Correspondence Course: An Epistolary History of Carolee Schneemann and Her Circle 9780822391005

Citation preview

correspondence course

An E p i s to l a ry H i s to ry o f

and Her Circle

Correspondence Course edited by Kristine Stiles

duke university press / Durham and London / 2010

Introduction, notes, and edition © 2010 Duke University Press letters remain with their authors

States of America on acid-​free paper ♾

All rights reserved.

Copyrights to the

Printed in the United

Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

in Charis and Helvetica by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Typeset

Library of Congress

Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Millard Meiss Foun­ dation and the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation for their support of this publication. frontispiece: Carolee Schneemann letter to Jean-Jacques Lebel, 22 April 1964. Courtesy of Jean-Jacques Lebel Archive, Paris, and Carolee Schneemann.

contents l i s t o f i ll u s t r at i o n s

vii



p r e fa c e

xi



a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

xxi



i n t r o d u c t i o n

xxv



The Letters



1956–1968 3



1969–1975 142



1976–1986 269



1987–1999 382



i n d e x

491

illustrations Plates (between pages 66 and 67) 1. Carolee Schneemann, J. T. & Kitch, S. Shaftsbury, Vermont, 1958 2. Carolee Schneemann, Colorado House, 1958 3. Carolee Schneemann, Portrait of Jane Brakhage, 1958 4. Carolee Schneemann, Mill Forms—Eagle Square, 1958 5. Carolee Schneemann letter to Jean-​Jacques Lebel, 22 April 1964 6. Dorothea Rockburne on the cover of Border Crossings, 1998 7. Carolee Schneemann, still from Fuses, 1964–67 8. Carolee Schneemann, “Genital Play Room I,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966 9. Carolee Schneemann, “Genital Play Room II,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966 10. Carolee Schneemann, “Guerilla Gut Room,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966 11. Carolee Schneemann, “Liver,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966 12. Carolee Schneemann, Plumb Line, 1968–71 13. Carolee Schneemann, Nude on Tracks, 1974 14a and b. Carolee Schneemann, details from ABC—We Print Anything— In The Cards, 1976 15. Photograph of Carolee Schneemann creating Hand/Heart for Ana Mendieta, 1985 16. Carolee Schneemann, Hand/Heart for Ana Mendieta, 1985 17a and b (detail). Carolee Schneemann, Infinity Kisses I, 1981–87 18a and b. Carolee Schneemann, Video Rocks, 1987–88 19a and b. Carolee Schneemann, Jim’s Lungs, 1989 20. Carolee Schneemann, Vesper’s Pool, 1999–2000 Figures 1. Flyer for Dance by 5, 1963 xvii 2. Photograph of Schneemann in Body Collage, 1968 xviii 3. Poster/program for “Avant-​Garde Cinema,” 1978 xix 4. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980 xxxiv 5. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980 xxxv 6. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980 xxxv 7. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980 xxxvi 8. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980 xxxvii

list of illustrations viii

9. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980 xxxvii 10. Carolee Schneemann, detail from ABC—We Print Anything— In The Cards, 1976 xlviii 11. “Vogue’s Own Boutique of Suggestions,” Vogue, 1969 xlix 12. Mary Perot Nichols, review of Meat Joy, 1964 l 13. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 1993 li 14. Carolee Schneemann, Up To And Including Her Limits, 1973–76 lvi 15. Carolee Schneemann, Pocket Planner, 1975–76 lviii 16. Photograph of Carolee Schneemann and the composer James Tenney, 1956 2 17. Joseph Cornell letter to Carolee Schneemann, 1956 6 18. Carolee Schneemann and James Tenney letter to the poet Charles Olson, 1960 47 19. Photograph of Carolee Schneemann and the composer Carl Ruggles, 1961 51 20. Joseph Cornell letter to Carolee Schneemann, 1964 72 21. Paris review of Schneemann’s Paris performance of Meat Joy, 1964 84 22. London review of Schneemann’s Paris and London performances of Meat Joy, 1964 84 23. Photograph of Carolee Schneemann and James Tenney performing Schneemann’s Noise Bodies, 1965 100 24. Rochelle Owens, review of Schneemann’s Water Light / Water Needle, 1966 105 25. Flyer for Schneemann’s Snows, 1967 115 26. Carolee Schneemann, Snows, 1967 115 27. Carolee Schneemann, still from Viet-​Flakes, 1965–67 116 28. Poster for Carolee Schneemann’s Round House, 1967 118 29. Photograph of Carolee Schneemann with the poet Paul Blackburn, 1967 118 30. Carolee Schneemann, still from Fuses, 1964–67 128 31. Gene Youngblood, “Underground,” Los Angeles Free Press, 1968 129 32. Lil Picard, “Art,” East Village Other, 1969 140 33. Robert Hughes, “The Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Avant-​Garde,” Esquire, 1969 143 34. Carolee Schneemann, photo collage for the cover of the poetry magazine Caterpillar, 1969 146 35. Zagreb review of the screening of Schneemann’s film Fuses, 1964–67 152 36. Carolee Schneemann, untitled (Collage Series London), 1970 158 37. Amsterdam review of Schneemann’s participation in the film festival “Wet Dream Festival,” 1970 177 38. London review of the scandal during the Camden Festival, 1971 180

list of illustrations

39. Christmas postcard of Carolee Schneemann and the filmmaker Anthony McCall, 1971 180 40.1–8: Carolee Schneemann and Anthony McCall, Aggression for Couples, 1972 186 41. Carolee Schneemann, flyer for “Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble Presents Concert of 20th Century American Music,” 1963 192 42. Carolee Schneemann, cover for Parts of a Body House Book, 1972 192 43. Gabor Attalai letter to Carolee Schneemann, 1972 195 44. Carolee Schneemann, Kitch’s Last Meal, 1973–78 206 45. Flyer for screening of Carolee Schneemann’s films at Collective for Living Cinema, 1974 221 46. Lawrence Alloway, “Review of Books: Carolee Schneemann: The Body as Object and Instrument,” Art in America, 1980 228 47. Carolee Schneemann, cover for Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter, 1974 231 48. Carolee Schneemann, cover of More Than Meat Joy, 1979 270 49. Carolee Schneemann, details from ABC—We Print Anything— In The Cards, 1976 275 50. Carolee Schneemann, invitation for Homerunmuse, 1977 297 51. Ray Johnson letter to Carolee Schneemann, 1979 314 52. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of New Wilderness Letter, 1981 327 53. Postcard for “SALVAGED—Altered Everyday Objects,” 1984 345 54. Carolee Schneemann, War Mop, 1983 357 55. Poster for “Naked: Toward a Visual Culture Symposium,” 1985 358 56. Carolee Schneemann, Video Rocks, 1987–88 373 57. Carolee Schneemann, Venus Vectors, 1986–88 377 58. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of Coagula Art Journal, 1997 383 59. Carolee Schneemann, “Notes from the Underground,” 1992 397 60. Carolee Schneemann, Video Burn, 1992 398 61. Carolee Schneemann, Cycladic Imprints, 1988–92 406 62. San Francisco review of Schneemann’s Cycladic Imprints, 1991 407 63. Carolee Schneemann, Unexpectedly Research, 1992 412 64. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of Musicworks, 1993 428 65. Carolee Schneemann, Mortal Coils, 1994–95 431 66. Carolee Schneemann, Vulva’s Morphia, 1992 447 67. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of the exhibition catalogue Out of Actions, 1998 478 68. Photograph of Carolee Schneemann and Kristine Stiles, 1998 489

ix

preface

The chief interest of a study of the great letter writers is that it introduces us not to literary works, but to persons. This is the triumph of letter writing that it keeps a more delicate image alive and presents us with a subtler likeness of the writer than we can find in the more formal achievements of authorship. —Sir Walter Raleigh

For decades, Carolee Schneemann saved her own and her correspondents’ letters, a large selection of which is published here for the first time.1 The letters commence in 1956 at the beginning of her career and end in 1999 at the end of the twentieth century, a date chosen to provide Schneemann a modicum of privacy in her immediate life. Most of the letters are of a “more or less spontaneous kind,” the phrase the editors of The Oxford Book of Letters used to introduce the subject of private correspondence.2 But while this book comprises a corpus of personal letters, it is also a biographical construction of Carolee Schneemann in her and her interlocutors’ words, and follows her artistic development in concert with other artists and intellectuals. As such, these letters constitute an epistolary history chronicling literary conversations that unfold like a novel narrated by its protagonists.3 This collection offers a unique dialogic exchange in multiple voices with Schneemann as the central character. Disclosing the internal artistic interchanges on which the creation of art depends, this book alters the normative convention for volumes of letters traditionally dedicated to a single author or to a dialogue between only two prominent individuals. The annotations reinforce theses dialogues, offering layer upon layer of associations between Schneemann, her correspondents, and their times, and establishing a secondary history replete with details 1. All but two of the letters in this book may be found unedited in the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. 2. Frank and Anita Kermode, The Oxford Book of Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), xvii. 3. The German artist Oskar Schlemmer’s letters served as a model for this book. See Schlemmer’s The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer. Selected and edited by Tut Schlemmer. Translated from the German by Krishna Winston. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1972.

preface xii

including artists’ national origins, means of artistic production, institutional affiliations, and historical contributions, as well as art historical information, social contexts and events, and popular, mainstream, and alternative cultural references. Schneemann’s and her correspondents’ letters chronicle a history of energy, invention, and aesthetic contributions to art history and international culture. But this book does not merely celebrate their achievements. 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. For her part, Schneemann discusses financial dilemmas; grapples with her career; shares her success, joy, and love; and contends with loneliness, aging, and disappointment. She also attempts to correct descriptions of her work that do not conform to her vision of herself, taking friends, critics, and art historians to task for perceived misinterpretations and inaccuracies. The letters collected here provide a unique record of Schneemann and her circle, which included the international avant-​garde of happenings, Fluxus, performance and conceptual art, film, photography, literature, and experimental music and poetry. Her circle also comprised critics and scholars who gravitated to and explicated these artists’ aesthetic innovations. Through their letters, a view emerges of the challenges faced by living artists and intellectuals whose work and processes of creation contributed to the formation of a broad and varied international community. Schneemann’s “tribe,” as she called it, altered the conditions under which art is made and the very form in which it is presented. This is especially true of the changes they forged in aesthetics by shifting art away from private acts and the creation of unique objects to art engaged directly with the public in ephemeral performances, as well as in expanded, nontraditional forms of music, film, dance, theater, and literature. The term tribe is an appellation that Schneemann used, which belongs to 1960s counterculture and signifies how identification with self-​selected individuals was necessary for the formation of alternative art and politics. Privileging such self-​determination, I selected and edited these letters to accentuate the aesthetic, political, ethical, and even characterological affinities between Schneemann and her corre-

4. I have included several letters that Schneemann wrote to me for their art historical merit. None of my letters to her, however, appear in this volume in an effort to maintain a balance among my various roles and duties as art historian and editor. My letters are available in the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. 5. Dick Higgins, “Statement on Intermedia” (3 August 1966), Dé-​coll/age (Cologne) 6 (July 1967): n.p., reprinted in Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds., Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 728–29. See also Higgins’ “Intermedia” (1966) in foew&ombwhnw: A Grammar of the Mind and a Phenomenology of Love and a Science of the Arts as Seen by a Stalker of the Wild Mushroom (New York: Something Else Press, 1969), 1–29. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid.

preface

spondents. Moreover, as their letters show, Schneemann and her tribe continually expanded their circle to include multiple generations and new friendships and associations, which she sustained and developed, corresponding with some individuals for over four decades, especially the composer James Tenney, the filmmaker Stan Brakhage, the artist Dick Higgins, the dancer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer, the poet Clayton Eshleman, and the psychiatrist Joseph Berke.4 As the letters prove, Schneemann willingly shared the stage with her tribe. For while she remains the hub of this chronicle and a key figure in its history, the first generation to inherit and expand the concept of interdisciplinary art appears in these letters with strong and clearly defined ideas, theories, and aesthetic agendas that determined what the artist Dick Higgins called “intermedia” in 1966.5 As Higgins defined it, intermedia fused various fields (from physics, psychology, and linguistics to art, music, and poetry, among many others) into hybrid forms that expressed the altered conditions of communication in the post– World War II period. Such circumstances required different responses to society, including more highly integrated and sophisticated approaches to the production of aesthetic meaning in a cultural context of interpenetration where alternative forms of knowledge and social practices made it necessary to engage “the dialectic between the media.”6 The term intermedia was not originally intended to designate only new technologies and media (as it is too often used in a limited sense today), but to indicate radically altered social, political, and cultural conditions in an “era of mass literacy” when, as Higgins put it, “our sensitivities have changed.”7 These letters offer an exceptional view of how Schneemann and other artists who pioneered intermedia arrived at their leaps of imagination through thorny processes of realization and intuitive, yet tutored, grasps of how to make art both responsive to and of its time.

xiii

preface

This book is an encounter with Schneemann’s milieu at the same time as it initiates a biography on the artist. The letters were carefully chosen, organized, and edited to unfold one of the many possible narratives that may be told of the generative period and maturity of Schneemann’s artistic life and its relation to the artistic characters and achievements of other remarkable individuals. In other words, the selection process was deliberate in the juxtaposition of authors and the choice of which epistolary dialogues to emphasize and sustain. All these decisions represent the imposition of my subjective, interpretive judgment. Another scholar would have approached these letters entirely differently. Additionally, while the collection contains a large compendium of primary documents, only about a third of the corpus of Schneemann’s letters is published here, to say nothing of her diaries, systematically written and saved since childhood, as well as many other different kinds of notes and theoretical writings. My hope was to publish the hundreds of additional letters that I initially selected and edited, an ambition that the exigencies of publishing proved most unrealistic. As a result, many fascinating letters remain for a future biography of Schneemann. In 1994 when I began this project, Schneemann gave me complete freedom to choose what letters I wanted to include from the correspondence that she eventually sold to the Getty Research Institute in 1996. But she did not make her entire correspondence available. For example, I read only one letter to the artist from a family member (her father) and found only a few more letters that she wrote to her parents or siblings. Such documents would be critical to a biography on the artist, an endeavor that would also necessitate probing into her childhood, adolescence, early education, and college years, interviewing family and friends, consulting public records, and so on. None of which I did or wanted to do. Neither did I attempt to acquire letters that were not in her archive, an act that would have threatened the artist’s privacy.8 I respect Schneemann’s preference for historical vagaries. Throughout the long process of bringing this book to completion, Schneemann retained the right to refuse the inclusion of any letter; she never did so. She did request that brief passages from three letters be excised. Otherwise, she honored my selections, giving me freedom to assemble the book and edit the letters for their core issues, as my understanding of her and her correspondents’ interests and art dic-

xiv

8. Only Yvonne Rainer and Jean-​Jacques Lebel offered unsolicited letters they had received from Schneemann for this book.

9. Virginia Woolf, “The Art of Biography,” in Collected Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966), 227. 10. A few emails are included from the late 1990s when Schneemann began to communicate in this medium.

preface

tated. I also followed Virginia Woolf ’s observation that the fascination in highly public individuals derives from such questions as “when and where did the real person live, what did she look like, [what] did she wear . . . , who were her aunts and her friends, how did she blow her nose, who did she love, and how?”9 Acknowledging how the answers to such curiosities provide insight into the nature of the conditions under which real artists live, work, and love, this book offers readers an unmatched view of Schneemann and her circle. Thus a word about how I edited the letters, as well as the decisions that guided the annotations, is in order. Schneemann’s missives reveal her to be a writer of considerable literary talent, as well as a writer whose letters are consummately visual both in communicating an image of sensate and corporeal experience and in producing a visual object. Schneemann typed most of her letters on an Underwood manual typewriter, typing with a speed attested to by the rapid displays of dashes and dots and many words and letters that she typed over and retyped. She would then embellish her letters, correcting typographical errors with colored pens or pencils and crayons and finishing many with collage elements, drawings, and colored ink stamps and postage stamps. As works of art, her letters test all efforts to force conformity to standards of grammar and punctuation, and they elicit respect for the liberty allotted by idiosyncratic old-​fashioned letter writing in a period of email and text messaging.10 The only accurate way to maintain the appearance of her visual form of writing, typing, drawing, and decorating would have been to photograph each letter. But as a letter in 1964 to the French artist Jean-​Jacques Lebel proves, even this solution would not have solved the problem of readability (plate 5). Schneemann and her correspondents relished idiosyncratic grammar and punctuation, personal styles that bespeak how they practiced their distinctive art, characteristics that, nonetheless, contributed to the obstinacy of this book. Uniformly sprinkling her letters with phrases separated by series of dots and gaps (between words that function as spatial delays), Schneemann (as well as many of her correspondents) created textual narratives that have a certain kind of spatial presence. But such qualities also make the exigencies of a published text difficult to edit and proof, and nearly im-

xv

preface

possible to reproduce. As a result, editing these resistant letters, at the same time as protecting the quality of the writers’ voices, was a challenge. To begin, I imposed a systematic paragraph structure on the whole book, regularizing certain features such as dashes and dots and eliminating salutations and complimentary closings (unless very unusual) in order to avoid redundancy and to gain space for more letters. Preserving the lively attributes of these letters also values the authors’ various forms of emphasis and address, from dashes and underlining to capital letters, abbreviations, and use—or not—of capital letters. Omissions within the body of a letter appear as bracketed ellipsis dots, but I did not add them to the beginning or end of letters, preferring not to litter the text with such marks. Therefore readers are advised to remember that often the original letters do not begin or end where the edited versions do. Furthermore, although grammatical conventions constantly change, I used standard American (rather than British) spelling (for example, “clamor” for “clamour”) and only corrected spelling errors where they did not indicate a play with language. I maintained various writers’ personal habits, especially the lack of commas before “which,” preferring not to draw distinctions between “which” and “that,” and not to correct intentional misspellings and other creative forms of writing. With clarity as the primary goal, all decisions about corrections and slight alterations of grammar were made on a letter-​by-​letter basis.11 The effort for intelligibility and consistency also required annotating every person, event, institution, and cultural artifact (such as a song or poem) in the book, regardless of whether or not some, such as Vincent van Gogh, are universally known. Annotations are as brief as possible. In the case of artists working in many media, I identified them simply as “artist.” For artists working primarily in one medium (painters or sculptors, poets, composers, choreographers, et cetera), I cited them as such. If an individual founded an institution or created or edited a publication relevant to the content of the letters, I identified that aspect of his or her cultural contribution. What proved to be exceedingly difficult was uniformly identifying birth and death dates for all individuals. Therefore, “circa” indicates the general time period in which the person was born or died. While I and many research assistants, as well as Schneemann and her assistant Jennifer Stamps, have worked for years

xvi

11. In only a few cases, correspondents requested minor changes in their letters for clarification or to delete an expletive: I respected these requests.

to make correct identifications, there will be many mistakes, despite our rigorous best efforts. Forgive us. In addition to selecting, editing, and annotating the book, I also made the decision to introduce an unorthodox illustration program. For in addition to images of Schneemann’s art, I culled primary documents from journal and newspaper articles, posters and gallery postcards, and flyers, documents that either reviewed or announced events, lectures, films, performances, and exhibitions in which Schneemann participated (figure 1). For example, a historic flyer for a performance titled Dance by 5 (1963) lists Schneemann among dancers Carla Blank, Suzushi Hanayagi, Meredith Monk, and Elaine Summers. For this series, each artist choreographed new intermedia dance works. Another example of a documentary illustration is an article from a 1968 Look magazine depicting Schneemann in her Body Collage (1968), an action that she used as an illustration for her performance Illinois Central (1968; figure 2). On the Look page, Schneemann is juxtaposed with a photograph of Faye Dunaway, then the star of the blockbuster film Bonnie and Clyde (1967). As this pairing suggests, the cultural reception of Schneemann in the arts resembled the equivalent stature of Dunaway in Hollywood cinema. Other illustrations, such as a poster for the film festival “Avant-​Garde Cinema” at the University of Colorado in 1978, visual-

preface

1. Flyer for Dance by 5, performances by Carla Blank, Suzushi Hanayagi, Meredith Monk, Carolee Schneemann, and Elaine Summers at the Judson Memorial Church, New York City, 20–21 April 1963. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

xvii

2. “In the Know,” Look, 16 April 1968, M-6. Photograph of Schneemann in Body Collage, 1968, from the flyer for her per­ formance Illinois Central, 1968, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Ill. Courtesy of Jeff Bridges, Library of Congress, and Cowles Communications, Inc. Photograph by Fred W. McDarrah. © Fred W. McDarrah. (detail below)

ize Schneemann the filmmaker (figure 3). Schneemann also appears in reproductions of underground, alternative, mainstream, national, and international newspapers and journals. In short, the illustration program of this book visually accounts for Schneemann’s art and for the historical context in which her work appeared, thereby indicating something of the context of its reception. These primary documents offer a visual history of her changing artistic identity from painter to assemblage maker, intermedia and happenings performer, filmmaker, videographer, photographer, and producer of artist’s books, as well as kinetic, multimedia, installation artist, theorist, and author. Such an illustration program reinforces the content of

preface

3. Poster/program for “AvantGarde Cinema,” a visiting artist’s program in which Schneemann participated on 27 and 30 November and 2 December 1978, University of Colorado, Denver. Design by Alex Sweetman. Courtesy of Alex Sweetman and Carolee Schneemann.

