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Female Sexuality in Performance and Film: Erotic, Political, Controllable? The Contested Female Body in the Work of Carolee Schneemann and VALIE EXPORT

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 83; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00233609.2014.904429

1651-2294

Kathleen Wentrack,

French Historical and Cultural Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank the Wertheim Study Writers in Residence Program, coordinated by Jay Barksdale, at the New York Public Library which supported the writing of this essay. I owe a deep gratitude to Anna C. Chave who provided invaluable feedback on an earlier version of my research. Thank you to Carolee Schneemann and VALIE EXPORT who continue to inspire.Notes on contributorsDr. Kathleen Wentrack is an Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Art & Design at the City University of New York, Queensborough. She recently published “What's so Feminist about the ‘Feministische Kunst Internationaal’? Critical Directions in 1970s Feminist Art” in Frontiers, Fall 2012 and is working on an anthology on women's art collectives. She is the co-coordinator of The Feminist Art Project in New York City.SummaryCarolee Schneemann and VALIE EXPORT defied the traditions of patriarchally-defined female sexuality in their performances and films of the 1960s. Their feminist explorations sought to define powerful images of women for women before expressions of women's sexuality and eroticism became part of the lexicon of feminist art practice in the 1970s. Schneemann and EXPORT interrogated themes of female sexuality and pleasure in a manner that allowed the artists to directly confront the viewing audience with the sexually charged female body. It is argued that the artists’ work of the 1960s presents new representations of the female body and sexuality in art, particularly through their emphasis on sexual self-awareness, the specificity of expressed experiences, and political imperatives. Through an analysis of select performances and films of the decade, this essay posits that Schneemann and EXPORT created work in which their bodies exceeded the physical and social boundaries for women, challenged the established patriarchal order to portray representations of women for women, and set the stage for the 1970s women's revolution in art.Notes1. See Joan Semmel and April Kingsley, “Sexual Imagery in Women's Art”, Woman's Art Journal 1, No 1, Spring/Summer, 1980, pp. 1–6; Carol Duncan, “The Aesthetics of Power in Modern Erotic Art”, Heresies, No 1, 1977, pp. 46–50; Rosa Lindenberg, “Sexualiteit en bevrijding” (“Sexuality and liberation”), Feministische Kunst Internationaal (International Feminist Art), The Hague, 1979, pp. 46–52; Woman as Sex Object: Studies in Erotic Art, 1730–1970, ed. Thomas B. Hess and Linda Nochlin, New York, 1972; and Silvia Eiblmayr, “Die weibliche Selbst-Inszenierung: Dialektik von Reflexion und Revolte im Bildstatus der Frau” (“Female Self-Representation; Dialectic of Reflection and Revolt in the Image Status of Women”), in Die Frau als Bild: Der Weibliche Körper in der Kunst des 20.Jahrhunderts (Woman as Image: The Female Body in 20th Century Art), Berlin, 1993, pp. 137–215. For an analysis on female sexuality in popular culture, see Maria Elena Buszek, Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture, Durham and London, 2006.2. Both Schneemann and EXPORT are heterosexual and express this through their work. For a survey discussion of homosexuality in art, see Harmony Hammond, Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History, New York, 2000; James Saslow, Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts, New York, 1999; and Outlooks: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities and Visual Culture, ed. Peter Horne and Reina Lewis, London, 1996.3. In her introductory catalog essay for the controversial 1996 exhibition Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in Feminist Art History, Amelia Jones