Carolee Schneeman will introduce MEAT JOY and other short works at Anthology Film Archives on December 16 in celebration of the publication of her letters
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Thursday, December 16, 7:30
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.dukeupress.edu
American performance artist Carolee Schneeman has been shaking up the art world since the late 1950s, staging happenings and making short films in which she bares it all in shocking, controversial ways, holding nothing back. Among her many works are FUSES, MEAT JOY, MORTAL COILS, and VULVA’S MORPHIA, which investigate such themes as erotics, kinetics, dreams, war, and cats. Born in Pennsylvania in 1939, Schneeman has opened up a fascinating aspect of her life in the new book CORRESPONDENCE COURSE: AN EPISTOLARY HISTORY OF CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN AND HER CIRCLE (Duke University Press, November 2010, $99.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback), allowing Duke University professor Kristine Stiles to publish letters that Schneeman has kept throughout her career. “The letters were edited and selected for how they document charged personal and artistic struggles, arguments, and displays of ego; how they illuminate internecine aesthetic politics, conflicting ethics, and values; and how countless mundane activities constitute the exasperating vicissitudes of making art, building an artistic reputation, and negotiating an industry as unpredictable and demanding as the art world in the mid-to-late twentieth century,” Stiles writes in the preface. “For her part, Schneeman discusses financial dilemmas; grapples with her career; shares her success, joy, and love; and contends with loneliness, aging, and disappointment.” Schneeman will celebrate the publication of the book on Thursday, December 16, at Anthology Film Archives, where she will introduce and screen FUSES, MEAT JOY, KITCH’S LAST MEAL, ASK THE GODDESS, and MYSTERIES OF THE PUSSIES and discuss her work and career in what should be quite an unusual evening.