xix

preface

the letters, enabling readers to encounter Schneemann’s varied production as it was seen in its own time in a host of different media. In this way, the illustrations serve to dispel reductive and narrow characterizations of the range of her work. In a period dominated by secondary literature and tertiary, interpretive, theoretical commentary, the literary primacy of letters and historical illustrations cannot be overstated for how they present the conversations and documents of the past that contribute to the formation of culture in the present. Letters equally offer an opportunity for more rigorous historical readings and can become a factor in the demystification of the creation of experimental art, as well as the pressures and necessities of the art world. Letter writing remains a pervasive social practice, even as correspondence has been transformed by digital media; letters are still the best source for understanding the otherwise invisible interactions of a period. Passionate, nuanced, and humorous, these letters open to public scrutiny the historical exigencies of overlapping associations and interconnected relationships interweaving social and political events with specific moments of friendship, love, and death lived in the context and discussion of art.

xx

acknowledgments Carolee Schneemann permitted me to invade more aspects of her private life than she could have imagined when I began the project of a book of her correspondence. She graciously endured and answered endless questions, read and corrected several iterations of the manuscript, provided illustrations, and blessed this book with her penetrating and perceptive mind. Her originality shaped and changed the histories of art, as well as the practice of artists, critics, and art historians alike, but none more than my own. My respect for her is ineffable, and I hold the trust of a privileged knowledge of her private experiences in confidence. Much of the rest is in these letters, which she has generously shared with the public. They provide a rare glimpse into the life of a living legend. Nearly eighty correspondents, or their families and estates, agreed to the publication of their letters. This book is indebted to their perspicacious grasp of the centrality of letters to nuanced understandings of how aesthetic ideas come into being, how art and history are constructed, and how a unique period of twentieth-​century art unfolded. Thanks, too, to the many photographers who contributed to this volume, as well as the editors of newspapers and magazines throughout the United States and Europe that enthusiastically granted permission for illustrations from their publications. Ken Wissoker, editorial director of Duke University Press, had the courage to publish what others dared not, bringing his astute historical understanding and grasp of this collection as “an amazing labor of complex love” (on the part of Schneemann, her correspondents, and its editor alike) to bear on the realization of this book. My gratitude is immeasurable. Bountiful thanks to all those who guided this book successfully through the Press: Fred Kameny for his fair-​minded professionalism, Mandy Earley for helping me through the permission and illustration process, Kristin Anderson for finding grants to support the illustration program, Lynn Walterick for her stringent editorial voice, Molly Balikov for her gracious, supportive, and generous edits, Eileen Quam for her stupendous index, Linda Quigley for catching a thousand

acknowledgments xxii

errors, and finally Cherie Westmoreland for her elegant design of the book. I also wish to thank Melanie Halkias and Leslie Mitchner of Rutgers University Press for being the first to acknowledge the significance of this collection and to encourage its publication. Deep gratitude also goes to the late Charles Harrison, who endorsed its publication, and to Kathy O’Dell, who read and commented on the manuscript at an early critical point in its development. Special Collections at the Getty Research Institute agreed to the publication of these letters, and I would like to thank Gail Feigenbaum, Wim de Wit, Susan M. Allen, Virginia Mokslaveskas, Kathlin Ralston Knutsen, and Julio Sims, all of who assisted me in some way with the book over the years. Duke University awarded many stipends to undergraduates to serve as research assistants on the book, and often granted me research funds as well. Grants from the College Art Association Millard Meiss Publication Fund and the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, as well as donations from George Ahl III, Joan Hotchkis, and Walter Sudol and Steven Johnson supported color images for this book. A fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for another project also enabled me to work on this book; my gratitude to Richard J. Powell, Jock Reynolds, Arjun Makhijani, and Robert Del Tredici for support on that fellowship. The story of why this book took fifteen years to complete and required a veritable legion of assistants follows. I never planned to edit a book of Schneemann’s letters. Neither had I ever contemplated assembling a document of the post-​1945 United States and European avant-​garde of happenings, Fluxus, and performance art, music, film, dance, and poetry. In fact, this book originated in quite another project in March 1994 when Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dasgupta, co-​editors of Performing Arts Journal, invited me to edit a volume of interviews, articles, and writings by Schneemann for their series “Art + Performance,” published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. From the beginning, however, a series of unanticipated, challenging events unfolded that I have detailed elsewhere, requiring the transformation of the initial project into this very different, more complex book.12 Correspondence Course emerged in my imagination during a week in early June 1994 when I 12. See Kristine Stiles, “At Last! A Great Woman Artist: Writing about Carolee Schneemann’s Epistolary Practice,” in Frederickson and Sarah E. Webb, eds., Singular Women: Writing the Artist (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 213–37.

acknowledgments

sat reading Schneemann’s voluminous correspondence in the sunroom of her eighteenth-​century stone home in Springtown, New York. Between 1995 and 2001, Rebecca Katz, Erica James, and Betty Rogers typed photocopies of the original letters into digital text files; Elizabeth Kyle, Alexandra Tuttle, and I read the first one thousand page digitized manuscript against the original letters; Tamara Mann and Jay Curley proofed the second, shorter version; Lauren Miller researched and wrote many brief biographies of Schneemann’s correspondents, which I later transformed into annotations; and Susan Jarosi, Laurel Fredrickson, and Edward A. Shanken commented on a very early version of my introduction. Then, between 2001 and 2004, the book languished when, in rapid succession, my mother Katherine (Kitty) Rogers Dolan, my brother-​in-​ law William (Bill) Tierney, and my friend Marcel Tetel, the esteemed Montaigne scholar, died after illnesses requiring continuous attention. During these difficult years, Nicole Hess Kempton, like Sisyphus, pushed the lumbering book forward, writing for permissions to reprint letters and illustrations and generally supporting me in every way. Then in 2004 Ariel Vorhoff Merritt appeared, volunteering research assistance and breathing new energy into the book by working on annotations and inspiring me to return to the manuscript afresh. Next Mitali Routh and Corina Apostal alternated in the exhausting process of reading aloud the original letters—including all punctuation!—as I checked the digitized manuscript against the letters for accuracy. Corina also wrote for missing permissions and assisted in many aspects of the completion of the illustrations and text. Jane McFadden did last-​minute research on obscure newspaper and magazine illustrations at the Getty Research Institute, and Jasmina Tumbas worked on all aspects of the final preparation of the manuscript. In addition, this book would also never have been possible without the assistance of staff in Duke’s Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, including John Taormina, Jack Edinger, William Broom, Elizabeth Nashold, Betty Rogers, and Linda Stubblefield. Carolee Schneemann’s assistants were also vital to the realization of the book: Melissa Moreton, Ranae Dubaj, and most especially the indomitable Jennifer Stamps, who answered questions, corrected facts, scanned images, responded to a flood of requests and questions, and helped to smooth difficult moments in its transit from manuscript to book. The friendship, trust, and humor of many have nourished me over

xxiii

acknowledgments

the years, but none more than Kathy O’Dell, Julie Tetel, miriam cooke, Bruce Lawrence, Richard J. Powell, C. T. Woods-​Powell, Graham Auman, Claudia Koonz, James Rolleston, Esther Gabara, Pedro Lasch, Sherman Fleming, Dan Perjovschi, Lia Perjovschi, Mark Thompson, Lynn Hershman, Peter D’Agostino, Jean-​Jacques Lebel, Richard Shiff, Charles Harrison, Eugenie Candau, Lyneise Williams, Hannah Higgins, Valerie Hillings, Rebecca Katz, Sharon P. Holland, Jennifer Brody, Robin Kirk, Molly Renda, Hans and Griet van Miegroet, Gennifer Weisenfeld, Sheila Dillon, Sara Galletti, James Elkins, Adrian Bejan, Doug Zinn, Annabel Wharton, Kalman Bland, Neil McWilliam, Olga Grlic, Patricia Leighten, Mark Antliff, Peggy Phelan, Kim Rorschach, John Hart, T. J. and Lois Anderson, Joseph Donahue, Priscilla Wald, Marsha and Devin Orgeron, Anne and Onye Akwari, all my graduate students, and all those mentioned above who have worked on this book. Tam Hall, Crista Gardener, and Tam’s Shiloh Farms Equestrian Training Center, all the horses, and my fellow equestrians enrich my life beyond measure. Finally my family—especially Victoria Tierney, Steve Dolan, Jain Mclain, Greg Dolan, Connie Lyons, Marion Lane Rogers Sr. and Marion Lane Rogers Jr., all my nieces and nephews, and Pasha, Bobo, and Eryk—sustain me.

xxiv

introduction

“My love I found two lovers: dancing stone each other.” 13

Carolee Schneemann wrote this sentence to the composer James Tenney in a letter in 1958. Presenting lovers as if entwined in dance, she located the pair in the context of the inimitable barrier of a stone, burdened with its immobility. The incongruity of a “dancing stone” left the rhythmical words open to layers of meaning and multiple interpretations, rescuing them from sentimentality, even as Schneemann offered Tenney an expression of passion. Such is the evocative quality of her letters, epistles through which readers encounter a complex personality simultaneously eloquent and incisive, emotional and rigorous, tender and fierce, confrontational and shy, yielding and intransigent, cautious and spontaneous, as well as determined, energetic, courageous, and full of sorrow and joy. Schneemann’s thoughts ebb and flow in her letters, emphasizing aesthetic associations of language over precise meaning, all the while delivering information, insight, and reasoned argument. Most of all, her letters are poetic. Indeed, poets were the first to grasp Schneemann’s ability to create a seductive fleshy prose, condensing feeling and experience into expressive, distilled textual form. The poet Robert Kelly was the first to publish Schneemann’s writings in 1963,14 followed by the poets Jerome Rothenberg and David Antin in 1965,15 and the poet Clayton Eshleman in 1969.16 When asked about the qualities that she believed poets admired in her style, Schneemann observed: “They recognized the density of the levels, the erotic texture of meanings—simultaneously tactile, metaphoric, and historical. The words were not just a surface, and their power evoked associations beyond the words themselves and positioned deep images. This was something like the deep 13. Carolee Schneemann (hereafter CS) to James Tenney, 18 March 1958. Tenney died on 24 August 2006. This book celebrates their long devotion to, and lifelong love of, one another. 14. CS, “Hormones Circling” in Kelly’s mimeographed journal Matter (1963): unpaginated. 15. CS, “Meat Joy Notes as Prologue,” Some/Thing 1, no. 2 (winter 1965): 29–45. 16. CS, “Notations, 1958–1966,” Caterpillar 8–9 (1969): 30–44.

introduction xxvi

image poetry of Antin and Rothenberg. I should add that my sixth grade teacher, Rose Wachter, had us do Eng­lish five hours a day. I learned about poetry from her. You had to write an essay every week and read it to the group in sixth grade. For punishment you would be sent out in the fields to play. She read to us each day from Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, and Shakespeare.”17 Thinking about the historic relationship between painters and poets, the sculptor Clara Westhoff Rilke wrote in 1945: “One of the principal forces of modern art was recognized by a poet.”18 She referred to her husband, the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and to Paul Cézanne. Reflecting on Rilke’s understanding of Cézanne’s paintings, she remembered that he visited a Cézanne exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim-​Jeune in Paris nearly every day in the fall of 1907. As Rilke himself explained, these visits were “the turning point” in his understanding of painting and his appreciation that “pictures demand one’s participation.”19 The relationship between Rilke’s discernment of the significance of painting as a medium for connecting art and life and Schneemann’s support by poets, who grasped the participatory poetic form of her writing and visual production, is not accidental. Schneemann’s first muse was Cézanne. She even titled her first artist’s book Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter (1974). Schneemann grasped the implications of Cézanne’s broken line and the fracture of continuity between forms such that the space between definitions equivocated in incremental energy. Art historians refer to this tactile approach in Cézanne’s work as passage, or the interpenetration of planes created by his short brush strokes that lock the picture surface together in a tightly interwoven structure while simultaneously providing movement throughout. It could be said, in this regard, that Schneemann translated the virtual kinetics of Cézanne’s passages into a dialogue between the eye and the body in space, seeing momentum where the physicality of perception could be felt as movement. The same is true of her understanding of Jackson Pollock’s strokes, where the body follows the eye into the momentum of line. Indeed, Schneemann called her version of happenings “kinetic theater” for how her work emphasized bodily movement and corporeal interaction. Schneemann’s interest in movement transferred to her letters as well. 17. CS in conversation with the author, 8 June 1994. 18. Clara Rilke, ed., Rainer Maria Rilke Letters on Cézanne, trans. Joel Agee (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1985), xvii. 19. Ibid., xxii.

20. CS to Jan Peacock, 28 December 1994. 21. The “planh” was a medieval funeral lament sung by troubadours for secular audiences, which was current between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. It is impossible to fix precisely Kelly’s meaning; one can say only that he suggests that in addition to being audacious, Schneemann expressed a form of personal grief in her art. 22. Robert Kelly, “American Direction,” in More Than Meat Joy (New Paltz, N.Y.: Documentext, 1979), 264.

introduction

Stringing together lush adjectives, she used words as kinetic forms to express her ideas to correspondents. Portraying a student’s “pastel and shell sculptures,” for example, she commented: “So I take an opposite tack to the eager ideas to combine the white sculpture with the dark silky depth of the pastels . . . the reason you have them so close may not be to include or make a border, but to concentrate on the differences . . . to keep examining the bleached bone white plaster configured dimensionally by turning fingers: rolling, roping, pushing convexity, concavity into small fixed fantasy shapes. They are pleasing to touch for the eye to traverse.”20 In order to animate and visualize a plain noun like “plaster,” Schneemann linked adjective to adjective without punctuation, helping her reader experience the flow of plaster’s chalky quality and to see it as “bleached bone white.” One feels, senses, and inhabits the palpability of the material through her language. Then, just as the object comes into view, Schneemann activates it with the body as it is “configured dimensionally by turning fingers.” These fingers begin “rolling, roping, pushing” and moving the object into both “convexity” and “concavity” in order to make “small fixed fantasy shapes” endowed with embodied humanity. Body and object of art come to life through Schneemann’s words. Emphasizing the haptic qualities of sight, which finds her student’s objects “pleasing to touch for the eye,” Schneemann helps the reader’s imagination traverse its form as if the thing could be touched. A touch for the eye is exactly how the artist imagined an erotic interchange between her own body and those of her spectators, as much as the word on the page linked her at a distance to a correspondent kinesthetically. Understanding such an approach and its tie to “personal meaning,” the poet Robert Kelly observed that the “philosophical direction” of Schneemann’s work was “an Amerithing, a touch of Emerson, a clear honest yearning towards hanging the completed work right up there, on the chandelier (life an Irish Party)”; he further described Schneemann as “a writer, a diagnost of our malaises & a deft spokeswoman of the priority of personal meaning above all. Her written texts work vigorously as a fusion of personal planh21 & the most outrageous outward! Social! Invention! [Kelly’s emphasis].”22

xxvii

introduction

A more practical consequence of Schneemann’s literary abilities was that she theorized the meaning of her own work long before it received serious critical attention. But she did so first and foremost in intimate letters to friends where she discussed her perceptions, processes, preferences, and practices. As Schneemann’s renown grew, she developed her theoretical ideas further in epistolary conversations with critics, scholars, and other artists. In this regard, Schneemann belongs to a group of artists associated with the first generation of happenings and Fluxus in the late 1950s through the mid-​1960s that theorized their own art in texts that inspired younger artists, laying the practical and theoretical foundation for body and performance art.23 These artists’ capacity to explicate their own work challenged received aesthetic meanings and critical assumptions about artistic intention and also directly shaped the reception of their art and careers. In essays and letters, Schneemann discussed the changed conditions for making art, offering penetrating and insightful assessments of aesthetics, culture, and society that functioned as tutorials on the politics of culture. She also conducted protracted letter campaigns aimed at promoting an engaged performative paradigm, one that might move aesthetic concepts away from ossified models of art (such as the notion that art must remain autonomous and at an aesthetic distance from its audience). Furthermore, the model that Schneemann advanced would be foundational—however unacknowledged—for “relational ­aesthetics,” a theory of performance and socially engaged practices that emerged over four decades after she and others of her circle pioneered politically engaged and charged, interactive art.24 It must be said that Schneemann also approached reading letters in a way that was as interactive as her method of writing them and as emotionally engagé as her approach to making art: namely, she wrote and commented directly on the letters she received. Extending performativity to the inanimate epistolary object, she enlivened it, break-

xxviii

23. Such artists include Joseph Beuys, Lydia Clark, Günter Brus, Valie Export, Robert Filliou, Dick Higgins, John Latham, Jean-​Jacques Lebel, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Robert Morris, Otto Mühl, Hélio Oiticica, Hermann Nitsch, Nam June Paik, Yvonne Rainer, Daniel Spoerri, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Emmett Williams, and Peter Weibel, to name just a few whose writings shaped the discourses of art history starting in the mid-​twentieth century. 24. Nicolas Bourriaud coined the term in his book Esthétique relationnelle, published in Paris in 1998 by Les Presse du réel. Bourriaud’s concept and argument have been widely debated, especially by Claire Bishop in her “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,” October 110 (fall 2004): 51–79.

25. Carolee Schneemann, “Anti-​Demeter: The More I Give the More You Steal/The More You Give the More I Need,” in Martha Roth, Maureen T. Reedy, and Amy Sheldon, eds, Mother Journeys: Feminists Write about Mothering (Minneapolis: Spinsters Ink, 1994), 289– 92. 26. Joan M. Drury to CS, 1994. All quotes by Drury are from this letter.

introduction

ing through the conventional sanctity of another person’s letter just as she did the pages of the books that she read. Her enthusiastic will to connect with the world of people and objects, however, could lead to conflict, insofar as she refused to conform to established behaviors, grammar, or structure. An exchange with Joan M. Drury, once editor and owner of the publishing house Spinsters Ink, conveys the stakes in Schneemann’s unique writing style. Drury grappled with the artist’s idiosyncratic punctuation while editing Schneemann’s essay “Anti-​Demeter (The More I Give the More You Steal/The More You Give the More I Need),” a text that is one of the artist’s most evocative and moving pieces of writing and one that reveals more about her life as a child than any other.25 In frustration, Drury wrote to the artist a letter worth quoting from different sections: “I have a few comments I’d like to make on your piece. This is a wonderfully evocative and strong piece—the kind of writing that makes a reader both nod her head in empathy and sympathy while also shrinking, internally, from the horror of it. The writing is excellent.”26 Regardless of having complimented Schneemann on her writing and its moving content, Drury, in her capacity as editor, attempted to bring the artist’s punctuation in line with normative rules of grammar: “The punctuation you’ve chosen, I believe, weakens the impact of this piece [and] the writing is fragmentary and disjoined, as it is clearly meant to be—very effectively recreating the childhood experiences . . . [but] this sense of fragmentation . . . exacerbates rather than exaggerates [Drury’s emphasis].” Caught in the conundrum of admiring Schneemann’s style for how it represented, and even doubled, childhood experiences and memories, Drury sought a more conventional format: “Whereas the slightly disorderly writing style creates a certain amount of tension (chosen, wanted), the addition of a disorderly punctuation transforms this tension into irritation. The piece does not flow as well as I think it can. Its very lack of structure, its sense of detachment and incoherence must be packaged in a tolerable way—meaning that the punctuation has to enhance the existing writing style.” Contradicting herself, Drury con-

xxix

introduction

cluded by explaining that Schneemann’s text required “a fairly strenuous re-​doing . . . concentrating primarily on the punctuation.” Next, Drury advised: “The constant use of ellipsis is not only erroneous in this article (in terms of its intention in the Eng­lish language) but is also counter-​productive to meaning and flow.” Finally, in her effort to make Schneemann’s text cohere grammatically, Drury resorted to rewriting Schneemann’s essay herself: “I have enclosed a copy of this article as I think it might best appear. I rarely do editing in this manner, but to edit this piece in the conventional manner—that is, to write all over your existing hard copy, deleting many marks and adding many—would be, visually, very difficult. I wanted you to see how the piece would look on paper with a different approach to punctuation. I am not insisting that you have to comply with the enclosed copy, Ms. Schneemann [Drury’s emphasis]. It might meet with your approval, or you might want to work out something somewhere in between your finished copy and my suggested copy.” Drury’s letter highlights the challenges posed by Schneemann’s participatory mode of writing, wherein lies its quintessential poetry. Schneemann enacts her artistry in dots, dashes, delays, and long blank spaces between words that permit a letter (or text) to breathe as if spoken, communicating the temporality of thought. Such writing plunges readers into the mental participation necessary to connect events and ideas, which the punctuation both extends and defers as it integrates a reader into the artist’s epistolary prose.27 Punctuation cannot be reduced to a system, as the feminist scholar Jennifer Brody has pointed out in her book Punctuation, as it performs in contradictory ways and its paradoxical performances produce a poetics and politics of punctuation.28 Thus, while Drury rightly identified the many real difficulties in reading Schneemann’s idiosyncratic style and recognized its integral role in the artist’s creative process and expression, in her effort to provide accessibility to readers, Drury succumbed to an orthodoxy that might have been avoided had she recalled Gustav Flaubert’s pithy

xxx

27. In this way, Schneemann’s letters exude the kinesthetic qualities that the artist prized and presented in her “Kinetic Theater” in the early 1960s, a relation to movement from the eye to the body from which her kinetic assemblages and performance art also developed. As Schneemann herself noted, in her Kinetic Theater “the audience may become more active physically than when viewing a painting or assemblage; their physical reactions will tend to manifest actual scale—relating to motions, mobilities the body does make in a specific environment [Schneemann’s emphasis]. Schneemann in More Than Meat Joy, 10. 28. Jennifer Devere Brody, Punctuation: Art, Politics and Play (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008).