wrote that the controversy surrounding the Dinner Party and 1970s feminist art is based on the placement of “female sexuality as the defining component of female identities and experiences living in patriarchal culture.” See “Sexual Politics: Feminist Strategies, Feminist Conflicts, Feminist Histories”, in Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in Feminist Art History, Los Angeles, 1996, p. 22.4. Lisa Tickner, “The Body Politic: Female Sexuality & Women Artists since 1970”, Art History 1, No 2, 1978, p. 237. See also Paula Webster, “Pornography and Pleasure”, Heresies 12, Vol 3, No 4, 1981, pp. 48–51.5. Semmel and Kingsley, 1978, p. 1.6. Tap and Touch Cinema was first performed by EXPORT in 1968 in Vienna in front of an audience for the 2.Maraisiade, Junger Film in Vienna. A Swiss director, G. Radanowicz, came onto the stage and began hitting the mini-cinema attached to EXPORT's chest, saying these “breasts are for the people.” The most reproduced photographs are from the Munich performance conducted a few days later with Peter Weibel. This image is from a performance repeated for a 1969 Austrian television program Wein Underground (Vienna Underground) produced by Helmut Dimko and Peter Hajek on ÖRF (Österreichischer Rundfunk), released by Metanoia, DVD 2011. Anita Prammer reported that EXPORT performed this work one additional time with Erika Mies in Amsterdam. Mies wore the mini-cinema and EXPORT invited the participants. Prammer, VALIE EXPORT: Eine Multimediale Kunstlerin, Vienna, 1988, pp. 104–105 and EXPORT, email exchange with author, April 22, 2013.VALIE EXPORT, “Expanded Cinema as Expanded Reality”, Jam 1, No 4, 1991, p. 12. In a 2003 interview EXPORT described a film entitled Menstruation she made in 1967 to confront the anxiety associated with women's biological experiences. She urinated on a white wall during menstruation while her sister filmed “creating a kind of abstract pattern, red and liquid.” Elisabeth Lebovici, “Interview with VALIE EXPORT”, ed. Susanne Schwinghammer-Kogler, trans. Sally Laruelle, in: VALIE EXPORT, Montreuil, France, 2003, pp. 144–145.7. For a theoretical discussion on the gaze, see Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Screen 16, No 3, 1975, pp. 6–18.8. EXPORT, 1991, p. 13.9. Abortion was legalized in Austria in 1974 against strong opposition from the Catholic Church and the general public. See Gisela Kaplan, “Conservatism in the Germanic Countries: Austria”, Contemporary Western European Feminism, New York, 1992, pp. 132–133.10. “Artist Conversation: VALIE EXPORT and Maria-Christina Villaseñor”, (Re)Presenting Performance: A Symposium, April 9, 2005, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, organized by Nancy Spector and Jennifer Blessing.11. As EXPORT and Sigmund Freud both hail from Vienna, from a Freudian perspective, EXPORT's exposed genitals may threaten masculine identities. This threat, outlined by Freud, caused by the sight of the “lack” of a penis in female genitalia. Freud, “Female Sexuality (1931)”, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey, Vol XXI, London, 1961, p. 229.12. “VALIE EXPORT Interview with Ruth Askey”, High Performance 4, No 1, 1981, p. 15, 80; Hilary Robinson, “Actionmyth, Historypanic: The Entry of VALIE EXPORT's Aktionhose: Genitalpanik into Art History,” n.paradoxa, Vol 32, 2013, pp. 84–89.13. “Artist Conversation: VALIE EXPORT and Maria-Christina Villaseñor,” 2005.14. In Europe, the terms “actions” and “action art” were widely preferred over the term “performance art” as early European performance art often displayed an activist component.15. See Robinson, 2013, pp. 85–86.16. The Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris all own versions of this exact image as Action Pants: Genital Panic (1969) that consists of six screen prints on paper and each image has VALIE EXPORT's signature logo in an oval. Robinson, 2013, p. 86.17. The poster action was repeated in 1994 in Berlin for the “GEWALT/Geschäfte” exhibition at the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Künste