A silent film of collaged and painted sequences of lovemaking between Schneemann and her then partner, composer James Tenney; observed by the cat, Kitch.
“…I wanted to see if the experience of what I saw would have any correspondence to what I felt— the intimacy of the lovemaking… And I wanted to put into that materiality of film the energies of the body, so that the film itself dissolves and recombines and is transparent and dense— as one feels during lovemaking… It is different from any pornographic work that you’ve ever seen— that’s why people are still looking at it! And there’s no objectification or fetishization of the woman.” – Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann, a multidisciplinary artist, transformed the definition of art, especially discourse on the body, sexuality, and gender. The history of her work is characterized by research into archaic visual traditions, pleasure wrested from suppressive taboos, and the body of the artist in dynamic relationship with the social body.
Schneemann has had paintings, photographs, performance art and installation works shown at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and a retrospective at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York entitled “Up To And Including Her Limits”. Film and video retrospectives were shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Film Theatre, London; Whitney Museum, NY; San Francisco Cinematheque; and the Anthology Film Archives, NYC.
She has taught at many institutions including New York University, California… read more
Stan van der Beek did not shoot this. Schneemann and Tenney did (obviously.)
I stand corrected!: "We passed the camera back and forth, or in other instances I set it up. Also, Vanderbeek shot one section where we're kissing." C.S. interview from MFJ Nos. 7/8/9
A short from 1967, in which Carolee Schneemann films herself while having sex with her lover, composer James Tenney. Schneemann boasts about how FUSES features “no objectification or fetishization… read review