29. See Flaubert’s Préface à la vie d’écrivain in Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 3. 30. CS to Stan Brakhage, 10 July 1975.

introduction

comment about a writer’s creative process: “There is more to Art than the straightness of lines and the perfection of surfaces.”29 Schneemann’s response to Drury’s efforts? She wrote on the editor’s letter, of course, circling the words re-​doing and counter-​productive in the margin next to Drury’s statement that she “rarely” rewrote another author’s work. Then Schneemann sarcastically snarled, “Sure!” Indeed, any attempt to scold or instruct Schneemann was doomed to failure, as her sharp rejoinders to such unsolicited advice by friends and colleagues demonstrate throughout her correspondence. Schneemann’s writing represents an existential rebellion against conformity or complicity with convention. But this is true only within very precise parameters, only if well-​meaning advice was imposed upon rather than solicited by her. Otherwise, Schneemann was content with the normative social structures of everyday life, even if her letters communicate the quotidian in anything but a commonplace way. The opening paragraph of a letter written in 1975 to Stan Brakhage exemplifies Schneemann’s skill in enlivening even the most routine aspects of her life. Schneemann began with a teasing allusion to a short round of sex, introducing her letter with a flip comment—“This is a quicky”—before explaining why her letter would be brief: “This is a quicky; big push underway to catch hold/up with/to all the pouting papers, waiting promises. New edition, Cézanne, is at the printers, and a year-​by-​year poster of Kitch. Today between weeding, mulching, planting late beans, I’m at work on a pleasing project for a miniature museum in Switzerland; I’m completing this tiny glass (mirror and horses head from old slide) box which goes into a 21/4″, 17/8″ 1 11/16″ compartment. The entire museum is housed in ten drawers (500 contemporary artists).”30 In this single paragraph, with its abbreviated sentences, Schneemann’s words topple over each other in her effort to capture the integration of all her activities. “Pouting papers” sulk as they wait to be written or answered. Outstanding bills share the stage with the new edition of Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter, to which, significantly, the artist gives no more importance than poster pictures of her cat Kitch or the garden she tends. In the midst of all this, Schneemann reported on an object she was making for Herbert Distel’s “Museum of Drawers” (1970–77), a chest of drawers containing miniature works by various artists from whom the Swiss filmmaker, artist, and composer had in-

xxxi

introduction

vited contributions. Schneemann’s letter, however dashed off, is the artist at her most intimate: at home, surrounded by beloved cats, working in nature, making art, and communicating with friends and lovers in letters.31 By and large, Schneemann’s circle received gracious, encouraging, and generous epistles. But the weight of her growing public success, which grew in the late 1970s, swelled with the boom of the art market in the 1980s. This is not to say that her art became more lucrative; on the contrary, there were simply more demands on her time and energy, as her letters prove. In fact, the title of this book derives from a work of art, Correspondence Course (1980), which Schneemann made during the period when she first became inundated with letters that would only increase over the following decades from students, curators, scholars, and art administrators whose requests, demands, and sometimes insensitive and even preposterous appeals exhausted her. Correspondence Course is Schneemann’s visual reply (figures 4–9). The work consists of a series of eighteen paired texts and images; each pair includes an excerpt from one of the annoying letters and a photographic self-​portrait of the artist in the nude, striking a ribald position. Schneemann appears at her most waggish, mischievous, irreverent, and humorous self in Correspondence Course.32 For example, an “Assistant Professor of Fine Arts” hoping to include Schneemann in a book on women artists, wrote to the artist: “We are anxious for you to send us a complete bibliography, statement of purpose, future intentions, past influences, membership in clubs or societies, grants received, etc., to include in our proposed Dictionary of Women Artists.” Responding to these unwieldy demands, Schneemann drew up her legs to expose a feather duster protruding from her vagina, as if to say: “Kiss my feminist pussy.” In another image, the same duster wags from Schneemann’s

xxxii

31. Schneemann lives in Springtown, a small settlement north of New Paltz, New York. Her home, left to her in 1965, is one of the few unaltered stone houses constructed in the 1750s after the Lenape Indians granted Dutch and French Huguenot settlers in the Hudson Valley permission to build. Known as the DuBois-​Deyo House, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in December 1994. 32. See Schneemann’s photographic essay Correspondence Course in The Dumb Ox 10/11 (spring 1980): unpaginated. The artists Allan Kaprow and Paul McCarthy edited this special issue on “Performance” and insisted that Schneemann’s contribution be published after the editor, James Hugunin, refused to include her photographs, describing them as “pornographic.” Kaprow and McCarthy threatened to withdraw their own work if Schneemann’s photo-​essay was not published. “That was so splendid when the guys came in and fought for my work,” CS in conversation with the author, 8 August 2006.

33. Dick Higgins to CS, 10 March 1981. 34. CS to Dick Higgins, 25 June 1981. 35. Paul Ferris, Introduction, Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1985), xi.

introduction

butt: “Kiss my feminist ass.” In still another, Schneemann peers into the camera, bends over, wags her fingers from her ears, and sticks out her tongue like a naughty little girl. Another image, expressive of the sentiment “na na na na na na,” Schneemann registers irritation with a letter from a nonprofit “Feminist Art Research Centre” in Canada, which confesses to having “no funding to pay for [your] contribution” but offers the already internationally renowned Schneemann “a lot of exposure.” This letter ends with the eager but impertinent demand: “We need your material yesterday!” In still another visual retort, Schneemann grabbed her breasts and bared her teeth, growling in response to the director of an “Alternative Space USA” who wanted her to present “a major performance [for an] honorarium of $200” and then offered the absurd further compensation of “unlimited access to Xeroxing”! Schneemann’s acute sense of the absurd and sensitivity to hypocrisy triumph in Correspondence Course, the bawdy content of which displays her making art from the frustration with and irritation over epistolary demands. In such situations, the artist’s inimitable humor always surfaces as support in intolerable circumstances. Such is the instance of a letter from the artist Dick Higgins in which he suggested that Schneemann hire younger female artists to substitute for her middle-​aged body in her performances.33 After several exchanges on the topic of his letter, Schneemann finally responded using the salutation, “Dear DICK,” the capital letters summoning the double entrendre. Thus did Schneemann rebuff Higgins for advice that was both sexist and ageist.34 This assertive riposte demonstrates how considered Schneemann’s letters remained even when, by the 1990s, necessity made them more perfunctory as the demands on her time increased. But for the most part her letters are thoughtful and, in this regard, resemble the ways in which an artist like the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas could be “a careful, often laborious drafter of letters throughout his life.”35 The degree to which Schneemann considered her conversations in letters significant is typified by her practice of mulling over a topic with correspondents, sometimes over several months during which time she would rewrite and redraft her ideas as she came to understand better her thinking on the subject. In this respect, too, Schneemann and Dylan Thomas would

xxxiii

(facing pages) 4, 5, and 6. Carolee Schneemann, “Correspondence Course,” in The Dumb Ox 10, no.11 (spring 1980), n.p. Self-shot silver prints mounted on silk-screened text (32″ × 30″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann and James Hugunin.

(facing pages) 7, 8, and 9. Carolee Schneemann, Correspondence Course, 1980.

differ from a writer like Virginia Woolf, whose letters were all “written in haste.”36 In particular, Schneemann would increase her labor over a letter if she believed that she had suffered an injustice or been misrepresented in someone else’s letter. In such instances, she might “recoil like an angry dog.”37 But one had to be a trusted friend for her to feel safe enough to unleash her wrath. The rare enemy might warrant an angry draft, but Schneemann hardly ever sent such letters. The constraints on the length of this volume made it impossible to include any of Schneemann’s livid drafts, but such documents disclose the artist’s vigilant effort to harness her emotional responses in order to present a measured tone. Moreover, letters that began as rants often end as models of nuanced self-​restraint. Schneemann’s fury is, nevertheless, palpable in her exchange with the poet Clayton Eshleman about his poem “The Woman Who Saw through Paradise,” written in 1975. (The poem is included in this volume along with Eshleman’s letters.) Incensed by Eshleman’s characterizations of her, Schneemann snapped: “I don’t work out of anguish, I leave it for letters or notes!”38 The series of letters between the artist and the poet indicate the critical role letters played as an emotional outlet for Schneemann. Letters served her pain. Her epistolary habits allowed her to preserve her art as the public expression of aesthetic enjoyment and/or social outrage. In a youthful letter of 1960 accounting for the origins of her art, Schneemann laid out the process by which she transferred the content of an anguished life into her art. Her explanation about her purpose is surprising for how it reflects none of the exuberance of the period commonly associated with the emergence of happenings. Rather, Schneemann explained that her art provided a refuge from suffering:

introduction

When my life was most a nightmare . . . the art—like a monster— gained a devouring strength for itself developing in spite of my misery and carrying me along, a crazed puppet: misery “it” did seem to use as would a crippled magician sending a servant into horror which the magician could then vicariously comprehend, and worse, transform into glorious spectacles. The servant is forever trapped in the wonder

xxxviii

36. Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann, eds., The Letters of Virginia Woolf, vol. 6, 1936–1941 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), xii. 37. CS in conversation with the author, 5 June 1994. 38. CS to Clayton Eshleman, 12 September 1975.

role the magician creates. The servant—or life capacity—is tragically replaceable no matter how all art-​magician discoveries seem to depend on her . . . no, but the art cannot be replaced or if it dies the servant in us is mutilated and tries always for a double entendre role: to make life an art: to make life like an art, endlessly adapting the wild art-​magician tricks to temporal utility.39

39. CS to Mona Mellis, 2 February 1960. 40. Schneemann’s early paintings, assemblages, and performances call out for a reading through her commentary in this letter, especially the photographic series Eye Body (1963) with its images of the artist with her face over-​painted in black marks, sometimes wearing horns, and appearing with a snake on her body in front of torn umbrellas, assembled and found “junk” objects, and a disarray of fur pelts, as well as her looking through shards of broken glass.

introduction

This dense and brilliant description pictures a nightmarish misery as the force that gives birth to the monster art, its devouring strength feeding on itself. Art—that monster—turns its host (Schneemann) into a “crazed puppet” who serves it by becoming the magician (artist) “crippled” by her misery. Fueled by suffering, the monster doubles its servant’s “horror” by recommitting the artist to her own pain. Art made life “tragically replaceable” for the young Schneemann, regardless of its dependence upon life to sustain, nourish, and inspire; and the unshakable monster (art) could not die or be replaced without “mutilat[ing]” its servant, the life force. Schneemann resolved this dilemma by proclaiming: “Make life an art” or “like an art . . . endlessly [capable of ] adapting the wild art-​magician tricks to temporal utility.” In this extraordinarily revelatory letter, Schneemann unmasked the origins of the processes by which she believed that she had become an artist, or the “magician” whose work vicariously fed on sorrow. Such a source divulges the continuity of her expressive work with Romantic, Symbolist, and Surrealist traditions, as well as the Dionysian writings of such poet/artists as Antonin Artaud, one of her favorite authors.40 Schneemann’s letter demonstrates a precocious self-​critical aptitude as well as aesthetic sophistication. For while explicating a tortuous creative process, she was able to remain detached enough to be aware of the double bind that transforms horrific vision into something far worse: “glorious spectacles” appreciated as art. Her capacity to recognize this aesthetic conundrum attests to her ability to maintain simultaneously two contradictory positions as an artist. Her letter shows her as a servant to her art, caught in the web of her own vision and “trapped in the wonder role the magician creates.” At the same time, the letter

xxxix

introduction

conveys how the artist resisted the absorption of her art into the spectacle applauded by museums and other mainstream art institutions that have ignored her work. In audacious actions that staged her beautiful and widely desired nude body, Schneemann created spectacles of “the ideal woman” and the female body that undermined both the paradigm she mimed and the capacity of art institutions to absorb her imagery, meaning, and content. This is as true today as it was in the early 1960s, a contradiction vividly exemplified in the response to my proposal to curate a retrospective exhibition of Schneemann’s work at the Walker Art Center in 1994. Then curator Richard Flood responded: “In the case of Carolee, we were compelled by the case that you made but, while she may indeed be the stem, we felt that our audience would be better served by the apple.”41 As this book goes to press in spring 2010, no museum yet plans to offer Schneemann a retrospective after fifty years of pioneering work. Museum officials refusing to consider such a comprehensive exhibition cite various excuses: an inability and unwillingness to “expose the public to the nudity and sex” in her work; the “board of advisors” are “uncertain” about “the long-​term value of her art”; “she already had a retrospective” (a reference to the important, but small, selection of Schneemann’s work curated by Dan Cameron at the New Museum in 1998);42 and so on. That Schneemann transmogrified unhappiness into an encompassing “life capacity” that fed (as it resisted) art in the service of the magician’s spectacles may, in part, answer the question as to why, while being internationally acknowledged, her work has not yet received the institutional support it deserves.43 This is not the place to unpack that observation except to point out that the pain which she replaced with joy is, nevertheless, embedded in Schneemann’s powerful work and clear throughout: from the shards of glass in assemblages and performances to burned and torn materials in paintings and sculptures; from

xl

41. Richard Flood to the author, 1 August 1994. See my “Schlaget Auf: The Problem with Carolee Schneemann’s Paintings,” in Carolee Schneemann: Up To And Including Her Limits (New York: New Museum, 1996). 42. See the small exhibition catalogue produced on the occasion of this exhibition: Carolee Schneemann: Up to and Including Her Limits, with an introduction by Marcia Tucker and essays by Dan Cameron, Kristine Stiles, and David Levi Strauss. 43. Although Schneemann had not read Walter Benjamin’s essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History” when she wrote this passage in her letter, her explanation of the “monster” art recalls his formulation of the hunchback and puppet manipulating history in a chess game. See Benjamin’s essay in Illuminations, trans. Henry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 253–64.

her over-​painted body to the recurring themes of death and war; and from the representations of illness to the artist’s furious energy in defense of a woman’s right to represent herself and to control her future. All these aspects of Schneemann’s art become accessible in and through her epistolary history.

The Writer as Woman Yes, we are writing about the process of our lives more than that of our art: Van Gogh and Cézanne give us art as the process of the life. They are men . . .

From the beginning, the task of untangling what she understood to be women’s difference took place in Schneemann’s writing habits; letters were veritable tools of her feminism. Her consciousness had already been raised in childhood: she grew up in a family where she was expected to share in the care of younger siblings and to perform other domestic duties that she identified as the source of what she considered to be her mother’s “submissive behavior” and “frequent depressions.”45 Ironically, the maintenance of correspondence, about which Schneemann was so diligent, was always a woman’s domestic role, part of “household chore[s] like any other.”46 Nevertheless, while Schneemann always kept a beautiful and well-​organized home, her critique of the subjugation of women to domestic tasks started very early. Schneemann read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) in the late 1950s and began a systematic analysis of the different valence accorded men and women in patriarchal culture. Schneemann’s battle for feminist principles must be considered one of the leitmotifs of her letters. This is particularly true of her exchanges with Brakhage and Eshleman, whose letters demonstrate an unconditional belief in and support for her work, even if both displayed ignorance of their male bias, and even if Schneemann’s ardent drive for acceptance as an artist made her sometimes blind to their devotion. Schneemann’s letters to such male colleagues and friends demonstrate her relentless battle for self-​representation, independence, and equality, while her letters to her many long-​term female friends and women colleagues confer in 44. CS to Naomi Levinson, 19 March 1960. 45. CS in conversation with the author, 6 June 1994. 46. David Barton and Nigel Hall, eds., Letter Writing as a Social Practice (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999), 2.

introduction

the difference can swing either way for value but the meanings will be quite different.44

xli

introduction

critiques of patriarchy. Indeed, her extensive and persistent analysis of gender in her art, essays, and letters has been inspirational for artists of a range of sexual identities. But it was in a letter of 1974, in response to a request from the feminist artists Miriam Schapiro and Sherry Brody for a contribution to an exhibition they were in the midst of curating, that Schneemann most clearly articulated her aims in relation to women. “All my writing has been implicitly or—more recently—explicitly addressed to unknown ‘young women artists,’” she explained. It derived from “a persistent and desperate need on my part to serve as [a] possible precedent since my own [role models] were a private company of suicided or demeaned historical women.”47 In her aim to mentor younger women artists, Schneemann may have remembered the importance that a book by the Russian artist Marie Bashkirtseff, which she read in the late 1950s, played in her own impressionable beginnings.48 For later in her letter Schneemann declared her dedication to the recuperation of women’s place in history and offered Schapiro and Brody the possibility to reproduce sections of her artist’s book, Parts of a Body House Book (1974), in their catalogue. They chose an entry dated October 1971, which included the following sentence: “We are on-​lookers, observers to our given definitions, our own integration.”49 Such a comment recalls Schneemann’s decision to write herself into history. Analyzing herself and her art from inside out and outside in, Schneemann performed reversals that required dissociating from emotional experiences. Separating from her feeling facilitated making radical choices and decisions that challenged social conventions for, and even laws controlling, the behavior of women. Perhaps the most intimate decision was Schneemann’s conviction about a woman’s right to chose whether or not to continue a pregnancy, a decision that required deep self-​knowledge, as well as the capacity to distance oneself from one’s body in order to envision a different future for that self. In her belief, Schneemann confronted what other women artists have faced for generations. One has only to read the writings of such artists as

xlii

47. CS to Miriam Schapiro and Sherry Brody, 5 March 1974. 48. See Marie Bashkirtseff, The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, trans.and intro. Mathilde Blind (London: Cassell, 1891). See also Schneemann’s letter to Naomi Levinson of 22 February 1958 in this volume. 49. See Schneemann quoted in Miriam Schapiro, ed., Anonymous Was a Woman: A Documentation of the Women’s Art Festival, A Collection of Letters to Young Women Artists (Valencia: Feminist Art Program California Institute of the Arts, 1974), 116.

50. Ono included this revelation in her exhibition “Yoko Ono: Touch Me” at Galerie LeLong in New York City, 2008. 51. CS in conversation with the author, 6 June 1994.

introduction

Harriet Hosmer, Mary Cassatt, Eva Hesse, and Judy Chicago, among many other women artists, to understand the emotional struggle over motherhood that they have psychically and socially endured. In addition, many women artists sacrificed having children, and even marriage, for their art and have been condemned by families, lovers, husbands, and the culture at large for their decisions. Even artists like Alice Neel, Elizabeth Murray, and Mary Kelly, who became mothers, often focused their art on questions of motherhood; and artist-​mothers, like Yoko Ono, also had abortions.50 For her part, Schneemann rejected the most determined parental and social oppositions in her unwillingness to have children, undergoing three abortions. She also bore the humiliation, alienation, and sadness of her father, a family doctor and general practitioner, who described her as a “monster of nature” for having made these decisions.51 Schneemann’s courageous decision to permit the publication of letters about her abortions is perhaps the most tangible evidence of her commitment to assisting younger women in thinking through the consequences of their life decisions. Schneemann’s abortion letters include anguished references to pregnancies and joyous announcements of their termination in the days before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. The letters also chronicle the effect that the abortion decisions had on her marriage: decisions that Schneemann and her first husband, James Tenney, and second husband, Anthony McCall, mutually agreed upon; decisions that also testify to the emotional and social struggles that couples wage over the right of women to govern their bodies and the different and uneven ways in which pregnancy impacts their lives. The letters that Schneemann kept about her conviction not to have children are the most private, and, as such, raise the issue of her determined will to self-​document. Schneemann made carbon copies of all of her letters and saved those from her correspondents throughout her life, a record that is not the result of narcissism. Quite the opposite, letter writing was an instrument through which to organize and make sense of her life, reinforcing reality by narrating it to others. In fact, she even asked one of her correspondents how he could remember what he had written in longhand if he did not type his letters in carbon duplicate. Her emphasis on memory and the establishment of a record of

xliii

introduction

her life again calls to mind the poet Dylan Thomas, who “planned his life [and] set up his biographers in advance . . . [in a] self-​conscious approach to the business of being a poet.”52 Schneemann learned to be self-​conscious about self-​documentation from such literary mentors as de Beauvoir, Bashkirtseff, and Anaïs Nin who taught that a woman artist might be forgotten without such records. Another way in which Schneemann documented herself in letters, photographs, and works of art was through her abiding relationship with animals, especially cats. Her affinity for cats began “before I could walk,” she would say.53 Schneemann wrote extensively about Kitch, the cat that she and Tenney were given in 1956 (plate 1); the animal whose portrait she painted at the breakfast table with Tenney in 1958; the observer in her erotic film Fuses (1964–67), where Kitch, seated in the window of their bedroom, witnesses the couple having loving sex; the feline that figured as a co-​performer in Schneemann’s installation/performance Up To And Including Her Limits, 1975; and the cat about which the artist made the film Kitch’s Last Meal (1973–76) (plate 2). This is how Schneemann introduced Kitch in a letter written in 1956, twenty years before the cat died: “Somebody gave us a kittenish face with a weeney grey body: Kitch-​frighty example of Kitchhood; fearsome warringer. Sphinx of the bent knee and curly lap, conqueress of hairy summits, naily peaks and pitfall valleys. Guardian of the sleepers, gong and scratch of the morning. Moth snatcher, egg lapper, cat napper, wood tapper, eyed latcher, neat crapper. Fluff ball. Din and Gammon. furr purr fuss buzz.”54 This loving attention to the description of the small young animal, along with the sights, sounds, smells, and experiences of Schneemann’s life with Tenney and Kitch, represents what the feminist scholar Carol Gilligan described as the “different voice” of women in their attentiveness to relationships, self and morality, crisis and transition, rights and judgment, and the cycle of life.55 To this list must be added the enormity of Schneemann’s love of her cats. While Kitch was the observer of erotic trysts, she was never a participant like the male cat Cluny II, about whom Schneemann would ask in a letter: “Did we really speak about the Cat replacing/replicat-

xliv

52. Ferris, Introduction, ix. 53. CS in telephone conversation with the author, 26 February 1996. 54. CS to Jack Ludwig, July 1956. 55. Carol Gilligan. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).

