typed a statement on a long piece of paper that of the body’s unseen interiority in trace textual a as scene the alsovisualized Schneemann but Limits Her tion “Mostly Nudes,”tion former on Whitneydowntownthe at heldbranch conceived had mann of the destiny of the body to be shared with the world. Initially, Schnee- part were it within and from issuing actions all and life her of text the that demonstrate to if as colleagues, and friends to post the through it In 1976, Schneemann made a print edition of edition print a made Schneemann 1976, In 83. CS inconversation author, the with 7June 2008. 83. CS 82. “Freud81. Derrida, Scene of Writing,” andthe 199. 80. CaroleeSchneemann,More ThanMeat Joy, 167. No In h . This performance returned order and logic to the primal identity identity primal the to logic and order returned performance .This t only is a scene wrapped around the body in body the around wrapped scene a is only t , the formless base of all matter, was for Aristotle and the alchemists the and Aristotle matter,for all wasof base formless the , material Prima er er book second Street, and it was to be made available to the public at public the to available made be to was it and Street, second lendars, lendars, she humorously called the work More Than Meat Joy (1979), Schneemann situated the ori- Pocket Planner Pocket as- suggests that while languagewhile Scrollsuggeststhat Interior ac tion with invisible internal absence- internal invisible with tion Interior Interior Scroll (1975). Prior to this per- as a handout for the 1976 exhibi- 1976 the for handout a as Pocket Planner In UpTo Including And with a with Scroll terior of prima materia and sent as- lvii introduction 15. Carolee Schneemann, Pocket Planner announcing Schneemann’s calendar of exhibitions for the year 1975–76. Photograph of Schneemann in Interior Scroll, 1975, a performance first presented at the exhibition “Women Here & Now,” East Hampton, Long Island. Photograph by Anthony McCall. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

gins of Interior Scroll in her study of “vulvic space” and goddess imagery, and she explained that the message she read was culled from the feminist texts in her film Kitch’s Last Meal. That message begins with a discussion of her encounter with what she identified as “a happy man, a structuralist filmmaker,” and continues through his critique of her work as “personal clutter, persistence of feelings, hand-touch sensibility, diaristic indulgence, painterly mess, dense gestalt,” and, finally, “primi- tive techniques.”84 Schneemann presented the anonymous “structuralist filmmaker” as a male who rejected the nonverbal, ostensibly antirational conditions of her approach to art making. But comments she made in a letter to the critic Daryl Chin in 1974 disclose that this “critic” was Annette Michelson, co-founder of October magazine. Dis- cussing her filmFuses with Chin, Schneemann noted that “the sexuality will be offensive” to Michelson. “Cage is the only artist I know who

