CaroleeSchneemann
Biography
Carolee Schneemann (1939 Fox Chase, Pennsylvania, USA – 2019 New York City, New York, USA) was an American multimedia artist who focused primarily on the relationship between gender politics and eroticism, using her body to explore sexuality and identity. In 1956, she secretly married the composer James Tanney, a lifelong inspiration and companion. Schneemann’s artistic career began with the radicalization of landscape painting, mainly through movement and dynamism. Although her work has frequently been associated with the rise of performance and body art, Schneemann always considered herself a painter. Her physical experience and point of view emphasized the self-assertive feminist lens through which she worked. Similarly, in Fuses (1964–67), scenes of domestic intimacy follow one another with overlays, perforations, and the overpainting of film. To this day, Schneeman is a feminist icon whose strength has stood out in a wide variety of artistic movements and mediums of expression. She taught at several universities, including the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Rutgers University in New Jersey. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts (1993) and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Biennale di Venezia (2017). Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2015) and MoMA PS1 (2017), both in New York, the Barbican Centre in London (2022), and many other international institutions.