56. CS to Tom McEvilley, 14 March 1988. 57. On Schneemann’s relationship to decorum, see my essay “Schlaget Auf.” 58. Georges Bataille, Lascaux, or the Birth of Art (Lausanne: Skira, 1955), 11. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid., 33.

introduction

ing the human lover?” Responding to her own question, Schneemann answered: “There is no way to speak of the ‘erotic cat’ without being specific to Cluny II, his unique temperament shifted domestic affection to erotic demonstration.”56 His initiation of tongue kissing with Schneemann resulted in her photographic series Infinity Kisses, 1981– 1987 (plate 17). This transgressive work of art ignores cultural taboos about, and phobic anxieties over, the need to maintain the animal-​ human boundary broken by bestiality and zoophilia (plates 17a and 17b). Regardless of such prohibitions, imagery like that of Infinity Kisses is common throughout the history of art and myth, especially exemplified in the story of Leda and the swan, in which the mythic queen of Sparta copulates with the god Zeus, who comes to her in the form of a swan. Infinity Kisses also raises the specter of the witch who, associated with cats and often accused of coitus with animals, is equally surmised to have copulated with demons and the devil. Thus is Schneemann’s putative lack of decorum exacerbated in her intimacy with animals.57 These references were not lost on Schneemann. To the contrary. She exaggerated them in an effort to expose the folly of female stereotypes. Toward that end, she examined the mysterious interrelationship between animals and the human animal, one that Georges Bataille pondered in his book Lascaux, or the Birth of Art (1955). Although the Lascaux painters “resembled us,” Bataille noted, their means for communicating about human animality was to leave “innumerable pictures of the animality they were shedding—as though they had felt obliged to clothe a nascent marvel with the animal grace they had lost.”58 The animal pictures in Lascaux, Bataille continued, “declare that they who painted them . . . chose animality rather than themselves [in order] to give the image that suggests what is fascinating in humankind.”59 Bataille concluded, “What brings us to an amazed, bewildered halt and holds us there [before the image] is this extreme self-​effacement of man before the animal—and of man just turning into a human.”60 For Bataille, this was also the moment when humans, in opposition to animals, identified and rendered sacred and taboo their sexuality, as well as their mortality, to which vitality is tied.

xlv

introduction xlvi

The profundity of Schneemann’s writings about and images of interaction with animals inheres in the way in which she depicts the animal as an equal, not through self-​effacement but through respect. Her description of Cluny II in a letter to the artist Sam Francis exhibits just such esteem: “Your appreciation (on visit here) of Cluny’s colors—grey & white, piebald . . . my especial delight in his aspect seen through your eyes: white of light, grey of foam or shadow; his incredible multi-​ toned blue green eyes connection to the ocean vista framed in these windows—edge moving water foam onto sand . . . blue green radiations of sky, vegetation carrying eye to something felt as tactile, as tactile as fur can be.”61 Schneemann’s observations of the sensuality of animals and nature represent the very sensuality that infuses her art. Her intrinsic sensuality and extrinsic eroticism, work with animals, and feminism all drew a criticism of Schneemann that was also leveled against Dylan Thomas, who was condemned for having “flaunted himself . . . in public [doing] harm to his reputation.”62 Similarly, Schneemann was repeatedly charged with flamboyant exhibitionism, an indictment that expresses envy as much as censure. A picture of Schneemann riding naked on Robert Rauschenberg’s shoulders during a party in New York in the late 1960s is a case in point. In gales of laughter, both artists delight in their play, the very kind of activities and display underpinning mythic notions of the 1960s as a historical period of unreserved, socially sanctioned abandon. The spirited independence of Rauschenberg and Schneemann taunted the managers of propriety, but it was only Schneemann who was criticized for a lack of lack of inhibition. Schneemann is also the woman who appears in the smoky chiaroscuro images in her artist’s book, ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards (1976), or in popular magazines like Vogue (figures 10 and 11). These images of Schneemann recall the paragon of nude female perfection in Venetian paintings by Titian and Giorgione or compositions like Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus (1599–1660). Such images form the basis on which Schneemann became a fantasy figure for male artists like Joseph Cornell and the artist and art historian Sir Lawrence Gowing, as the letters in this collection confirm. The documentary photographer W. Eugene Smith also wrote to Schneemann, whom he had never met, reaching out to her in a difficult time of his life with a request to collaborate on erotic imagery.63 Not only men but also a host of women 61. CS to Sam Francis, 8 June 1985. 62. Ferris. Introduction, xi. 63. Smith’s estate would not grant the publication of his letter of 5 January 1968, but it

may be read in the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles California.

introduction

have perceived Schneemann as an icon of eroticism, beauty, and creativity—a dubious privilege that brings with it the paradoxical obligation to be, and remain, what both men and women imagined her to be. Catapulted into the role of seductress after the Paris succès de scandale of her happening Meat Joy (1964) Schneemann was instantly and internationally recognized as a cultural leader of the 1960s sexual revolution (figure 12). Twenty-​six years later (but still almost a decade before the television serial Sex and the City drew millions of viewers), Merle Ginsberg’s article on Schneemann titled “Sex and the Single Artist” appeared in the Soho Weekly News on 12 March 1990. The celebration of sexual liberation that came to a crashing end with the widely perceived failure of “the Sixties” in the mid-​1970s, followed by the advent of the HIV-​AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, occurred precisely during the period when Schneemann’s art began to be widely known and respected for its pioneering feminism. But that sexuality would also then be associated with the “mess” of the 1960s, the embarrassment of “hippie” sensual expressivity, and the residual relationship of such eroticism to the epidemic contagion of AIDS, all of which reached a peak in the so-​called culture wars of the late 1980s and 1990s, repercussions that Susan Faludi analyzed in Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women (1981). In a puritanical nation increasingly dominated by conservative and evangelical “values” in the 1980s and 1990s, Schneemann was unjustly associated with an unacceptable promiscuity, while younger artists, working from her tradition and example, rose to unprecedented acclaim. The letters in this volume chronicle these historical changes, forming a corpus of Schneemann’s feminism from its nascent stirrings and early articulation in the 1950s to the celebration of the body in the 1960s, and from its strident manifestations in the 1970s and 1980s to the iconic image of the artist as a mature woman holding the brushes of the painter on the cover of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art in 1993 (figure 13). Schneemann painted the authority of women to be their own image makers into the history of art not only in paintings, sculptures, assemblages, performances, films, photographs, and artist’s books but also in letters that defended that right.

xlvii

10. Carolee Schneemann, detail from ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards, 1976, artist book with 158 note cards, photographs, and text, in a boxed edition of 151, published by Brummense Uitgeverij Van Luxe Werkjes in Beuningen, Netherlands. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

(opposite) 11. “Vogue’s Own Boutique of Suggestions,” Vogue, 1 March 1969, 206. Carolee Schneemann appears in Claes Oldenburg’s contribution to the “Fashion Show Poetry Event,” held 14 January 1969 at the Center for Inter-American Relations (now known as the Americas Society). Schneemann wore high heels and a ribbon in her ponytail and carried a tape recorder as a purse, which played Oldenburg’s voice describing a large white plaster wedding dress. The program for the event stated: “The poets will provide her clothes.” Photographs by Berry Berenson and Maurice Hogenboom. © Condé Nast Publications. Photograph of Schneemann by Peter Moore. © Estate of Peter Moore/VAGA, New York, N.Y.

[Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.]

[Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.]

12. Mary Perot Nichols, “Scandal Ripens in My Fair City,” cover of Village Voice, 26 November 1964. Review of Schneemann’s performance Meat Joy, which premiered in Paris 30 May 1964, moved to London in June, and was last performed in New York City in November 1964. Research Library, the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (9500001). © 1964, Village Voice Media. Reprinted by permission of the Village Voice. Photograph by Fred W. McDarrah. © Fred W. McDarrah.

13. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 44 (1993). Photograph by Barbara Yoshida. Courtesy of Barbara Yoshida and PAJ Publications.

The Artist as Someone Else “I decided to write, since it’s so much like a letter I would make

Schneemann was an undergraduate at Bard College in the 1950s when she typed this sentence in a letter to her friend Elsa First. The sentiment she expresses is surprisingly self-​conscious for a late-​adolescent girl and deserves special attention for her uncommon awareness of the purpose and value of letters in the construction of self. Schneemann intuited how her letters would confirm and excite her own imagination, permitting her to observe herself as if from outside. Letters also enabled her to present to a friend, lover, or colleague what she wanted to believe about herself and facilitated correspondents’ views of the

introduction

to myself were I someone else.”

li

introduction

image she constructed of herself. In other words, there is a “distance between the writing subject and the masks of identity which she wears and mobilizes so deftly,” a comment Tamar Garb made in writing about Marie Bashkirtseff that applies equally to Schneemann.64 The mirroring function of the interaction of letters augmented the identity Schneemann formed, which, in turn, informed her art. As much as a means to keep in touch with others, Schneemann’s letters served her own intimate self-​discovery, self-​creation, and self-​determination. Schneemann’s writing evinces her will to write herself into being. At the same time, she understood that she was not the historical being that she knew she would become. Nevertheless, she had the presence of mind to know that writing would augment that future self. In other words, the phrase “a letter I would make to myself were I someone else” suggests that a letter was something through which Schneemann could perform her self for others, as well as perform for herself. For that matter, all letters represent an exercise in the formation of an autobiographical self-​ representation in an unfolding dialogue with an interlocutor. Such mimetic “acting out or role playing within the text . . . allows the woman writer better to know and hence expose what it is she mimics.”65 In Schneemann’s case, she had the temerity to mime the artist she imagined she would become and then the audacity to become her. Such an epistolary self-​creation and creation for the self demonstrates how Schneemann used letters as a transitory space to become what she wanted to be, all the while being what she was and confirming that being and becoming in a text. Her letters attest to this process of becoming, one that Jacques Derrida described, “in the course of writing on writing,”66 as “différance within the economy of the same.”67 Among the many meanings Derrida assigned to the concept of différance, one is particularly relevant to thinking about Schneemann’s sense of becoming in letters: différance represented to Derrida “neither a word nor a concept,”68 but rather a “metaphysical trace” that occurred “between

lii

64. Tamar Garb, “Unpicking the Seams of Her Disguise: Self-​Representation in the Case of Marie Bashkirtselff,” Block 13 (1987/88), reprinted in The “Block” Reader in Visual Culture (London: Routledge, 1996), 117. 65. Mary Jacobus, Romanticism, Writing, and Sexual Difference: Essays on “The Prelude” (Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 40. 66. Jacques Derrida, “Différance,” in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1982), 3. 67. Jacques Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” in Writing and Difference, 198. This book was first published under the title L’écriture et la différence by Editions du Seuil (Paris, 1967). 68. Ibid.

69. Derrida, “Différance,” 26. Derrida intentionally altered the spelling of the French word différence to draw attention to the fact that while the pronunciations of the two words were identical, their meanings were not, thus underscoring the distinction between speech and writing. 70. Maurice Blanchot, “The Trace of the Other,” 1963, trans. A. Lingis, in Mark C. Taylor, ed., Deconstruction in Context: Literature and Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 345–59.

introduction

presence and the present” and “between Being and beings”; the trace was also “not a presence but the simulacrum of a presence that dislocates itself.”69 Following this intricate line of thinking, it is possible to imagine how Schneemann’s presence emerged in her epistolary dialogues as a fluid Being, existing in the present, as well as a presence in continual transition among others, especially among her correspondents. At the same time, she represented a dislocated simulacrum in her letters, a historical presence constantly coming into being through letters and in the eyes and minds of others. Simultaneously a trace of history and a historical persona, Schneemann wrote a Being into being in order to be. Letter writing opened a space for conversation with others in which her presence might unfold while she explored existence as différance within the economy of the same being. In this sense, the letter augmented being in, as well as Being—something akin to the metaphysical trace that Derrida identified as neither one thing nor another but a state of being between otherwise congealed categories. Thus could Schneemann be herself and someone else in letters, thereby escaping inflexible categories of being. Letters enhanced the presence that was, that became through the literary act, and that would become an actual historical personage over the years of writing. Letters permitted Schneemann to be and be present, which is what she seemed to express in the sentence “I decided to write, since it’s so much like a letter I would make to myself were I someone else.” While Schneemann wrote this sentence in the 1950s as a young college woman, in 1963 Maurice Blanchot would put the idea in another way: “There is an ‘I do not know’ that is at the limit of knowledge but that belongs to knowledge.”70 In writing and copying her letters, Schneemann exhibited the “I do not know” that was an “I” at the edge of her knowledge of self. It is not coincidental, then, that she chose to express herself in the ephemeral form of performance, moving from eyes that both make and then peruse a painting to her body in action sharing the gaze of others. Referring to all that she might imagine about herself and the world, Schneemann would also write at a young age, “For me to write is to see

liii

introduction

it.”71 She understood that her gift for writing could materialize presence through a process of envisioning that would enhance her own and her correspondents’ abilities to see the world differently. Intuitively grasping the existential condition discussed above, she also understood that she could communicate about art and the world in direct ways that, in part, she credited to reading Proust: “I read everything he wrote— novels, letters. He gave me the permission to bring in what I was obsessed with—Jim’s underpants, cats, shards of a pot—that was not permitted in the culture, things that had that holding power.”72 Such ideas not only authorized her innate desires as well as concepts of self, they also allowed her to change culture by introducing images and actions otherwise “not permitted.” Holding fast to the material world, Schneemann would also present herself in multiple roles infused with the domestic, as a way to visualize and narrate her becoming: “I am an artist first, a student, a daughter, a secret wife (‘Mistress’ as Mother calls it). Cleaning, cooking, dragging groceries up the steps: a sack of potatoes, coffee, oranges, beans, chicken wings.”73 This litany of personas-​dragging-​groceries presents the artist wrestling with the demands of domestic tasks and ordinary life—just like her “Mother”— but, unlike her mother, for the ways in which Schneemann relentlessly fashioned her Being as an artist first. To become an artist Schneemann needed to write. She utilized language and writing as strategic tools. Letters helped her both to decipher and to alter herself and, therefore, to change her art. In this regard, writing would become a crucial element in a number of the performances that she realized in rapid succession in the mid-​1970s: Up To And Including Her Limits (1974); Interior Scroll (1975); Moon In A Tree (1976); and ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards (1976). These performances (and others in which she used texts) entail the integration of writing with her art, demonstrating that language is not in opposition to the female body, as has so often been argued, but rather belongs squarely to it and its emotions and capacity to reason. The writing/drawing visual dyad central to Schneemann’s art and

liv

71. CS to Jack Ludwig, July 1956. 72. CS in telephone conversation with the author, 26 February 1996. 73. This undated fragment of what may have been a draft for a letter was written after her marriage to James Tenney in the summer of 1956, before the couple moved to Vermont. This piece of writing is not included in the present work but may be found in the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Center, Los Angeles, California.

74. CS in conversation with the author, 8 August 2006. 75. This mixed-​media event included performance, installation, and video and commenced when the museum opened that day and ended with its closure at the end of the day. 76. Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” 200. 77. Ibid., 201.

introduction

aesthetics is especially vivid in Up To And Including Her Limits (figure 14), which she began “as a blind experiment, performed in the light of a film projector” at the London Film Coop in 1973.74 Schneemann fully developed this performance at the University Art Museum in Berkeley, California, on 11 April 1974. Suspended naked in a tree-​surgeon’s harness, she moved within the configured space while drawing and writing on paper attached to the wall and floor around and below her.75 She envisioned her marks as a form of automatic writing, or trance drawing, something like a hypnotic tracking/tracing device that transcribed her physical sensations, movements, and thoughts into words and images that mapped her artistic and physical processes in time. Still photographs of the performance show her body surrounded by texts and drawings, literally immersed in the two. Inviting her audience to witness direct unguarded acts of making, literally “up to and including her limits,” Schneemann also interacted and had conversations with spectators during breaks in the trance performance. Kitch participated as well. The cat’s need to eat, move about, use her litter box, and sleep during the performance mirrored and complimented the artist’s own needs: Schneemann would interrupt her performance to walk through the museum, eat her lunch, go to the bathroom, chat with spectators, and so forth. Augmenting these movements through the trance-​text, the artist physically drew and wrote the viewer’s eye back to the-​body-​that-​sees-​and-​acts-​in-​context and, by extension, back to the artist in the production of making her art. Schneemann used both writing and drawing in this performance to communicate the interconnection between verbal and nonverbal knowing. She inscribed the trace of presence, breaching absence and opening a path to consciousness, “tracing . . . a trail [that] opens up a conducting path.”76 Such a simultaneous rupture (“breaching”) and representation is, according to Derrida, “the first staging of memory.”77 Viewed this way, Up To And Including Her Limits visualizes how “psychical content will be represented by a text whose essence is irreducibly graphic.” Derrida continued: “The structure of the psychical apparatus will be represented by a writing machine . . . If there is neither machine nor text without psychical origin, there is no domain of the psychic without

lv

introduction

14. Carolee Schneemann, Up To And Including Her Limits, 1973–76, performance with drawing (crayon on paper), rope, harness, six monitors with two-channel video, Super 8 film projector. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

lvi

text.”78 In this manner, the psychic content of mind, bound inextricably to the text, is manifest in the mechanism of writing. Following Freud, Derrida declared: “Life must be thought of as trace before Being may be determined as presence.”79 In Up To And Including Her Limits, Schneemann rendered the trace of consciousness verbal and visual so that she might share her cognitive and sensate being in a direct declaration of a corporeal and intellectual present. This work offers an inchoate nonverbal image as an alternative 78. Ibid., 199. 79. Ibid., 203.