84. More Than Meat Joy, 238. introduction lviii son, who appeared embarrassed by films.86 her who embarrassed son, appeared in filmmaker” “structuralist the about remarks her that commented Schneemann letters her in where “and helped him success do it evengrace & clarity.”85 better—the Else- continued, Schneemann messes,” our through grace clear with moves means of creation that issue from the eye that guides the hand that that draws hand and writes, and that the integrates the verbal guides and nonverbal that through eye the from issue that creation of means and activities interconnected of sequence coherent a in expands work her whole, installations).a Taken as her of media primary (the videos led to that photographs,actions films,and her performances, ticipated an- which constructions, kinetic her especially sculptor, and painter a as work her informed drawing and writing behaviors: interconnected of chain a of result the as understood be may oeuvre ways, Schneemann’s such In discourse. reasoned as information visceral produces writing how to similar knowledge visual of condition atemporal and body. performing her through communicate actual experience linear,abstract, analytic and dimension of thought in order to in a text the out workeddiary, a keepingSchneemann in as wellletter, as a ing My point in summoning these works of art is to emphasize that in writ- art, bringing her body to bear on the narratives of her textual practices. that recorded events in her love life. She then both performed works of cards diaristic of book the on focused she latter, the in died; Cornell before friendship their of years fifteen the during her to letters nell’s Cor- Joseph on focused she former, the in life: her of components ary The Anything—In Cards Print (1976). works Both featured the two liter- with a strong emphasis on text are time. atthe structuralism and represented in the primarily male- paradigm patriarchal prevailing the supported views critic’s the that mann’s critique of Michelson, who she disguised as a man, also suggests Schnee- art. her produced she which in power and gender of situation art- of interweaving the Scroll in order to avoid naming the female critic (Michelson) represents To And nonrational,, Including line Her augmented Limits synthetic, the 86. CS to Henry Sayre, toHenry 15 July 1986. 86. CS Chin,17 October1974. toDaryl 85. CS Th Whe That Schneemann identified a male structuralist filmmaker in e two other works that Schneemann produced during this period period this during produced Schneemann that works other two e n drawing was a component of such works, especially as in as especially works, such of component a was drawing n wor ld dynamics in the complex discussion and and complex discussion the in dynamics ld were directed at Michel- at directed wereScroll Interior ide Moon In A Tree (1976) and ntified movements of Minimalism ABC—We ABC—We In terior terior Up lix introduction an exercise of interacting mental capacities that provide rational meaning for intuitive form.

The Artist as Autobiographer I’m always trying to get rid of the sense of being. I want to be the instrument of my own disappearance, to obliterate the self. Here is the basic thing that I discovered when I was painting: you become what you are looking at. The sense of self- and self-consciousness is absorbed. It is that absorption that has so much integrity for me. So that what I was looking at was the best sense of my self for me: to be drawing, to be observing, to be in conversation, that was the best sense of self for me. So it’s for me a little bit like when you are an athlete running and go into a rigorous euphoria. This is where it really happens for me, in performance, it is shamanistic, an “in-trance.” When I come back out of a performance I don’t remember. I have the most odd sensory glow or illumination; it’s post-verbal and that sense of the self as completely disappeared is orgasmic. It’s that merge, obliterated merge.87

Schneemann saved all her letters and ephemera because she was “fear- ful of the disappearance of all the beautiful details of daily life.”88 At the same time, she sought through her work to dissolve into her life, to obliterate the ego-self. The historic documents of those “beautiful details” are her letters. Another book must be written, which explores all the stories of her meeting, interacting with, and writing to the central figures appearing in her letters. By keeping copies of her own and others’ letters, Schneemann succeeded in the systematic creation of a representation that has lasted, recalling a comment by the Canadian poet Margaret Laurence, who wrote to Adele Wiseman, a fellow author and friend: “Your letters make me feel [that] I actually exist.”89 While Laurence’s sense of self resulted from her consideration of her friend’s ideas and comments, Schneemann’s notion of self represents self-reflective meditation on the uncertainty of the autobiographical self in its discursive and performative forms. In his study Fictions in Autobiography (1985), Paul John Eakin ad- dresses just such a question by juxtaposing Paul de Man’s and James Olney’s notions of autobiography. On the one hand, de Man considered autobiography to be prosopopeiac, a figure of speech in which an