and these too were removed. Split:Reality, VALIE EXPORT, 1997, p. 70, and “Artist Conversation: VALIE EXPORT and Maria-Christina Villaseñor,” 2005.18. Robinson writes that it is most likely a “US-produced 1928 Thompson, possibly the M1928 A1.” Robinson, 2013, p. 85.19. “Artist Conversation: VALIE EXPORT and Maria-Christina Villaseñor,” 2005.20. In regards to the work of EXPORT, Schneemann, and Yoko Ono, Schreuder writes in the original: “Zij maakten immers gebruik van de seksuele prikkeling van hun naakte lichaam om de objectivering van de vrouw en de agressieve aspecten van erotisch voyeurism aan de kaak te stellen.” Catrien Schreuder, “Ongemakkelijk Naakt: Performancekunst in de Jaren Zestig”, Jong Holland, Vol 19, No 1, 2003, p. 17, all translations from Dutch are my own.21. VALIE EXPORT, Interview by the author, New York, April 9, 2005.22. Magna. Feminismus: Kunst und Kreativität: Ein Überblick über die weibliche Sensibilität, Imagination, Projektion und Problematik, suggeriert durch ein Tableau von Bildern, Objekten, Fotos, Vorträgen, Diskussionen, Lesungen, Filmen, Videobändern und Aktionen (Magna. Feminism: Art and Creativity: An Overview of the Feminine Sensibility, Imagination, Projection and Problems, Suggested by a Tableau of Images, Objects, Photographs, Lectures, Discussions, Readings, Films, Video Tapes and Actions), organized by VALIE EXPORT, Vienna, 1975.23. According to Schneemann she performed an early version of Trackings and EXPORT listed Split Reality as the piece she performed. Carolee Schneemann, “Valie”, in Carolee Schneemann, Imaging Her Erotics: Essays, Interviews, Projects, Cambridge, MA, 2002, p. 97. VALIE EXPORT, 2003, p. 183.24. Schneemann, 2002, p. 97.25. Schneemann, “Eye Body”, More than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings, ed. Bruce R. McPherson, 2nd ed. Kingston, New York, 1997 (1979), p. 52, photographs by the Icelandic painter Erró.26. Kristine Stiles, “Uncorrupted Joy: International Art Actions”, in Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979, ed. Paul Schimmel, Los Angeles, 1998, p. 297.27. Lynda Nead, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality, London and New York, 1992, p. 1.28. Stiles, 1998, p. 297.29. Schneemann quoted in an interview in Reclaiming the Body: Feminist Art in America, prod. and dir. Michael Blackwood, ed. Julie Sloane, PBS documentary of the Bad Girls exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, Michael Blackwood Productions, 1995. See also Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body in Performance, London, 1997, pp. 37–38.30. Schneemann's quote is from text written between 1962 and 1968. Schneemann, Cézanne: She Was a Great Painter, New Paltz, 1975, p. 24.31. David E. James, “Stan Brakhage: The Filmmaker as Poet”, Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties, Princeton, 1989, pp. 29–30.32. Scott MacDonald, “Carolee Schneemann” (1979), A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers, Berkeley, 1988, p. 142. Carolee Schneemann, “Interview with Kate Haug”, Carolee Schneemann, 2002, p. 23. This interview was originally published in Wide Angle 20, No 1, 1998, pp. 20–49.33. Carolee Schneemann, “The Obscene Body/Politic”, Art Journal, Vol 50, No 4, 1991, p. 31.34. David E. James, “Carolee Schneemann: Fuses”, Allegories of Cinema, 1989, p. 317.35. Schneemann, 2002, p. 23.36. The scene is actually a view of cows in a snowstorm. Schneemann, 2002, p. 33.37. James, 1989, p. 319.38. MacDonald, 1988, p. 137.39. MacDonald, 1988, p. 135, 140.40. James, 1989, p. 320.41. Schneemann, 2002, p. 21.42. Carolee Schneemann, “Notes on Fuses” (1971), 2002, p. 45.43. MacDonald, 1988, p. 141.44. MacDonald, 1988, p. 141. These words are quoted in Schneemann's interview.45. This letter is located in Schneemann's file at MoMA dated August 1968, and is quoted in Note 10 of Kate Haug, “Femme Experimentale: Interviews with Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Hammer, and Chick Strand”, Wide Angle, Vol 20, No 1, 1998, p. 17.46. Griselda