80. Carolee Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy, 167. 81. Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” 199. 82. Prima material, the formless base of all matter, was for Aristotle and the alchemists the manifestation of all forms. 83. CS in conversation with the author, 7 June 2008.

introduction

to logocentric conditions of being and knowing, at the same time as it employs language to partner in decoding psychic interiority. Such a work shows how bound Schneemann’s verbal communication is to producing the “seen” as “a scene wrapped around the body.”80 Not only is a scene wrapped around the body in Up To And Including Her Limits but Schneemann also visualized the scene as a textual trace of the body’s unseen interiority in Interior Scroll (1975). Prior to this performance, Schneemann typed a statement on a long piece of paper that she then engineered to fit into her vagina through a delicate process of precise folding and oiling of a narrow coil of the thin paper. During the performance she slowly extracted and read her own words, doubling visible exterior presence-​as-​action with invisible internal absence-​as-​ text. This performance returned order and logic to the primal identity of the vagina as the pathway to the world, giving voice to the fullness and fecundity of that place that is often otherwise understood as a void. Complementing Derrida’s formulation that “there is no domain of the psychic without the text,”81 Interior Scroll suggests that while language traces may speak for the void, that absence is also the prima materia of the artist, the site for the graphic communication of both visual and textual content and commentary.82 In 1976, Schneemann made a print edition of Interior Scroll with a picture of her extracting and reading the scroll, accompanied by dates for her upcoming performances (figure 15). Taking the title from low-​ cost calendars, she humorously called the work Pocket Planner and sent it through the post to friends and colleagues, as if to demonstrate that the text of her life and all actions issuing from and within it were part of the destiny of the body to be shared with the world. Initially, Schneemann had conceived Pocket Planner as a handout for the 1976 exhibition “Mostly Nudes,” held at the former Whitney downtown branch on Forty-​second Street, and it was to be made available to the public at the information desk. But when one of the male curators saw the flyer, he quickly removed all copies from the premises.83 This form of covert censorship is consistent with the anxiety that Schneemann’s art raises for many people, both male and female. In her book More Than Meat Joy (1979), Schneemann situated the ori-

lvii

introduction

15. Carolee Schneemann, Pocket Planner announcing Schneemann’s calendar of exhibitions for the year 1975–76. Photograph of Schneemann in Interior Scroll, 1975, a performance first presented at the exhibition “Women Here & Now,” East Hampton, Long Island. Photograph by Anthony McCall. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

lviii

gins of Interior Scroll in her study of “vulvic space” and goddess imagery, and she explained that the message she read was culled from the feminist texts in her film Kitch’s Last Meal. That message begins with a discussion of her encounter with what she identified as “a happy man, a structuralist filmmaker,” and continues through his critique of her work as “personal clutter, persistence of feelings, hand-​touch sensibility, diaristic indulgence, painterly mess, dense gestalt,” and, finally, “primitive techniques.”84 Schneemann presented the anonymous “structuralist filmmaker” as a male who rejected the nonverbal, ostensibly antirational conditions of her approach to art making. But comments she made in a letter to the critic Daryl Chin in 1974 disclose that this “critic” was Annette Michelson, co-​founder of October magazine. Discussing her film Fuses with Chin, Schneemann noted that “the sexuality will be offensive” to Michelson. “Cage is the only artist I know who 84. More Than Meat Joy, 238.

85. CS to Daryl Chin, 17 October 1974. 86. CS to Henry Sayre, 15 July 1986.

introduction

moves with clear grace through our messes,” Schneemann continued, “and success helped him do it even better—the grace & clarity.”85 Elsewhere in her letters Schneemann commented that her remarks about the “structuralist filmmaker” in Interior Scroll were directed at Michelson, who appeared embarrassed by her films.86 That Schneemann identified a male structuralist filmmaker in Interior Scroll in order to avoid naming the female critic (Michelson) represents the interweaving of art-​world dynamics in the complex discussion and situation of gender and power in which she produced her art. Schneemann’s critique of Michelson, who she disguised as a man, also suggests that the critic’s views supported the prevailing patriarchal paradigm represented in the primarily male-​identified movements of Minimalism and structuralism at the time. The two other works that Schneemann produced during this period with a strong emphasis on text are Moon In A Tree (1976) and ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards (1976). Both works featured the two literary components of her life: in the former, she focused on Joseph Cornell’s letters to her during the fifteen years of their friendship before Cornell died; in the latter, she focused on the book of diaristic cards that recorded events in her love life. She then performed both works of art, bringing her body to bear on the narratives of her textual practices. My point in summoning these works of art is to emphasize that in writing a letter, as well as in keeping a diary, Schneemann worked out the abstract, linear, and analytic dimension of thought in a text in order to communicate actual experience through her performing body. When drawing was a component of such works, especially as in Up To And Including Her Limits, line augmented the synthetic, nonrational, and atemporal condition of visual knowledge similar to how writing produces visceral information as reasoned discourse. In such ways, Schneemann’s oeuvre may be understood as the result of a chain of interconnected behaviors: writing and drawing informed her work as a painter and sculptor, especially her kinetic constructions, which anticipated her performances, actions that led to photographs, films, and videos (the primary media of her installations). Taken as a whole, her work expands in a coherent sequence of interconnected activities and means of creation that issue from the eye that guides the hand that draws and writes, and that integrates the verbal and nonverbal through

lix

an exercise of interacting mental capacities that provide rational meaning for intuitive form.

The Artist as Autobiographer I’m always trying to get rid of the sense of being. I want to be the instrument of my own disappearance, to obliterate the self. Here is the basic thing that I discovered when I was painting: you become what you are looking at. The sense of self- and self-​consciousness is absorbed. It is that absorption that has so much integrity for me. So that what I was looking at was the best sense of my self for me: to be drawing, to be observing, to be in conversation, that was the best sense of self for me. So it’s for me a little bit like when you are an athlete running and go into a rigorous euphoria. This is where it really happens for me, in performance, it is shamanistic, an “in-​trance.” When I come back out of a performance I don’t remember. I have the most odd sensory glow or illumination; it’s post-​verbal and that sense of the self as completely disappeared is orgasmic. It’s that

introduction

merge, obliterated merge.87

lx

Schneemann saved all her letters and ephemera because she was “fearful of the disappearance of all the beautiful details of daily life.”88 At the same time, she sought through her work to dissolve into her life, to obliterate the ego-​self. The historic documents of those “beautiful details” are her letters. Another book must be written, which explores all the stories of her meeting, interacting with, and writing to the central figures appearing in her letters. By keeping copies of her own and others’ letters, Schneemann succeeded in the systematic creation of a representation that has lasted, recalling a comment by the Canadian poet Margaret Laurence, who wrote to Adele Wiseman, a fellow author and friend: “Your letters make me feel [that] I actually exist.”89 While Laurence’s sense of self resulted from her consideration of her friend’s ideas and comments, Schneemann’s notion of self represents self-​reflective meditation on the uncertainty of the autobiographical self in its discursive and performative forms. In his study Fictions in Autobiography (1985), Paul John Eakin addresses just such a question by juxtaposing Paul de Man’s and James Olney’s notions of autobiography. On the one hand, de Man considered autobiography to be prosopopeiac, a figure of speech in which an 87. CS in phone conversation with the author, 1 August 1999. 88. CS in conversation with the author, 8 August 2006. 89. John Lennox and Ruth Panofsky, eds., Selected Letters of Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 3.

90. Paul de Man, “Autobiography as De-​Facement,” MLN 94 (1979): 920–23. All quotes from de Man cited in Paul John Eakin, Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-​ Invention (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), 186. 91. Ibid. 92. Ibid., 188. 93. James Olney, Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), 30, 31, 34, quoted in Eakin, Fictions in Autobiography, 188.

introduction

absent person is represented as speaking, or a dead person is presented as live and present. “To the extent that language is figure (or metaphor, or prosopopeia),” de Man argued, “it is not the thing itself but the representation, the picture of the thing and, as such, it is silent, mute as pictures are mute.” For de Man, autobiography was “a discourse of self-​restoration . . . by which one’s name . . . is made as intelligible and memorable as a face.”90 Furthermore, since both readers and writers are “dependent on this language,” de Man concluded, “we all are . . . deaf and mute—not silent, which implies the possible manifestation of sound at our own will, but silent as a picture, that is to say eternally deprived of voice and condemned to muteness.”91 For his part, Olney took a more optimistic approach. He considered language a “theater of possibility, not privation, through which both the writer and the reader of autobiography move toward a knowledge—albeit mediated—of the self.”92 Olney agreed with de Man on the mediated quality of autobiography: “The self expresses itself by the metaphors it creates and projects, and we know it by those metaphors; but it did not exist as it now does and as it now is before creating its metaphors. We do not see or touch the self, but we do see and touch its metaphors: and thus we ‘know’ the self, activity or agent, represented in the metaphor and the metaphorizing.”93 Schneemann’s epistolary practice resides at the interface between notions of autobiography theorized by de Man and Olney. She developed the themes and the conceptual contours of her aesthetic ideas in her letters and then materialized her ideas as art, only to circle back again to letters in order to expand the existential-​aesthetic loop that joined her modes of expression to her life through process. The continuity of letter writing and Schneemann’s performative enactments, in particular, synthesize the de Man/Olney dialectic. While Schneemann wrote in the prosopopeiac mode (as de Man would have it), she actualized that writing in real time, whereby both her notion of self and her art became anything but absent, deaf, and mute. Moreover, in letter writing, Schneemann only temporarily suspended her self as if absent

lxi

introduction

in the autobiographical act (de Man’s metaphorical defacement), and she restored that self by presenting herself as a living subject before viewing subjects in her performances, a realization that emphasized the necessary contingency of human interaction, or as Olney would have it, of a “theater of possibility.” Experienced through the vehicle of her letters, Schneemann’s art demonstrates how the creative act takes place in linguistic craft and how the performing body may also actualize the epistolary mind.94 To read Schneemann’s letters is to experience the full breadth of her art’s historical significance and cultural contributions. To assert this foundational role of her letters is not to suggest that they are necessary to comprehend the quality or purpose of her art but rather that while the beauty of Schneemann’s body initially made her work so notorious, precisely her corporeal perfection masked a complex visual aesthetic and kept the public at bay. Luce Irigaray has pointed out that women’s performance of their own masking provides “a certain pleasure . . . gilding the lily further at times.”95 In the case of Schneemann’s nakedness, no gilding was needed. But the embellishment provided by her reception disappears in her letters, bringing forth Schneemann’s epistolary prosopopeia and opening the meaning of her art to multiple interpretations that render her artistic corpus more vivid in its own textual voluptuousness. Schneemann’s letters match her art, paving a course through correspondence to the totality of her oeuvre and exhibiting the diversity of her enormous aesthetic achievement.

lxii

94. For similar themes, see Richard Poirier, Trying It Out in America: Literary and Other Performances (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). 95. Luce Irigaray, “Any Theory of the ‘Subject’ Has Always Been Appropriated by the Masculine,” in Speculum of the Other Woman, trans. Gillian C. Gill (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), 142–43, quoted in Garb, “Unpicking the Seams of Her Disguise,” 115.

1956–1968 The letters begin in 1956 with an exuberant Carolee Schneemann, preoccupied with charting her artistic process. That same year, she secretly married the experimental composer James Tenney, who introduced her to the avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage and his wife Jane, with whom Schneemann would remain friends throughout her life (figure 16). Writing to Brakhage in 1957, Schneemann expresses a passionate, prescient engagement with vision that would shape her aesthetic intentions and aims: “Where ever the eye does not dominate the form,” she asserts, “I am revolted.”1 Schneemann’s early letters evince a selfreflective young woman who was also a precocious feminist with many close female friends; her letters to them are tender, empathic, and engaged as much in their lives as in her own. Schneemann’s correspondence also shows an ambitious artist who emphatically insisted on equality with her husband and male colleagues. Schneemann writes about several illegal abortions and her effort to balance domesticity with the development of her art and career. Vibrant descriptions of her artistic insights join narratives of international and political events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the spraying of poisonous insecticides by the U.S. government, and the villainy of and necessity to resist the Vietnam War. During this period, Schneemann moved from painting into assemblage and became involved with the Judson Dance Theater, happenings, and film. She also wrote about “Kinetic Theater,” a form of happenings that provided the structure for Meat Joy, the event she performed in Paris, London, and New York in 1964, which brought her international acclaim. Love letters to Tenney during periods of travel express Schneemann’s longing at the same time as she regales him with stories of the European avant-garde. Tenney’s letters recount his love, support, and poignant sense of her absence. This section ends with Schneemann’s calamitous love affair in 1968, which also culminated in her divorce from Tenney, psychological breakdown, and subsequent move to Eng­land. These letters provide insight into the toll “the sixties” took on those who made and lived what became its myths. 1. CS to Stan Brakhage, 31 October 1957.

CS to Stan Brakhage 2 5 February 1956

1956–1968

There is a portrait of Jim3—no longer so so ghosted—this is strong to itself & before the beard has been cut, very richly felt out. Your poem is full of where your life is worded to mean beyond and we certainly love it & how veined it is. We finally did away with the Christmas tree before a resurrection—that would be Easter and I seem to be sickly a bedded a lot when I am not wildly dofully and it goes & goes well ! Like tonight we went out for dinner, Hungarian & now feel poisoned and Jim was promoted in his ridiculous job (on my knees— we are sharing one pen) as chief typist over a group of cretans. He has this job one month from an employment agency. So even tho it pays $65. a week, we struggle on $35. a wk ($65—tax = $55.00, take home— $20.00 a wk for 1 month to the Emp. Ag.).4 I was to Phila5 to receive $100 award purchase for the little etching of last year “Lady Asleep”— and it was a grotesque ordeal of managers & idiots & photographers & handshake & hysterical relatives—god! Jim’s job cuts him from time for working enough. He doesn’t complain because we are always happier but I could rage for it. My parents bought me new dresses. I chose—expensive enough to live on for months—each one! So I can be so elegant while I worry for groceries. They are really depraved because they have peasant souls trapped in upper class hypocrisies. They don’t want to know how it really is. What has been fine is how Lipton6 called me one Sunday to “come right away, please” to look at 6 model sculptures for a monumental one to rise 14 to 20 feet in the middle of a new MIT green or common. It will be the first sculpture that one can stand in. He had worked so concentratedly on possibilities he wished for other eyes, in which he believed, to share the struggle. They were all great things. Then the New York painters arcanum was very much fun, called “The Club”7 and a longish

4

2. Stan Brakhage (United States, 1933–2003), filmmaker and author. Schneemann’s correspondence with Stan Brakhage dates from the mid-1950s. His letters prior to 1970 were stolen from her home in Springtown in the early 1970s while she was living in Eng­land, and Brakhage burned most of her letters to him. 3. James Tenney (United States, 1934–2006), composer, author, and Schneemann’s first husband. 4. Employment Agency. 5. Philadelphia. 6. Seymour Lipton (United States, 1903–86), sculptor with whom Schneemann studied. 7. The Club (39 East 8th Street in New York City) preceded the Cedar Tavern (at 82 University Place) as a bar frequented by artists.

talking to De Kooning8 & meetings with all those famous I had carried suspectly and now have met & blown up or down. Worked Christ-time at the Met Museum. [. . .] In the summer could we come to see you or you come somewhere that is not New York (Ah, Mallorca). Joseph Cornell to CS 9 13 June 1956

Please don’t speak too glowingly about my dreams re: film to Stan. [figure 17] After effusions I find it necessary to remind myself that a wicked amount of time has been consumed with them and very little to show as compared with my medium proper. I appreciate your lead of yesterday but think I shall go slow as involving people who don’t know my other areas and the very difficult affair of working realistically enough so as not to get expectations up. Very early now—dew on the typewriter. There’s something not quite right with my chocolate drink. Of course, the birds haven’t been fed yet! Magnificent white clouds scattered around the horizon. They won’t last long but for the moment, a morning of Constable.10 CS to Jack Ludwig11 July 1956

8. Willem De Kooning (Netherlands, b. 1904, United States, d. 1997), artist. 9. Joseph Cornell (United States, 1903–72), artist. On May 22, 1956, three weeks before writing this letter, Cornell wrote to the critic Parker Tyler: “A young painter, good friend of Stan’s [Brakhage] is having her first one-man show at the Polari Gallery . . . Carolee Schneemann is her name and she has great admiration for your writing. She also holds you in too great awe . . . ‘terrified’ was the word, I believe . . . We both hope you can catch her things there.” See Mary Ann Caws, ed., Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind: Selected Diaries, Letters, and Files (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993), 203. 10. John Constable (Eng­land, 1776–1837), painter. 11. Jack Barry Ludwig (Canada, 1922), novelist and one of Schneemann’s favorite professors at Bard.

1956–1968

A lot of the time is a letter to you in and out of my mind and it’s a trick that to know what you’re up to I have this tremendous raveling to make first. Partly the feeling of “disappeared from the earth” is leaving the East where I always know that North is above and where everything I care about is, or has been. Now I am in Marshdale (once I lived in Shipbottom N.J. and once in West Bridgewater Vt.) and North is the top of the mountains, which are all around, and East is not on the left

5

17. Joseph Cornell letter to Carolee Schneemann, 13 June 1956. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

1956–1968

and South is where Jim’s family live in Denver and West . . . ? To get where we are follow Turkey Creek Canon towards Fairplay, past the gargantuan Red Rocks phenomena (upon which some fundamentalist fanatic climbed by ropes and crampons to scrawl in five foot letters “REPENT YOU LUKE WARM CHURCH GOEER” and “JESUS HAS GOONE WHERE WILL YOU GO?” over SNARLING GULCH, on up Death Bend road to Idledale over North Turkey Creek Gorge to Evergreen and three miles on a dirt road is the Marshdale General Store behind which are three shacks and we live in them. Every folk in these parts has two cars and four horses; we have an ole Pontiac with a kittenish face and a big round grey body that moseys us back and forth very well. Now we are busted again but with a great sense of freedom—borrow money for gas and pick up and go! I will learn to drive shortly, my last innocence. Somebody gave us a kittenish face with a weeney grey body: Kitchfrighty example of Kitchhood; fearsome warringer. Sphinx of the bent knee and curly lap, conqueress of hairy summits, naily peaks and pitfall valleys. Guardian of the sleepers, gong and scratch of the morning. Moth snatcher, egg lapper, cat napper, wood tapper, eyed latcher, neat crapper. Fluff ball. Din and Gammon. furr purr fuss buzz Outside are cows, in abundance, wise and intent, red or black. Some ridiculous donkeys, horses; all these things grazing, chewing, and ambling on pastures strewn with rocks beneath the most tearing upwards, three-pine-thrusting mountains. This is the awesome landscape that Jim promised me, that I was warned about by other painters as there being nothing one could do with it—too spectacular, pictured on post cards. Of course I’m managing. I can use anything I feel strongly enough for and pulling the form from these things is excruciating and wonderously arduous. The painting is flaring out now that I’m into it. What we talked about once—gesture and caricature—is a problem very real to this kind of landscape. The words I have now for what I’m after is to re-enact substance. The caricature in so much contemporary painting comes from emotional effects and thus this effectiveness is the subject of the paint. Form is now at the mercy of technique rather than a technique dedicated to form. Form for me is all the possible visual elements which are the worlds of painting. And the substance I mean is visual, structural because the obsessive image, and the emotional levels will flow by themselves as each stroke is building.

7

CS to Louis Schanker12 27 July 1956

I’m tucked away in the Colorado mountains in a fine old shack with lots of money trouble but nothing to worry over or lose time to. [plate 2] And something is really going on and I’m in the middle of it and very excited: I’v been doing landscape and pulling the form from these hills is really arduous and color blazoning and the first paintings were overflowing—too much in fact. All of a sudden this painting started making itself more than it was reenacting the substance of things I held to visually-externally; and its like finding the truest Nature I ever imagined because it is so much created in the terms of Paint. This is probably what you went through a long time ago and I just now feel really released into what I’v wanted; the color is loose and the forms are suggestive of more than just what I’v been seeing and energizing. But I’ll have to find out more and follow through. CS to Naomi Levinson13 26 September 1956

1956–1968

We got married in a mad night dream of accommodating Phila14 at Ethical Culture society in a made-to-order in two days by Daddy’s tailor blue silk suit (and a cashmere flannel for cold Winter) and me in an old organdy fancy and mother no hysterics or tears even. Composer’s conference led to Him15 getting first a Fellowship to Bennington College and now a straight Scholarship with an angel pianist-composer, Nowak.16 His work performed by professionals this summer and shook the place up and so beautiful and recorded so you could hear when you and Nick come to stay in our “guest” room of six here in titillating Vermont. I am most disjointed settling again and working in labors of house till depraved towards my own painting which is waylaid. Eating off of wedding present dinner is so fine we plan to do this again several times each

8

12. Louis Schanker (United States, 1903–81), sculptor. Schneemann destroyed all the Colorado landscapes paintings described in this letter, as she considered them to be “failures.” 13. Naomi Levinson (United States, 1929), writer. 14. Olivia Tenney, James Tenney’s mother. 15. James Tenney. 16. Lionel Nowak (United States, 1911), composer and Tenney’s professor at Bennington College in Vermont.

year. Psychological virgin birth quite marvelous for honey moon after four enshrined nights at Phils. then to Park Ave. Suite (with Kitch and her box of shit and raw hamburger- but for $16.50 a night I figured anything went and it did) wafted by parents dedication to the right ideal in a first new real nightgown of old fashioned cotton voile and then in between scrubbing 1528.17 CS to Stan Brakhage 4 April 1957

17. Schneemann’s and Tenney’s first railroad flat was at 1528 York Avenue in New York City. 18. Schneemann painted Edwards House (“a beautiful stone house and mill”) and Eagle Square Mill (“an old small factory not far from our farm house—producing steel rulers—all in South Shaftsbury, Vermont”). CS email to the author, 29 June 2004. 19. Jackson Pollock (United States, 1912–56), painter. 20. Joan Mitchell (United States, b. 1926, France, d. 1992), painter. 21. Grace George Hartigan (United States, 1922), painter. 22. Parker Tyler (United States, 1904–74), poet and film critic. 23. Life fullness.