87. CS in phone conversation with the author, 1 August 1999. 88. CS in conversation with the author, 8 August 2006. 89. John Lennox and Ruth Panofsky, eds., Selected Letters of Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 3. introduction lx biography: “The self expresses itself by the metaphors it creates and and creates it metaphors the by itself expresses self “The biography: Inv fromPaulin cited Man de Eakin, John as live and present. “To the extent that language is figure (or meta- (or figure is language that extent the “To present. and live as is person as absent represented speaking, or a dead is person presented 188. Eakin, in quoted 34, 31, 30, 1972), Press, University Princeton absent if as self her suspended temporarily only Schneemann writing, letter in Moreover, mute. and deaf, absent, but anything became art her and self of notion her both whereby time, real in writing that ized the in wrote Schneemann dialectic.While Man/Olney de the particular,synthesize in enactments, performative Schneemann’s and writing letter of nuity conti- Theprocess. through life her to expression of modes her joined existential- the expand to order in letters to again back circle to only art, as ideas her materialized then and letters her in ideas aesthetic her of contours conceptual the and themes the oped devel- Olney.She and Man de by theorized autobiography of notions metaphorizing.”93 the metaphor and the in represented activityoragent, self, the ‘know’ we thus and metaphors: its touch and see do we but self, the touch or metaphors. nowcreatingits now before it is as and does We do not see it as exist not did it but metaphors; those by it know we and projects, auto- of quality mediated the on Man de with agreed Olney self.”92 the knowledge—albeitmediated—of moveautobiographya toward of possibility, not privation, through which both the writer and the reader took a more optimistic approach. He considered language a “theater of Olney part, his For muteness.”91 to condemned and voice of deprived ourat sayto is sound of picture,that a as own silent eternally will, but manifestation possible the implies which silent, mute—not and deaf . . . are all “we concluded, Man language,”de this on “dependent are writers and readers both since Furthermore, face.”90 a as memorable self- of discourse “a was autobiography Man, mute.”Forde are pictures as mute silent, is it such, as and, thing the of picture the representation, phor, or Schneemann’s epistolary practice resides at the interface between between interface the at resides practice epistolary Schneemann’s 92. Ibid.,188. 91. Ibid. 93. James Olney,James 93. “AutobiographyMan, De- de Paulas 90. (Princeton, N.J.: (Princeton, Universityention Princeton Press, 1985), 186. restor prosopopeia),” but the de“it is notargued, Man thing itself the ation ation . . . by which one’s name . . . is made as intelligible and mode (as de Man would have it), she actual- she haveit), would Man de prosopopeiac(as mode (Princeton, N.J.: (Princeton, Autobiography of Meaning The Self: of Metaphors Fictions in Autobiography:in Fictions Self- of Art the in Studies Facement, ” MLN 94 (1979): 920–23. All quotes All 920–23. (1979): 94 Fictions in Autobiographyin , Fictions ae sthetic loop that that loop sthetic lxi introduction in the autobiographical act (de Man’s metaphorical defacement), and she restored that self by presenting herself as a living subject before viewing subjects in her performances, a realization that emphasized the necessary contingency of human interaction, or as Olney would have it, of a “theater of possibility.” Experienced through the vehicle of her letters, Schneemann’s art demonstrates how the creative act takes place in linguistic craft and how the performing body may also actualize the epistolary mind.94 To read Schneemann’s letters is to experience the full breadth of her art’s historical significance and cultural contributions. To assert this foundational role of her letters is not to suggest that they are necessary to comprehend the quality or purpose of her art but rather that while the beauty of Schneemann’s body initially made her work so notorious, precisely her corporeal perfection masked a complex visual aesthetic and kept the public at bay. Luce Irigaray has pointed out that women’s performance of their own masking provides “a certain pleasure . . . gilding the lily further at times.”95 In the case of Schneemann’s nakedness, no gilding was needed. But the embellishment provided by her reception disappears in her letters, bringing forth Schneemann’s epistolary prosopopeia and opening the meaning of her art to multiple interpreta- tions that render her artistic corpus more vivid in its own textual volup- tuousness. Schneemann’s letters match her art, paving a course through correspondence to the totality of her oeuvre and exhibiting the diver- sity of her enormous aesthetic achievement.

94. For similar themes, see Richard Poirier, Trying It Out in America: Literary and Other Performances (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). 95. Luce Irigaray, “Any Theory of the ‘Subject’ Has Always Been Appropriated by the Masculine,” in Speculum of the Other Woman, trans. Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni- versity Press, 1985), 142–43, quoted in Garb, “Unpicking the Seams of Her Disguise,” 115. introduction lxii