Pollock, “What's Wrong with Images of Women?” in Framing Feminism, ed. Parker and Pollock, pp. 132–138, especially p. 135. Reprinted from Screen Education, No 24, 1977, pp. 25–33. See also Sally Potter, “On Shows”, in Feminism – Art – Theory: An Anthology 1968–2000, ed. Hilary Robinson, 2001, pp. 446–453, originally published in About Time: Video, Performance and Installation by 21 Women Artists, ed. Catherine Elwes, Rose Garrard, and Sandy Nairne, London, 1980, unpaginated.47. Haug, 1998, p. 8.48. Lauren Labinovitz, Points of Resistance: Women, Power, & Politics in the New York Avant-garde Cinema, 1943–1971, Urbana and Chicago, 1991, 191, quoted in Haug, 1998, p. 9.49. This 1:30 version was viewed in the collection of the Generali Foundation in Vienna. The man appears to be Peter Weibel with whom EXPORT collaborated. Orgasm Film does not appear to have been widely screened and EXPORT did not want film stills of it published as part of this project, although three images were included in a 2003 catalog published in Montreuil, France by Editions de l'oeil for an exhibition that traveled to Paris, Sevilla, Geneva, London, and Vienna. EXPORT, email exchange with author, April 11, 2013.50. VALIE EXPORT, “Women's Art: A Manifesto” (1972), trans. Resigna Haslinger, in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, ed. Peter Selz and Kristine Stiles, Berkeley, 1996, p. 756. Originally published in Neues Forum 228, January 1973, p. 47.51. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch, New York, 1971, p. 29. See her chapter “Sex”, pp. 29–37.52. Barbara Rose, “Vaginal Iconology”, New York Magazine, Vol 7, No 6, February 11, 1974, p. 59, and Tickner, 1978, pp. 241–243.53. Rose, 1974, p. 59.54. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. and ed. H.M. Parshley, New York, 1953; New York, 1993, p. 44.55. Anna C. Chave, “‘Is this good for Vulva?’ Female Genitalia in Contemporary Art”, in The Visible Vagina, New York, 2009, pp. 7–27, 114–117.56. Ara Osterweil, “‘Absently Enchanted,’ The Apocryphal, Ecstatic Cinema of Barbara Rubin”, Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks, Durham, 2007, p. 140.57. See Osterweil, 2007, pp. 127–151 for a thorough analysis of Rubin's work.58. Jones, 1996, p. 38, Note 12.59. Lucy Lippard, “The Pains and Pleasures of Rebirth: European and American Women's Body Art”, From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art, New York, 1976, pp. 124–125. This essay was originally published in Art in America, Vol 64, No 3, May–June 1976, pp. 74–81.60. Martin Sundberg, “A One-Work Artist? Carolee Schneemann and the Reception of Her Work”, Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, Vol 80, No 3, 2011, p. 174.61. Jeanne Forte, “Women's Performance Art: Feminism and Postmodernism”, Theatre Journal Vol 40, No 2, May 1988, pp. 217–235.62. Elvan Zabunyan, “Anatomy/Autonomy”, trans. Paul Buck and Catherine Petit, in Keep This Sex out of My Site, Elvan Zabunyan et al., Paris, 2003, p. 10.63. For example: Tickner, 1978, pp. 241–242; Semmel and Kingsley, 1980, and Lindenberg, 1979, pp. 46–52.64. Nead, 1992, p. 6.65. Marielle Nitoslawska, Breaking the Frame with Carolee Schneemann, 2012, 100 minutes, Possible Movements.66. In the theory of the abject as defined by Julia Kristeva, bodily fluids, considered abject, must be rejected in order for the individual to obtain subjecthood. See Kristeva, The Powers of Horror: An Essay in Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez, New York, 1982, pp. 1–18. For an analysis of the abject and contemporary art, see Abject Art: Repulsion and Desire in American Art, New York, 1993, an exhibition organized by Craig Houser, Leslie C. Jones, and Simon Taylor; and Wentrack, “The Body Fragments of Kiki Smith: Object of Society or Society's Abject”, Amsterdam, 1995; and Marga van Mechelen, “Abjecte Kunst” (Abject Art), in Lengte, Breedte en Diepte. Twaalf interculturele ontmoetingen (Length, Width and Depth. Twelve Intercultural Encounters), Arnhem, 1998, pp. 12–16.67. Nead, 1992, p. 3.