1956–1968

My working has changed so much since you were here last—it is hard to describe—I won’t try—but the color IS the form and the color is freed to strength that I hadn’t found without the seasonal sensations so close around me. There is one large and charging painting of the mill which set the work off in February.18 I will just let some things come out and you may find me better—god knows it takes long enough. Every time I work well from the figure I “break” with the figure; for I don’t want “it.” I want its limitless possibilities for forms and spatial expressiveness. I decided for the possibilities of, say, Jim’s thigh, above the limited concision of most painted “abstractions.” But I have no interest in “most” at all and it was, for a time only, important to find out why. I am still seeing from De Kooning and Pollock19 and also Joan Mitchell.20 I used to expect great things of Hartigan21 but there is a kind of robust coarsening to her vision which more and more repeats its best effects—which were there five years ago. The specificity of Pollock I have always maintained and now Parker22 has written really well on it, so that my secret and tenuous (because no one else agreed or had seen it that way) belief is made fact by the critical apparatus which affects things so rightly with poetry and so wrongly with pedantry. My ideals are all for order; but ideals are very boring in the face of Lifefullness23 where my instinct is all for chaos and tension . . . I gener-

9

1956–1968

ate it. The vision adjusts the act of tension, which is all feeling—sensitive to the point of a scream, of displacement, unbalance, flux—to its underlying organic structure which is an order; I can think of nothing organic which can not be understood this way, for my purposes. [. . .] I have been in and out of the Baudelaire with great pleasure for the shooting insights and dismay at the historical factuality of bad art taking time and place then as much as now. That he states so simply about the colorists—from nature—and the linearist—from mind—has formed one of my important mental stepping stones. And then in the flowers of evil24 during a dried time for work. It substantiates some oldering moldering absolute-art-love-talking and it has to with your wondrous distinction as a poet, when as a poet—you can write “we” or image “we” and it means the work for the life; therefore you can instill and sustain on any level what I am forced to receive thru memory and reality. I paint for him,25 live by him but when I am in a brittle work time and “we” are charged and charging and with joy if there is not good work then the I and the we lead separate meanings all in the same hours and positions. It is a case of reality exceeding the imagination which has no compensation for such immediacy . . . this is the hardest part. So like Baudelaire you can use the misery and place it and isolation allows you to will or wish thru a “we” . . . it is artifice. Baudelaire’s third draft to a preface of f. of e.26 where he WRITES how he cannot write, nor want any longer to teach, feel, neither excitation nor extinction. That is glorious. But when Beethoven writes he cannot work the words of his despair are ragged and horrible because they are no less than the reality he states . . . and they are no more. [. . .] Ruggles27 back and he looked at my most difficult painting with the mill forms and said: “Oh yes I recognize it—eagle mill.” [plate 4] And he renews us beyond saying and we have a bouquet of courage or love together ranting and raging around the little table.

10

24. Charles Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil (1857), reprinted by New Directions Book, New York, 1955. 25. James Tenney. 26. Flowers of Evil. 27. Carl Ruggles (United States, 1876–1971), composer.

CS to Marvin Hayes28 4 April 1957

28. Marvin Hayes (United States, 1926–95), singer and composer. 29. James Tenney.

1956–1968

You don’t write yet—do you think I deserted you in n.y.; don’t think that, it couldn’t be true. I carry everything and everybody with me— there is not a goddamned creature dead or alive that I have ever known that I do not still carry. This may do nothing for the carried but this time in n.y. I had such need from someone that there was something I HAD to do to help them and I did and that is why all my other wishes were just carried and not carried out and that is how I have not seen you again. I have a new idea for our oldering moldering absolute-love-arttalking and that is that—you have the wondrous distinction as a poet, as all poets; you can write “we” and it means in the work for the life; therefore you can instill and sustain where I am forced to memory and longing. I cannot paint “we.” I paint for him,29 I live by him, but when I am, like now, in a dry work time and “we” are charged and charging and with joy if there is not good work the I and the we lead separate meanings all in the same hours and positions . . . this is the hardest part. To be alone one can and must feel we and is willed and wished into all the energies comings and goings—imagination makes the misery useful and placed. Today I’v read two supreme examples of this; Cummings whose love poetry is all his poetry and Baudelaire in his third draft of a preface to Flowers of Evil; “. . . I have my nerves and my vertigo. I aspire to absolute rest and continuous night. Though I have sung the mad pleasures of wine and opium, I thirst only for a liquor unknown on earth which the pharmaceutics of heaven itself could not afford me; a liquor that contains neither vitality nor death, neither excitation nor extinction. To know nothing, to teach nothing, to will nothing, to feel nothing, to sleep and still to sleep, this today is my only wish. A base and loathsome wish, but sincere.” Now is two days later and with picking up to betterness; fine muscle ache time of taking modern dance classes here—that is their best department and Jim will take them also—a few mad-true young artists slaving with it. Painting a sun hot watered figure—like beach air and yellow warmed while around us here is a kind of tender and violent thaw—lots of rain—and startling announcements of color.

11

CS to Naomi Levinson 5 June 1957

What has happened to us lately and is happened is all colored now by my being pregnant. At first I felt brutally betrayed by my good witch Lilith,30 by my destinies and will and good luck pattern and was hysterically depressed in a lost week of waiting. By now I am on top of IT and am finding a doctor to do a “C.D.” or “D.C.”31 There were shots which didn’t work and to try my father I inquired of him what to do and nightmare-like he told me exactly what he told my mother twenty years ago when she tried to abort me: castor oil and an enema. He won’t help. [. . .] 11 June 1957: I have been there and the dr. is amazing, mythical, I am told, who takes care of old people in the front office and has a hospital for young girls behind. Forty dollars is the cost so this is certainly a philosopher. We’ll see. One must be driven there by a man (preferably not the man involved) and another girl (for moral support?). If you were here I should ask you first. (Yes I’m laughing.) Such honors I will suddenly bestow! CS to Naomi Levinson 14 June 1957

1956–1968

Last night before bed there was a long talk, mostly by me . . . also on rootlessness, or rather how nothing here belongs to me. How I am caged. How my need for anonymous action is denied me here where I am dependent entirely on banal realities—there is nothing I can fantasize, exalt, enable to keep those extreme levels of intensification going in my inner life. I am surrounded with such consistent mediocrity and there is no freedom of movement—nowhere to go to be refreshed; I can’t drive, there is no bus, no money—I am unable to provide for myself which was never the case before.32 As far as I can walk is as far as I can search and since there is no grand change in the landscape and . . . it is all of the town we “have to live in” I take no joy in it because there is no prerogative I can exercise—it is all given—there is no choice. Even a bad choice is useful to me because I MAKE it. I think of the infinite choices of the city—the really valuable pulse is there, the riches are there; I remember how there was always something to discover as I

12

30. Lilith, a female demon. 31. D & C refers to dilatation and curettage, a method of terminating pregnancy. 32. Schneemann refers to her life in South Shaftsbury, Vermont.

33. Schneemann took classes in painting and sculpture at Columbia University. 34. James Tenney.

1956–1968

needed it—one simply walked outside and then cross-town, or to the museum, to the bar, to the flashing stores, to the park—drama was immediate—I had only to step on the bus or into the museum, drama both personal and sensory . . . for me and for the art-will. It was always disappointing, yes, but the possibilities were never limited. There was a struggle against which made me very rich. Say a dreadful part time job would be got through every morning and I would emerge clearly my strongest self in sheer reaction. Nothing dispersed me because only what one wanted would really be used for itself—a process of distortion, of drama would relegate the rest. I could work at Columbia33 every day and night for half a year and never make a friend—because I knew there was no one there I wanted, and I would leave there intact to go for friends or encounters elsewhere. Here it is all one thing—an itsy bitsy precious society where people impinge on each other—they are without choices. I hate to “make do.” I prefer to “make it all up” and never really know or once really knowing, and disillusioned to go on. Did I write you about the drawing class—I did I think. And it was something really mine to indulge in until yesterday when J.34 said the one thing he really didn’t want was for me to pose for them! (Everyone takes turns posing.) And suddenly it wasn’t mine and the people in the class were so many hundreds of years behind and commercialized—ordinary in a word. They trapped me in simple presence and conversation which made me hate them and their contact and I was no longer even free to idealize them for the sake of a good situation. There is nothing I hate like a “set up,” and one must be so careful to know a set up from a real life. Anyhow I imagine that in another year I might be “all gone.” Whatever that means. No, it means my dimensionalities for life which this gruesome personality of mine demands would be atrophied. Jim understands. I despair only when I think I am hurting “us,” but I do despair that this is the way of me. He does not think I am impossible like I think I am and he saves me from hating myself. If the abortion goes well we will try to live like lovers again; say I would work in the city three or four days a week and take a drawing class nights—and then paint in the country the remaining days and we would run back and forth to be together . . . it will be very difficult but something must be tried to brake this sheer unhappiness, this unconnectedness. Then when the city exhausts me I will be, may be, re-enchanted by here. That is all, (all?!) I

13

want—re-enchantment. It is something I must do myself—no one else can make that but situations and weathers and lights do set it off. CS to Ethel Hayes35 25 July 1957

1956–1968

I am typing in bed and my bedded world seems so remote, it is difficult to make a letter. I am resting from a D & C (dig and cut)—that is, the end of a distraught three months of pregnancy. It was an amazing adventure which took me three hundred miles into the coal and farming mountains of Pa. to the old angel doctor whose name I had saved for such an emergency for six years!36 All so other-worldly it is difficult to believe in anything else; my jobs as engraver of molds to a potter and sales in a tourist shop and my adult-lady painting class—all disappeared for the past weeks.37 Also I have been hardly able to paint for the past three months—partly the fault of the jobs but partly of the pregnancy which took a lot of energy from me. (My painting spots are several miles away; after only an hour or so of working I would be bursting for a piss and would have to trudge back home since my places were not so secluded.) This is all by way of letting you know what a portent and encouragement your present made. That little tube of most-precious and violent color coming into my hands, on the bed, was as real as my longing to be working and it substantiated and meant the working the way nothing else has. If you had known my situation it couldn’t have meant more,

14

35. Ethel Hayes (United States, ca. 1930–ca. 1990), librarian. 36. Schneemann received the following instructions for contacting Dr. Robert Douglas Spencer (United States, 1889—1969), a general practitioner in Ashland, Pennsylvania, renowned for doing illegal abortions. These instructions document the ways in which women passed the secret of how to obtain illegal abortions from one to another in the period before Roe v. Wade: “Call in the morning (after nine) to ask for an appointment for an ‘internal examination.’ Don’t say anything else, or he’ll hang up. Follow his instructions about time. You can travel there via Greyhound Bus (train is more complicated with several changes)—it takes about six hours from New York. Bus fare about $7.75. You stay overnight at the Loeper Hotel. He’ll see you twice—in the afternoon when you arrive and the second time the next day when he does the actual operation (under anesthetic [sic]). Before leaving you receive shots for protection from infection, etc. Take a girl with you (this is preferred to a man). Girl to go to his office with you and will share the same hotel room. Doctors fee is $40.00. Hotel is cheap. Doctor’s office, bus station and hotel are all on the same street—don’t ask any directions of townspeople. Give all these directions to anyone you tell about him—if one person does the wrong thing it will cause trouble.” Spencer is estimated to have performed between 40,000 and 100,000 abortions between 1923 and his death. Danielle Renfrew and Beth Seltzer produced the award-winning documentary Dear Dr. Spencer: Abortion in a Small Town, in 1998. 37. Schneemann taught an adult painting class in Vermont.

been righter . . . but Ethel, how did you know? Did I mention it when I used my old Vermillion on your painting? Certainly I never expected it to come but from someone who might go to Eng­land. How indulgent and glorious a present to make! I might understand your being able to send it a little better if you were working in an art store! [. . .] Jim is well and working at The Old Soldiers Home in Bennington, full days; carting garbage, spreading manure, painting the Colonel’s house . . . he gets a free lunch of old man food—tapioca, rice, beef sauce. All very nourishing and nothing to chew. He also struggles with scraps of time and has another String Quartet underway. He has taken wonder-care of me and given me strength and support; Tuesday evening he left on a mysterious errand and brought back the most glowing wedding ring. It takes the place of the “elephant hair and gold” (rubber and electricians copper wire), the “gold” of which had all shriveled off. This now is true gold with three stones done by a modern jeweler, a friend to us, by my design. So I feel queenly and the ring and the tube of paint are like guides back to activity and the worlds beyond the blue bed. CS to Naomi Levinson

I have tremendous work to do for my mind which does after all lead on—not only having to do what I see but to clarify what it is I do and will do—this is where the mental seizings and clarities are necessary. Steinberg38 sets this off; the process of his thoughts is what gives them indisputable coherence and range. What did he say? He first came into your house like a cat, nervous and sniffing one wall after another of the four—to see his boundaries. Yes this is Naomi Levinson’s house I told him and we smiled bewildered, awkward and protectively at each other. “I know her,” he mumbled elegantly . . . “from Paris.” Thus reassured he collapsed into a selected chair and begged for the coffee as if to delay the seeing and the talk. By the time I got that coffee he no longer needed it and was all absorbed in the situation. In the front room I mostly spoke with a rising sense of horror that there was nothing he could do or say—that he was really to see the paintings for my sake, for my talking, and explaining! And since I rarely remember what I say there is nothing specific I recall from this beginning. He asked questions as to meanings and we wrangled into examples of what I meant, that 38. Leo Steinberg (Russia, 1920), art historian.

1956–1968

September 1957

15

1956–1968

I did and wanted, into Cézanne39 (S. said he is no longer attainable to painters—he really wanted to make the landscape),40 into Monet41— how he appeared in my paintings while I assumed it was Cézanne I carried on my back. How my work related to Rouault42 (S. said) and I told how I relate my work to what I NEED that is not in my work; so in a disciplined way I carry Cézanne while Monet and Rouault or Soutine43 are “given” along with my sort of temperament which I do nothing about except to structure in the other way, of the not given, of say Cézanne. I talked about what I don’t want—the self-generating act—and S. agrees absolutely and talked about this—about the “action” painting school which presumes to follow on Pollock. Psychology replaces Vision I said. And S. said how a great amount of unnecessary elements were left behind and cast off in the 20th cen. but how some fundamental values were also lost which should not have been—“design” is his word. I prefer to say “structure.” Then he asked for paper and pencil and showed the failings of the Edward House-Mill Stream painting in construction . . . and he was so right as I saw clearly, and was buoyed onward—this was then what he had come for. My pleasure was enormous and perhaps his too? Before this we had discussed the Mill painting and he felt the image was too centralized and related it to Paul Brach,44 which I knew was a sophisticated assault. I explained that Brach’s stroke itself was the image and could only build on itself and progress from itself like an organism expanding from one location, slowly to another. But that I wanted all possible strokes and a more complex range of forms which demanded extensiveness of brush possibilities. And I explained that the sky was not only at the top but at my feet and that this sense disseminated the space to inward and outward directings and then he asked just to look longer at it and finally he saw it better and was interested in my ideas coming from it and changed his initial idea. I was proud of the painting: Steinberg got its promise as I myself do and since it was not immediate for him I was gratified as to its substantiality and uniqueness. Everything he said had this humility and arrogance of the “in-drawing.” The voice which speaks a most delicious and palpable language in intimate tones so that one wonders if one is excluded or

16

39. Paul Cézanne (France, 1839–1906), painter. 40. Leo Steinberg. 41. Claude Monet (France, 1840–1926), painter. 42. Georges Rouault (France, 1871–1958), painter. 43. Chaim Soutine (Lithuania, b. 1894, France, d. 1943), painter. 44. Paul Brach (United States, 1924–2007), painter, and one of Schneemann’s teachers.

drawn in and this ambiguity is part of his nature I suspect. Everything he said made a wondrous concurrence with my beliefs and his expressive means are so vast and considered I received a privileged dose of his value. On the way home to Vermont I thought how smart I was—that it had been so fluid and tangled in both our understandings. He said: Is what you mean like analytical Cubism. Yes that’s right, I said with never a hesitation between analytical, synthetic and constructivist! Then I felt very stupid remembering things I should have made clearer. Most of all when I closed the door on him I was Humble. Eve45 said that only happens between two superior people—we only feel superior with those who are stupid—whom we want to impress with our superiority. When a superior one gets the superiorness of another then that one is humble! I told Eve I felt like a worm—a glowing worm. At the door Steinberg suddenly began a list of things he wanted to say about the paintings . . . all I remember is “they are vital, valuable . . .” and perhaps something else with a V. And he said to work with landscape and figure as long as I could—that the world rarely offers itself as richness. He had liked my expression about development—that I had an inner organic process and so worked always behind my capacity and something I said about being Plant-like, needing certain basic visual conditions and he made me repeat that and then he used it . . . but now I’v forgotten. Parker Tyler was mainly immensely relieved that the paintings were not bad, and he exclaimed, “I’ll be glad to recommend you” and he criticized a patch of color on the sky you helped with and flew off like the white rabbit adjusting his gloves. That was not valuable. CS to Stan Brakhage 31 October 1957

45. Eve Bailey Lerner (United States, 1916–2002), actress, and Schneemann’s godmother. “She was the first person to give me the vision of a chosen life, and the first person to offer me full attention and appreciation.” CS in conversation with the author, 18 January 2004. 46. Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands, b. 1853, France, d. 1890), painter.

1956–1968

Then there is the letter I felt I finally could write to you! It came from the Cézanne you wrote on to me, and I have that book and love knowing it. You said I would think “The movie maker in everything” about how the areas juggle but that is right and true and Cézanne meant no stillness but the charge to inner life of all the forms, of all the strokes. C. Is more profound than Van G.46 whose forcefulness is surface radi-

17

ating—while C. is hewn and intersewn and layered inexhaustibly and continuously re-revealing its levels . . . but this is only possible from the painfully aware EYE and Van G.’s is perhaps the emphasis of the painfully aware senses . . . more general a sensation and therefore more direct. I am between the two—closer by action and energy to Van G. but that is exactly why I carry C. consciously on my back—to always know what he had that I can struggle after, unfittingly but indebtedly. C. no longer really works for my vision—he substantiates and structures it yes, but what I want is what he didn’t do but suggests to me, the elements which can be carried forward to what I see, and these elements are most grandly in him. That is my debt. When you really see Cézanne then you can never more be satisfied with the “leaver-outers” of our contemporary time. Certainly the past fifty years has thrown out an enormous amount of qualities that needed to go but they have gotten rid of some things without which painting is not painting—like structure and spacefullness; specifically you know what I mean—and that is all things which, without tremendous kinesthetic projection, might appear as a hooked rug, silk dress, tomato juice spill . . . psychological journey in somebody’s inner dirty mind—where ever the eye does not dominate the form I am revolted. CS to Stan Brakhage

1956–1968

8 January 1958

18

gentle blizzard gives eight white inches We are crystal encrusted as we were together last year at this time. I need a photograph of you for a picture life book which I assembled, probably you haven’t one but if you do send it. What happens to “Loving,” how goes its rounds?47 Slowly I have gotten words for it but they come when the mind works singularly apart from an organizing intelligence so it may not seem clear. Sequential time (dimensional time is ptg.’s)48 (which in film continually recasts space) allows for and establishes working materials as images which 2 dimensional space would restrict. (This simply from not having enough “room,” from being centered inward in space rather than forward and back in time.) Analogy here between “Loving” and Proustian49 process of containment, a drama of extensive inclusiveness, es47. Loving (1957) is a film by Brakhage in which Schneemann and Tenney appeared. 48. Paintings. 49. Schneemann remembers: “I read everything that Marcel Proust [France, 1871–1922]

wrote—novels and letters. He gave me the permission to bring in what I was obsessed with—Jim’s underpants, cats, shards of a pot—which were not permitted in the culture, things that had holding power.” CS telephone conversation with the author, 26 February 1996. 50. Schneemann refers to a painting by Diego Velázquez (Spain, 1599–1660) of Philip IV, king of Spain, but does not remember which one it was of a number of paintings that the artist did of Philip. 51. Samuel Beckett (Ireland, b. 1906, France, d. 1989), novelist and playwright. 52. Gustave Flaubert (France, 1821–80), novelist. 53. Simone de Beauvoir (France, 1908–86), novelist and feminist theorist, published the The Second Sex in French in 1949; it came out in Eng­lish translation in 1953. 54. Sigmund Freud (Austria, b. 1856, Eng­land, d. 1939), psychoanalyst. 55. Robert Graves (Eng­land, b. 1895, Spain d. 1985), poet and scholar who interpreted Greek myths in The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (New York: Creative Age Press, 1948), to which Schneemann refers.

1956–1968

sentialized to formal necessity and so a unique form of unalterable and variegated arrivals and departures (imagistically). In a sense microcosmically creating the macrocosmic world, where paintings particular apprehension imparts an initial macrocosm of microcosms. This differentiation is less emphatic as painting has more and more to do with Time—the paint itself becomes vitalized to surface ambiguity creating an inner and outer depth which corresponds to the forward and back dimensions of a shifting image; here is Cézanne as key mark, the Rembrandt drawings again and the space between King Philip’s legs by Velázquez.50 The space shifting to active time values comes because space has been made a realm of physics rather than metaphysics; it is only the personified animated time that re-establishes a visual space which is personally infinite. All this then is what I see in “Loving” and where my seeing is adaptive for it, contemporary with it, and how I feel a grand revolutionizing pull in scope through “Loving” compared with all other films, and advancing your other films. I went blindingly, millimeter-by-millimeter, through the footage you sent and a valued wonder those scraps are—what wasn’t put in, like a notebook which yet anticipates the final workings. [. . .] We know the Beckett,51 Proust—fine. Jim is reading Proust through now. Will get the Flaubert.52 A must is “The Second Sex” by de Beauvoir53–truer scale and more revealing than Freud,54 a profound enlargement on Graves.55 It is the most important book I’v read so I may have mentioned it before. Procedures in the under-world, constructions of the outer, and a strange follow through on your Christ—racial suicide concept.

