Carolee Schneemann

P·P·O·W is pleased to announce its' first exhibition of the work of Carolee Schneemann. This exhibition will contain seminal recent and historic work including photographs, drawings, performance and video created over the last four decades. The pieces in the exhibition reveal why Carolee Schneemann is known for her pioneering and ground breaking work in each of these media.

"Time and time again, throughout a long and courageous career, Carolee Schneemann has stepped bravely yet gingerly into the void, and returned bearing something profoundly beautiful, something that the world has never experienced before. How many artists of our time can we say this about: that the world is a totally different place thanks to their having sustained an investigation which is being celebrated today for, among other things, its far reaching influence on the practices of dozens of other young artists working today?" - Dan Cameron, Sr. Curator of the New Museum at the 30th Annual Skowhegan Awards Dinner, April 2001.

Carolee Schneemann has repeatedly explored issues of the body, sexual identity, politics, life, death and spirit long before these issues were popular for artistic subject matter. Consistent with this trajectory, is a body of work started in 1981 entitled Infinity Kisses. In this series of work, Schneemann photographs herself kissing her treasured cats Cluny and Vesper, in the morning when they would approach to wake her each day. The images were assembled by the artist, into a series of works that recreate the experience for the viewer. By opening up this sexual taboo, in such a frank and erotic manner, Schneemann creates an uncomfortable but sensual dialogue about our animal urges, the conscious and unconscious, dreams and reality, the body and the spirit. P·P·O·W will also show Vesper's Pool, a video from 1999 about the death of Vesper, a profound meditation on dying.

Alongside Infinity Kisses P·P·O·W will show the complete Eye Body photographs, a series of 25 images from 1963, a series of drawings from Parts of a Body House from 1966 (not recently exhibited in their entirety) and a projection of the video Meat Joy from 1964. The exhibition will trace Carolee Schneemann's lifelong and continued investigation of suppressive taboos and the body as an expressive artistic vehicle. It will show why people consider Schneemann to be one of the most important American Artists who have transformed the history of art especially in regard to discourses concerning the body, sexuality and gender.

Carolee Schneemann has exhibited and lectured internationally. The New Museum of Contemporary Art featured a retrospective of her work in 1996. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A., The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris and Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK. Her latest book Carolee Schneemann: Imaging Her Erotics was published in January 2002 by MIT press. Pressetext

Carolee Schneemann