19

CS to Naomi Levinson

22, a day which favors me, February 1958

1956–1968

I have been reading MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF—THE JOURNAL OF A YOUNG ARTIST.56 An ivory, gold leafed edition from 1889. This magnificent spirit died at 23 in 1884 and parts of her I carry in myself more than is usual with writings I respond to. I mean mystical facts; I am a stronger tougher version of herself—not in intent certainly but in how that intent is consumed. Her narcissism is extreme in that it was forced to find a form for expression, while my form was always there, but the brilliance of her senses and mind equipped her to advance in whatever form she decided on. Her lust for fame, for survival in time was what gave her over to art but slowly as I read, as she is more and more involved in her work (the self already passing into dying as into the painting) this strange wondrous mentality is clarified and structured beyond its own precocious self-enchantment. An instance where love of self— of the unique being gracing the World and being graced by it—directs itself very consciously to Art, for as she says she could be a Princess! where the basic nobility of her intelligence turns into art, into the processes of creativity . . . seeing beyond the motivation of self-preserving, of being through art. She had such extreme beauty, wealth, and sensibility she felt from the beginning (12 yrs.) that she would die for being “too much.” [. . .] Marie Bashkirtseff was this ideal beauty and so fired with a spectacular Self that she prepared, morally, intellectually for the appraisals which such beauty deserved and found she inspired imbeciles, (by the age of 15) and turned in on herself against the outer beauty in real contempt of it, turned for her work. So that the indulged faith in the beauty ideal is a pathetic thing which I have felt in knowing models and modelish ladies who really pine in a Victorian manner within the perfected features of their profession which is at best, until they attract love, the means of their livi-hood. I never had a strong sense of the first ugly-to-be-given-beauty you write of, for me the beauty there was, was given. The love of the self demands homage and as de B.57 says of Bashkirtseff, “she does not distinguish the desire of the man from the love of her own ego.”58 At all lengths the power of Vogue beauty is despicable to me since its aim, outside of the self, without the self, is utili-

20

56. Marie Bashkirtseff (Russia, 1860–84), painter. 57. Simone de Beauvoir. 58. de Beauvoir discusses Bashkirtseff’s narcissism in The Second Sex.

tarian, is “useful,” in the way that woman is taught beauty is a commodity. “Without a mind” a “face” can pay its way through what it can get and this in terms of the world to be: the man, the rich man, the rich and famous man etc . . . Your old beauty which had itself made To Your Own Image is the only real kind—the second is a pathetic fallacy. The second is the least masculine because it is the least self-determined . . . i.e.; one does it With Vogue. One tries to balance the lines between the beauty-as-character (which is how a man has beauty) with the beauty as ideal given (which is what fashion contrives to—its time as approachable in certain forms by All—and this is Style and stylishness one attempts individually through adapting the given-as-right-procedures and embellishments). [. . .] When I use it my sense is of trickery, that It must not show for itself but become confusingly inseparable from eyes which may Really be like that, or skin which somewhere stops and becomes more perfect than real . . . but where? and I choose for the line to draw in my own witchy favor—ah yes the skin really IS like that! I need the pretense—the doubt given, that I may not make myself the object but am one as much as I am not one—that is, in spite of myself. [. . .]Another thing on Marie B: she was born in the town of my grandfather; Karkoff, near Kiev. Interesting her doctors were the same as Proust’s grandmother: Potain59 and Charcot.60 CS to Naomi Levinson 12 March 1958

59. Pierre Potain (France, 1825–1901), cardiologist. 60. Jean Martin Charcot (France, 1825–93), neurologist who specialized in hysteria and teacher of Sigmund Freud, Pierre Janet, C. G. Jung, and others. 61. Antonio Gaudí (Spain, 1852–1926), architect.

1956–1968

I was so pleased so many hadn’t spine enough for the paintings. Even a new form has come over me—the painting comes in and holds a central movement—upward, downward, rotating, and always I feel where does it come in from? So I will stretch flags of cloth on small wooden strips to bridge the painted reality and the point of conception; perhaps another fluidity could have the brace of a drapery—like a curtain swung open for the drama. Shadow boxing is another way. Do you know how curious and intent the slackest anticipation becomes when it has the chance to Look Into “something.” (The Gaudi61 viewers I broke my back creeping from one to the next over the dirty pictures in the Arcades . . .) and the protectedness of the painting—the preciousness, which I can

21

1956–1968

welcome ironically, like a sacred object barely encased. Literal as the fantasy can be I will try this for I will make an old contact with myself; some of my earliest drawing—four and five—(there are some from two) repeat the theater images—curtains drawn fully, partly open, a figure exposed full in the center! Or a piece of hair flying off stage, or a shoe left on the stage, a hand that reaches out from the curtain toward—and dancers, so on.62 26 April 1958; I, unable to write sooner due to infinite coolyisms of spring which then depressed me—six bales of hand wash and all camphoring and ironing for two days and mending and in nooks and pilings to refresh for heat and always the murky haunt of moving from here— the autumn time being broken up which would be my best season for working. Then the two ptgs. going badly and the tedious waste of the Pottery and idiot women painting and mutely sucking at me.63 In all this the real hysteria (quiet with me) of and for the Water Lilies64—a shattering and mourning as deep as human-love-loss. But then more terrible because of what that painting was. Our time without the water lilies, it requiring only time for extension and space for its active radiance and being actively vibrant in the very face of crawling fire and then passive ash. Sunlight devoured by fire is a horror beyond fire eating darkness; inclusive space consumed could not be the atrocity of infinite receiving, eddying, stroked water and reed space turned charcoal ash. My memory grasps the burning of earth but not fire on the rainbow, the cloud mist, the sea! Water Lilies was an expanse phenomenally ascendant from catastrophe as only landscape visioned in a clear turmoil of paint could be, but then not, and again we are left a “Charred Beloved.”65 (Gorky’s series of paintings after three years of work was burned in a studio fire.) I was upset that no one wrote to me with sympathy—how mad—but I suffered intensely from being alone with my palpable few inches—crimsons and greens to the cloud tonings—and the rest—who has them? I mean specifically the right side of the painting which I hoped for many years to attend to—and somewhere are a dozen eyes holding sure scraps but scraps only of this painting’s infinite richness. A person leaves to live in us a set of rooms and spaces, gestures, con-

22

62. Schneemann cites a drawing that she made at the age of four. 63. Schneemann worked for Bennington Potters in Bennington, Vermont. 64. This reference is to the severe damage done to Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (1916– 26) by smoke during a fire at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1958. 65. Charred Beloved II (1946) by Arshile Gorky (Armenia, b. 1905, United States, d. 1948), painter, documents the fire that destroyed his studio in 1946 and precipitated his suicide.

figurations of personal relationships and reactings, and mementos but the art is only itself containing inwardly—in itself—a pure and absolute series of relationships which we can only really presume to through confronting IT. A reproduction is a travesty when it means the work (takes its place) as I can show you with two which I have—so different and so symbolic of surface life. To talk about the work without it is to leave it even further in memory and tenuous in a measure which belies its very life, makes it something personified, more like a person who died. Sad that these terms must also finally express what I knew of IT. Some feelings like this is how I was overcome, weeping, on the last exhibition day of the Cézanne portrait of Mme. C66—curling rose out of her fingers in the greenish lap—which was to go to Brazil. (Actually it was I hadn’t the money to pay to enter the next day and it was closing time at the Met.—hence the desperation.) [. . .] In a catastrophe, or near, human life becomes statistical—how else can it be related to the sheer quantity of dangers which we cannot control. It is perhaps, our very helplessness which measures our degree of response. With paintings “we” are so totally responsible, as with children (first off the boat). CS to James Tenney 19 March 1958

66. Madame Cézanne (1885–87). 67. Schneemann writes about a visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 68. Shakti, a Hindu goddess; Shiva, the third deity in the Hindu trinity. The Pala and Candra periods were the golden age of Buddhism in Bengal, ca. A.D. 750–1110.

1956–1968

My love I found two lovers: dancing stone each other. (A guard67 laughed to another; “there’s a young lady copying a new way to do it in an old way.”) I was drawing. Drawing on an embrace of forms: rolling, halting gestures of combination, of meeting. Complete, secretively convoluted, clearly tenuous: that something is happening, has happened and occurs again . . . uniquely, samely extending the mystery it conceals. An embrace emphatically conceived and lucidly sexual. What evolution of forms performs before the senses, repeats and then counters motion so that the figures hold all possible in stone space. I can find us, hear our hours of love, years enfolded, . . . (Shakti and Shiva, Bengal, Pala period).68 Elsewhere: extensive compilations of gloom; shadowed light shafting art objects, frou-frou dying eternally—provincial museum . . . rank

23

leftovers, agglutinations . . . bad breath, heavy appetites. The Arensberg Collection69 is not enough to save Grace by—the Impressionist Collection is, but it has been shipped off to the Modern. (My little sun and shadow, a tiny watercolor study by Picasso for Les Demoiselles70 which flies out of Cézanne’s clear-eyed bathers.) Ah, a Pontormo71 of a de Medici72—strange, strange a door opens behind the looming, robed torso, a compelling head. Three fine frescos (a tiny Pieta of glowing strokes . . . made of glass) and the Titian where the seated Archinto73 peers through a curtain. CS to Naomi Levinson 2 April 1958

1956–1968

Resting between Dump (new) and Nude Lady (older).74 After dinner (tortillas & sprouts) long talk with J. on Process; very hard work and a privilege we can share with each other and learn from these larger inter-relatings—larger than our feeling of Being-Contemporaries. What you said about sending your roughs—“We are interested in process.” [. . .] Perhaps the profound sensibility is always larger (and thereby enlarging) than that which it deals with: Stendhal75 does this, Kafka,76 Proust and you do it and Joyce;77 not so with Kerouac78 whose vision is only as large as what he relates. There is some mysterious aesthetic of HOW—the real expressive instrument as implicit forces. The explicit instrumenting of language makes “style” as an end product rather than some indivisible form of necessities—again I mean Kerouac or Dumas.79 Say that Stein80 and Woolf 81 just escape this, being always in a state of

24

69. The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection and Archive, Philadelphia Museum of Art. 70. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) painted by Pablo Picasso (Spain, b. 1881, France d. 1973). 71. Jacopo Pontormo (Italy, 1494–1556), painter. 72. The Florentine Medici family was a powerful patron of the arts in thirteenth- to seventeenth-century Italy. 73. Titian (Italy, 1488–1576) painted the portrait of the sixteenth-century Milanese prelate Filippo Archinto between 1554 and 1556. 74. Dump (1958) and Nude Lady (1957) two of Schneemann’s paintings. 75. Marie-Henri Stendhal (France, 1783–1842), novelist. 76. Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia, 1883–1924), novelist. 77. James Joyce (Ireland, b. 1882, Switzerland d. 1941), novelist. 78. Jack Kerouac (United States, 1922–69), novelist. 79. Alexandre Dumas (France, 1802–70), novelist. 80. Gertrude Stein (United States, b. 1874, France, d. 1946), poet and playwright. 81. Virginia Woolf (Eng­land, 1882–1941), novelist.

expectation about the how of their what, and the what has grandness. Since I am no longer equipped with the right critical language all that I wrote here can be turned inside out to mean exactly what I don’t what to say yet you may find some germs of sense here and if you do pin me down when you see me and I will try to rally some clarity. I have a sense further that these “fine-styled” works so near to popular culture have a way of not building, not tensing—they are additive and their drama may be sharp but on some basis of plodding and plotting, employing the most glamorous bricks of their time but say the cement is sparkly and rinses away from a rain of twenty years—like Hemingway.82 CS to Naomi Levinson 28 May 1958

82. Ernest Hemingway (United States, 1899–1961), novelist. 83. Jane Brakhage (also known as Mary Jane Collum Brakhage Wodening) (United States, 1936). 84. Jane Brakhage.

1956–1968

The presence of Stan and M.J.,83 gone away now so that we floatingly settle back to ourselves, fluid, swift and clear after such intermingling (often like intermangling) of four ones. And the oneness of twos. [. . .] Inequality is bewildering to me and disturbing to Jim, so our discomfort and theirs during the early part of the VISIT. [. . .] The wild animal spirit of a Mary Jane84 for whom the “worship” involves strange acts of hostility, defense and aggression while still being keystone. So “what does that make the woman” has been beating about us and I am so filled with insights about this that it may be impossible to muster coherency. Primarily M.J. is filled with intimidation by art (by us) claiming a superiority of naïve insights, of incommunicable sense on the other side of the intimidation; and this hoisted lofty by Stan as her great value and she being thus reduced to naïveté by his approbation and then resenting his freedom of imagination, of ACT and intellect (and ours, mine). (This filling me with a discomfort [. . .] so that I realize all I demand is non-ambivalence. [. . .] M. J. expresses great longings suddenly, as S. and J. and I talk and I draw, to also draw . . . but she tried it once and it was “no good.” Establishing herself for the future life of non-attempts, imminence she sews great gowns to grow pregnant in and insists on nine children, with great natural joy but also, and this so sad, with wide-eyed fear, like an animal trapped from the pleasures of its free movement; and this sense of

25

1956–1968 26

movement being most true of herself. (A tomboy, married suddenly for a living together convenience (like ourselves) in blue jeans and then burning them the next day. Talking most feelingly of horses and dogs, “I understand them, I don’t understand people,” and going out in the sun “to find a dog to talk to, a good dog, if Vermont has them.” And he then projecting her as his child-world wonder, encouraging. Vast net of responsibilities suddenly his, to protect her, to provide, to help her “to grow without changing her.”) [. . .] M.J. is already a configuration—a family and in a process of transferring individualization, that is, nothing is just for “herself,” for her discarding. Condition of the above being her complete dependence on him; for a worldly locating—past realm she recalls old boyfriends, rather often. [. . .] (In the sense that the personality is the “mask of the soul”; the soul devoted to Him and His. [. . .] Then in simple tasks peculiar to Her world this sensitive quality is applied. That is, almost in an Oriental image, the work of a pie, of a room, of a child’s life becoming engrossing and intricate enough by her attention that it is fulfilling even by its transience. But the woman who beams through her pie, shines from her rooms or garden is a simple woman located now, I suppose, in a situation where all pressures from without make these acts a great good, the reason for her being. Such ingenuity is no longer implicitly needed; it is (really) easier to buy a dress than to make one, vast concerns supply the pie, and furbish rooms and mental attitudes for these all become “Things” rather than acts. When there were no pies it was significant to produce one. When life depended on children it was a disgrace not to further the generations and by this the socio-economic foundations of living. Life process itself was its own determinations. There is no longer the physical-economic as primal conditions, as necessities to “produce” children or anything else. Rather we assume reasons personal, emotional, individuation of choice. Now woman “chooses” the natural but it is not truly to be “chosen,” for the process itself is one of selfless nonindividualization, it is forever GIVEN. [. . .] Then to extend the boundaries of all “hoods”—parenthood, wifehood, lifehood. (Hood—as what covers.) The illusion breaks as the man is left to choose Whats and the woman has no Whats but perhaps a quantity of Hows. The woman, She, finds conditions-of-her-being serving as the reasons-for-her-being; at her side the man creates from himself the reasons of his being and these absorb the conditions of his being. For him she is another vast enter-

1956–1968

prise of his feeling, his needs and his will. He is “everything” for her. For M.J. all she desires and needs depends on him and when one needs a great deal one takes. [. . .] His teaching her, his preparing her for what he Needs: a nurse, a mother, a wife, lover, child, domestic, maid, teacher for the children. (He said he thought of having correspondence courses for her so that she could teach the children well.) This is a beautiful and terrifying amount of “need” and an ennobling amount to her but there is the treachery that it comes all in his terms. That he wills her for what “woman” ought to be, she becoming an object which even in the love flush she radiates to and yet resents. His pattern of “using,” (which he is well aware of ) [. . .] is only that which he can create to the image of his personal life, from bones bare and potential for his use. [. . .] I am getting close to a paradox about M.J. wherein lies a real beauty of her, an “idealness” for him but yet a certain relational peril. It has to do with an almost naked naturalness of her which is unique and which she distrusts in the context of “our worlds.” In the way she is a purer symbol for him than, say, ourselves who are complicated and challenging to him. Specifically it is most clear in how we are crafted and evolved and the things about us are selected for and by a sensibility of aesthetics and working needs and the strictness of these. M.J. is wonderfully open, unencumbered, prepared for anything. Practical things impressed me: no underwear, no toothbrush and cosmetic paraphernalia, no ritualization of femininity, no baths, hair can be unwashed for three months, “possessions” can fit into a sack. A grandeur in this but she begins to feel it as idiosyncrasy, as insubstantial and resents his making much of this while it remains her most declared outward character sign. Somehow the grand potentiality for filling always resists what loves it for its fillability, for its simplicity. Cruelly we do always resent in certain ways what we most depend on, and this increasing with the degree of dependency. [plate 3] THE PAINTING was started immediately with strugglings worse than ever—head over and over again from fine stretch of tensed body—sitting up, queenly exposed for me and finally the head wiped all away and then recurring from work on the body to my satisfaction. She was pleased and disconcerted; “the mood” was strong but that “poor animal looks so trapped,” (my heart caving footward tense). Not at all, I said, it is all open, the figure is tensed to move, to rise, it is free . . . “no,” she said, “that is the

27

1956–1968

difference between us, I would let the animal out of the trap, but you wouldn’t.” This dizzying my head in confusion. Then Stan came to see it and the first instant I felt pure horror from him and then he exclaimed, “oh, ah oh Carolee . . . how true, yes it must be true . . . something I’v never seen before . . . magnificent etc . . .” I still not knowing what they saw and liking the painting very well and J. also and the psychology of interpreted vision being too much for me to comprehend, but my initial impulse with joy to offer it as a wedding present being tucked awayfast-by the next and unclear intuition of their reactions. THE FILM 85 was mainly done in the guest room with M.J. and then a lot of Jim writing music and the kitchen, using me as I peeled onions in an apron. And my sense of being superfluous, of his wanting to put me down, of my reminding him of you and what he doesn’t want to need as a woman as M.J. becomes all woman for him. No, not really to put me down, but rather aside. The last feet of film he took with strange unmeaning as I was painting M.J. in the studio and he wanted me to be painting in the apron! Return to your idea of “addition;” why have a woman’s hands do other than draw the needle thru the cloth and peel the onion when the alter-ego man writes music? What I conclude from all this is. . . . that all women should have a work which extends her, which is real to her even if it be clerking or some god-damned thing, that she can maintain an intelligence in relation to some objective challenge and by this her respect for her total self will not suffer as it seems always to do (my mother) when the kingdom of her life is a kingdom with scraps of self-expressing stolen on the side. So that finally there is no full joy in “giving” (in being the giving sort of woman) until one is good for the self, having resources, recognizing the needs of the self and providing for them independently. Otherwise I believe it is the man who suffers most, who is sucked on and dragged down to share the immanence, who is distracted and drowned by the revenge of the woman—what she will not, cannot give (which is most hers) and wants him to know as she does. Is all this any rightness—I expect you to clarify it for me because you have seen it more—and critically—and because your letter has set me off out of the past week with unprecedented verbosity.

28

85. Brakhage filmed Daybreak and Whiteye (1957) and Cat’s Cradle (1959) in Schneemann’s and Tenney’s Vermont home.

CS to Naomi Levinson 20 June 1958

86. Schneemann worked on several nude portraits of Naomi Levinson. 87. Kitch, Schneemann’s and Tenney’s female cat. 88. James Tenney.

1956–1968

I am sad. I have a grey morning broad and deep colored but I don’t work. Then my painting86 which seems fine I don’t like—the forms spring on the surface, the visualization offends my will for a larger effort, for intensification slow to magic . . . it all means harder work to my mind while the senses disband in real time. I am gorged with forms and colors which the season has destroyed—so the unfinished snowscapes, and the multiplicity of earth’s first warmings of which I have only one image done. Now this green murk is settled and will be as it is for several months and when the autumn I love is turning I will be packing spoons and napkins and leaving. For this smother I would like to go away to the rocks and ocean with only one pair of pants and one skirt and a roll of canvas and the box of colors and have only to work, to walk, to be seeing. I despair of such scraps of time as I now manage. The pottery becomes the most crucial stretch of time—definite and cast through the day, and that is horrible. Perversely I welcome it because it is sure. (Kitch is sure—she is helping me type this with licks and kisses and noisy purrs.) Mostly I feel contemptible because when I am working well scraps of time become something more; they achieve ­timelessness. 23 June 1958: Now Naomi I am working again—the painting goes poorly but I AM working well—painting of kitchen life; K.87 and a burst of evergreen thin furry vibrant green with tender pink rose buds (not in the painting at all but its felt quality all through) and then Jim; very tensely structured with close ranged pale tone planes . . . I hated it when I was suffering helplessly now I am struggling and worn from it but with such gladness . . . the pig—I’ll get it! Yesterday finishing landscaped birch forms—very dramatic under-Spring damp color. J. will sit for me now to exploratory works—hundreds to bring and depart from this head whose reality is pornographic (I love luflufit), whose paintedness is therefore over-complicated. (CHRIST, THE JETS BLAST THE AIR EVERY HOUR * HOUSE SHAKES DREAMS TREMBLE IN MY SLEEP THE BED ROCKS AND I SAY TO HELL WITH IT BLOW US UP NOW AS WE HOLD TOGETHER IN OUR SHEETS) finally, in the painting of J.88 the head of him swims in my eye to a peak of absurdity a

29

glowing mass of lumps and turns with two green spots poking forward to the air-windows to the soul! IMPENETRABLE—looking at ME . . . I’m looking at it and seeing it to dissolution. The How of my feeling dispersing before this vast What. Joseph Cornell to CS 30 November 1958

Please accept heartiest thanks for your letter, poem, and photograph. I’ve simply not been in a mood to reply sooner and even yet have not had time to appreciate thoroughly your experience with the Ruggles which I’m sure must be Americana of the essence. The climate has been “curious” in the metropolis with springlike sultriness so many noons and the crisp autumnal evenings the same day. This kind of period of grace seems indefinite and quite welcome. Wish you could be in town for a public reappearance of my ballerina friend from Italy. I took on an L-P of Ruggles this summer, “Lilacs,” & “Men & Mts,”89 ditto Griffes’ “Piano Sonata”90 and some other Americana. Also some stray ones from the complete set of all of Couperin on harpsichord.91 But these latter seem hard to play now with the summer context gone. CS to Naomi Levinson 30 March 1959

1956–1968

All black still out my green window, colored glass darkly silled, with the arched living room reflected there, one twinkle from beyond. We went to nap at six thirty after a rich Chinese lunch Wen Chung prepared.92 Needing to be beside each other, to break the melancholy, heart hurting separateness of our individual selves, wrapping each other to float over the world, over our lives. Then singular there is the joy of sitting at our work, quietly and looking up, seeing, watching each other. He is so beautiful putting a raisin between his lips, crossing his knees, turning a page. I am sewing a dress. Kitch is in heat. Through the front room I

30

89. “Lilacs” is the second movement of Carl Ruggles’s Men and Mountains (1924). 90. Charles Tomlinson Griffes (United States, 1884–1920), composer. 91. Cornell was a great admirer of the composer François Couperin (France, 1668–1733) and cites Le Rossignol en Amour in his notes. See Caws, Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind, 81. 92. Chou Wen-Chung (China, 1923), composer and one of James Tenney’s teachers.

93. Schneemann refers to her trip to Cuba for an abortion in 1959. 94. “I will see.” 95. “You have to make a sacrifice.”

1956–1968

can see him writing over the piano, scratches his head; the water drips luxuriously in the kitchen and the night buzzes. The trip now an intense dream.93 The hardest part was leaving, the train carrying me away, leaning out and waving and being carried; Jim overcome with letting me go alone crazy all that day and I was crying so that I had the solicitous care of two angel porters all the way. Like a theater, a caravan of the entrances and exits of improbable characters all the way: the Jewish immigrants; Mrs. K.’s love story (crying with her in the bathroom) what her parakeet meant . . . the hillbilly sisters who thought I shouldn’t read so much “School is out!;” the night the air conditioning blew cold, “Oy, Got, wevr gonink to Siberia not Florridah;” Dixie Aherne from Oregon; soft blue Mrs. James Taylor from Canada . . . , a wondrous little lady, her son the sculptor, the daughter a puppeteer. The sailors, West Palm Beach where I missed the ferry, on in the night to Key West desolate except for sailors at two o’clock; the little hotel where I sat up all night, the sailor, why I took a walk with him, the little dog who came to watch over me so that I could sleep, what the little golden dog did to the fat man. Such beautiful foliage, flowers, the air drugged with honey suckle and sea and the grand ferry of seven hours to Havana, the sun blanching the boat, dazzling the sea into the sky. The second hardest part that night in Havana, its tiny twisting streets ominous and yellow, not finding the “recommended” hotel; the Roosevelt—$3.00—insisted on by the taxi driver and utter desolation in that small white room, with its shuttered windows showing the light of the city with the ocean floating above. My Spanish a saving thing; fresh clear morning of anticipation, riding a bus to the doctors and there at eight, in his sitting room, his white back to me over his breakfast in the patio—birds and leaves, reflecting on the lacey table cloth, his wife kind and intense explaining the revolution to me and his new danger. Following him into his office where he belligerently repeats “voy a ver,”94 not believing I am not more than twelve weeks pregnant; and on his silvery table his hands are rough and aggressive, he is not an equivalent knight to Dr. S. Still stirruped he begins to explain that he has no sodium pentothal: “Tiene que hacer un Sacrificio.”95 He might have said he would crucify me . . . such terror. All right, it must be.

31

1956–1968

“And no, cries,” he squeezes his lips together, “not a sound.” “Trato,” I say.96 And he violently tells me “No ‘trato,’ es si o no.”97 Then abruptly, “Donde es el dinero.”98 Crawling off the table, handing it out to him. Dark, neat, boney featured. Back in the stirrups and his old mother comes and strokes my hands followed by his wife, silent stroking my stomach, full of sympathy. From a glass cistern over the table he pours an orange douche of local anesthetic. Silvery clamps and pinchers, the sensation of being meat or wood held for chopping. And the “inside” pain for which I find no correlatives. He punches a hole in me, he pulls me apart, I am splitting, twisting, pulled apart, mysterious islands of flesh scream in my head, suddenly singular with pain, blood, scrapings and pullings over and over. And I have turned my head, eyes filled black, becoming held by some intense consciousness which retreats from the body agony and seems to hold the body in fuzzy soft arms—he calling out “flujo, flujo”99 . . . and the old lady says, “yes, yes, she is doing it” to placate him and somehow I do, giving over to him, suspending myself to his effort; singing in my head clear and remote, it can’t go on, stop it, let me up, cries which bounce between my eyes as the throat closes in passivity. When I turn my head and open my eyes the old lady is gone and there is a dark nurse, coils of braids on her head, a plump Indian, serious and knowing, pushing on my stomach. Like a small stream I can hear the blood. Finally he has stopped and the pain continues of itself, marching, tramping, so raw. The nurse brings me an aspirin which seems like a pathetic irony—what can that do. “Do you want to see it?” he asked. (“Look,” he said, “does it have a soul?”) I barely understand and dazedly look at a basin of beautiful purpley red colors, thinking why yes that is my own blood, that is its colors . . . Jim’s is orangey. They tell me to get up and put on my shoes. I can get up, wonderous! but slipping feet into shoes seems a tedious difficult and incongruous chore. Then my feet walk in the shoes to a dark room, a dark red couch which lifts in the air and there I rest. My head flooding with wonderful power; its body is altogether, the head says we can go on together. The body writhes and crumples and twists, the head is filled with joy, exaltant, it is free. Pale blue French doors are open and he is explaining to another girl what he did to me . . . he wouldn’t do this but the appointment was

32

96. “I try.” 97. “No ‘I try,’ it’s yes or no.” 98. “Where is the money?” 99. “Flow, flow.”

100. University of Illinois.

1956–1968

made before, she must make “a sacrifice,” she doesn’t understand and he asks me to tell her. A blonde with a yellow and orange print blouse above the sheet, great vacant eyes . . . I tell her it will be alright but she can’t believe me. Crumpled up again I hear her cries, moaning, little screams, the horror of going through it again by her cries which say what I didn’t. Then I know how brave I was, I am very proud, the mind congratulating itself, smiling. I feel better. The doctor “needs the room” . . . The old lady presses my hand, I am in the cobbled street, the sun is sweet and the wind is fresh and I walk to find a bus up a hill, down a street, past a grand hospital. The bus I take is wrong and then I walk in a mad section like 42nd St. until I waver and find a cab. In the daylight the terrible hotel is charmingly decayed, my room is wonderfully filled with wind and light, the rooftops vari-colored stretching up to the sea which fills the window like a sky piled with tiny boats. I decide to take a plane to Miami and save a whole day of travel and then I go to walk. And walk and walk and everything is beautiful and I feel strong as a bull, wondering at this and still it amazes me. I am fine, there is not even bleeding. Before I was weak for a week. I wander thru department stores, and 5 & 10s, dark music shops looking for a present for Jim. There is a good open cafe where I have yogurt, a sliced papaya and a tiny three cent coffee—as you wrote. They make me a fat sandwich of Cuban ham and cheese for the plane. It doesn’t hurt me to carry the basket and bag. Especially amazing since I did not eat since the morning in Key West (with the little dog sitting under the stool by me) that is forty hours. So this is a happy ending. I owe this bull strength perhaps to the “pills” I mentioned which right the natural wrongs I always have but no longer. (Vitamins) Florida is beautiful and Alabama shrouded grey-vined woods. I will tell you of them. Here it is, flat, grey, cold, raining . . . the ugliest state I have ever seen. On the trip I realize the school100 is hateful, Illinois dilapidated. From the train window I saw Jim waiting straight in a milling crowd, his arms folded—he had written new music—beauties. Mrs. Taylor kissed me goodbye. It was Friday morning. [. . .] It is morning now, a furious red snowball has hurtled into place, the birds are racing and singing by the window, the purples, and mauves and greens are back in the earth.

33

CS to Steve Burr and Mona Mellis101 28 April 1959

1956–1968

In the larger world—Blood in the air (besides D.D.T., Parathion, Mara­ thon)102 & worse being shot from tanks on trucks, from nozzles out of wagons. Unforgettable image of last week on the highway from Urbana to Sidney: a tractor on the edge of an immense field, a white turret poised on the tractor shooting a solid fat spray towards the field, the wind unfurling an angle of spray to the right and before it, running, a paunchy blue denim figure, black flat hair, yellow face, running away. And the mercurial, rotten acid stench). But the Blood is rising in hopeless apathy, the papers have articles now about how we really can’t know what we are doing and will do—there are no controls over the monstrosities we develop. Editorials tell how we nearly bombed Russia but short of missile dropping by Strategic Air Command the “enemy” was realized to be migrating geese. “Defense” Secret-ary McElroy103 stating position that we will not be first to drop Hydrogen bombs is no longer tenable. Since you are gone more “Home Remedies for Fallout,” N.Y. apts. with concrete bomb shelters lauded. All focusing madness; Wisconsin governor having fall-out readings for his state and finding them very high—this report repressed, then released; A.E.C.104 no longer popularly trusted but with powers intact and a complete blackout on testing here. If this is our insanity—as you write the rocks have been so for the Greeks—we project greater and grander forms of death, of a racial suicide which is not beyond the mythos of our Christian heritage. It is all so undergroundly. There, like sex in the private mind; it is no longer a discussion of our personal “paranoias” . . . everybody’s doin’ it. I had an unhoped for inexplicable fertility which took me by train, bus, ferry boat into the old, golden chaos (in the sense of richness to the senses) of Habana.105 The wind from the sea, the moon circle halved shape of this crescent place, the sun clear and brilliant over the an-

34

101. Steve Burr (United States, 1935), painter; Mona Mellis (United States, 1936–90), actress and theater director. 102. Schneemann cites the names of aerial insecticides. A wide variety of operations involving hazardous materials was conducted at Chanute Air Force Base located on the southern edge of Rantoul (Champaign County) in Illinois, which provided military and technical training for the Air Force and Department of Defense; to date no cleanup has been completed on any of its disposal sites. 103. Neil H. McElroy, secretary of defense for Dwight D. Eisenhower, October 9, 1957, to December 1, 1959. 104. Atomic Energy Commission. 105. Havana, Cuba.

cient colored plasters of walls, of grey and iridescent cobblestones, and always somehow the sea shining above the city into the sky. An incredible adventure in all; very intense humanness of the people, loving life for what it most naturally is, fresh hope from Castro106 (little false beards and “rebel” caps sold from tidy piles on busy street corners, over the table or counter of the open cafes signs: “Gracias Fidel,” o “FidelEsperanza”).107 Curving narrow streets, wild buses and cars shooting back and forth, and at every corner a cart loaded with fruit—mangoes, papayas, tunas, pears and stranger ones I didn’t recognize. Interestingly if you want fresh fruit you ask for “Frutas Naturales.” Everything open to the wind and sun; cafe counters arranged with dozens of tiny cups on blue saucers for a three cent espresso coffee. A plain ham sandwich (The ham richer, more mellow than anything here) will be forty cents and always a half inch of ham is given. They would feel disgraced in the name of what a Ham sandwich is to make it less. Little glass cupboards on the streets, filled with oval glass cups holding oysters, shrimps, and clams. The strange tropical trees and brilliant flowers, perhaps like what you have now. CS to Naomi Levinson 29 May 1959

106. Fidel Castro (Cuba, 1927), prime minister of Cuba (1959–65), first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (1965–76), and president of the Cuban Republic (1976–2008). 107. “Thank you Fidel,” or “Fidel Hope.”

1956–1968

I am afraid we have seen Stan perhaps for the last time. If that is in itself true it is terrible with the consequence of not knowing any more about them—where they go, how they are, which in my way of never losing love’s concern—even when the love is not presently active—is a cruelty. And not to see the films. But there is a point where it is no longer possible to say it is because of the Art of each other that we weather all personal difficulties; it is the person who makes the art, but the person first perhaps. We have thought this with some consternation at times when (in Vt.) Stan would show a belated interest in what Jim really DID, and correspondingly a vigorous resistance to what I did. This last spring when they both first stayed with us; his refusing to see the best work, Mill Forms, with a stubborn, squintly eyed restlessness saying himself, he just couldn’t, with wavering extenuations recalling the time, at Bard, when Steve Burr seeing a good painting of mine said, “Gee, Carolee, I

35

1956–1968 36

don’t know, I really just can’t see it because a girl did it, and I know it’s very good but I can’t stand to think a girl did it.” How it was this time; first I phoned them from Elsa’s bed, thinking he would be at work but that I could tell Jane to come in for the Partch108 and see us Saturday morning to set the tickets straight by that afternoon. And Stan answering, seeming glad and that they would have to figure out a time and to call back Friday night. Phoning them Friday night at twelve and no answer there. This ominous to me because I felt they were there and not answering, an unfounded intuition; where could they be if they were coming in early Sat. morning to see us as was the tentative plan . . . well, lots of places. Jim reaches him Sat. morning after long ringing and strange related to me talk by Stan of “we’re changing . . . everything is changing . . . we don’t come into the city, haven’t been in for three months” . . . and then finally that they will come to the box office at eight. Our driving to see Marvin and Ethel109 for the afternoon when we thought we would instead be with them and talking about the conversation. I said, did Jim think the confusion on their part had any thing to do with us? And he said no, and he thought it must be personal things, perhaps not wanting to leave Myrrena, or not getting a baby-sitter for the whole day, or not wanting to carry her around with us all day as they used to do. Then at the theater when I first saw them, rushing over to see them, and then rushing away to get their tickets from the box office with a terrible nervousness and constraint which seeped into me from that first glance of theirs: Jane’s polite reserved and knowing and Stan’s tightlipped queer indirection of look. All in all the sense of being someone who has been so much talked about in private that the public look, the personal look is an effort to close off the real presence from the dragged about monster. The way school teachers look when you have been very bad and they haven’t yet had the chance to tell you the crime. Standing like a bare necked sheep with them making inane conversation; inane because there was this resistance to connect and so Stan sprouting about the job-quitting, etc. looking intently over my head and Jane demurely hawk-eyed beside him, silent. [. . .] We stop to pick up Myrrena at friends of theirs downtown and nasty kind of belligerent, yet understandable, discussion about the Partch; which I defend as an “entertainment,” Stan regaling against it 108. Harry Partch (United States, 1901–74), composer. 109. Marvin and Ethel Hayes.

1956–1968

completely subjectively “as if this is theater,” and he would rather have his daughter see the Nutcracker! Which we had just seen Christmas and a sparkler bit of sentimental frippery, all cliché and Hollywoodized I had never seen . . . tricks of syrup enough to rapture an old bourgeois heart. Defending the Partch visually—it was very rich and wondrous to me; Turner like sky reelings, Breugelesque, and over all the implicit use of Artifice, which popular theater never attains with formal significance which this did for me—Stan saying I was “reading into” it. The reason for the over-hostile tone to such discussion we discover in Princeton (Jim and I agreeing not to talk any more about the Partch) is a complete lie: Stan says he would never have come to the concert at all except that he thought it was to be of Jim’s music! that I led him to understand it was a performance of Jim’s. This making it even more incredible that he hesitated as he did; in other words even if it had been Jim’s music he was most reluctant to come. And why we find out, seated, exhausted in their big room is that “Jane feels she has reason to be jealous” . . . and anything which comes between them is impossible because they love each other so much . . . so they really did not want to see us . . . why no answer Friday, they just sat listening to the phone ring. And a confused addition is something about how between Wednesday and Friday they were going to make plans to see friends of Jane’s in Conn. and write to us at Elsa’s saying on a mad postcard something about this trip to Conn. Then they didn’t go there but instead to N.Y. None of this explained and with Stan’s particular genius for obscuring, for confusing the real issues this remains even unclear except as a possible play on her part for “her friends” as against us as his? It was all hideous and close to being a ball game of mutual accusations with Jane saying she and I always seem to be “fighting!” (That is really fantastic since I reserve a most differential calm to her aggressivedefensive tactics, putting myself always in her place and trying to make these difficult friends—ourselves—as sympathetic as possible.) Jim jumping on her saying I was only sparring while she was in earnest. Some more shit like this till my tired shocked brain unfurled by saying how I felt the trouble started with Stan and Jane only acted it out; that he must have poured poison in her about us—me, for her to say after ten minutes in our house “I have hated you many times” (not saying how she accosted me in the hallway; “I am the Earth Goddess; you are the Paint Goddess” . . . “you are really stuck on yourself ”; their un-subtle cringing at a dress I was mending—not my own but for Jim’s youngest sister—with a look of superior incisive contempt passing between them

37

1956–1968 38

as “this is something Jane would never touch a flashy hideous garment fit only for a vicious witch like Carolee” . . . the entire filming which was a nightmare of willful distortion and destruction.110 Stan wanting me to paint in the apron & Jim posed like a decoy, their nervous jumping, skin crawling actions in the house so that all that was chance in it and all that was intent by us in it became a melodramatic trapping as a trap for them). Jim saying to Stan that we felt he was conscientiously willing something hideous out of our lives and using the house for this and his supercilious air of reply to me: “You did the decor didn’t you.” “Decor” from those handed out, found and lost objects, out of our joy at making do with chance things, and the colors and spaces which we love now of that house as we did then; a marvelous inner landscape for love. (Which Stan the fantastic hypocrite revered and stayed in for two months the year before.) Then he said he felt there was a lie in our life and that was what he was filming . . . And that the films were always true if he could finish them. And Jim saying he might never finish it. And I was telling them that there was a betrayal on basic manners, that wherever I went into other lives I assumed that what they believed and did was true for them if not for myself, that this difference in life forms would be what interested me, and blasting them (Stan and Jane) for pure poor conduct and ill-faith in taking hospitality and making it a personal drama of hate and intrigue. And to everything we said there was no answer from them. Stan looking more and more short sighted and pursed up and Jane bending her head over the inevitable cigarette wrapper she twists. Our “innocence” is strangely bedazzling to us. They would intensely shake their heads and say “Oh, the Freudian slips, the digs and innuendos, we had to be careful what we said.” Everything about us then for their destructive amusement; unintellectual forte they could really share and build from its destruction a grand monument to themselves. The point being for us now that we have outlived our usefulness for Stan; as venerated images for Love, his own commitment to love now necessitates the destruction of the precedent. At Princeton we noticed he has grown stout; a somewhat guilty eating of cookies which she ready-bakes, a look of admonishment from her but proud to be filling him. He had grown the grand Mongol moustache and advised us seriously that a beard will follow. This meaning to me that 110. Schneemann refers to Brakhage filming her and Tenney in his Cat’s Cradle (1959).

1956–1968

he who berated Jim’s first humble bearding and disliked it intensely assumes one himself as this symbolically replaces Jim’s “use” for him. A lot of talk about Hitler being a great man, mutterings and affirmings thrown without context to us about “necessity” and “USE.” His face now coming closer to the high school fat boy image, combined with a very painful inability to look into our faces, to SEE us, the curling lash of protective moustache, these things may have been psychologically determined in the drama of casting us out. Nevertheless the painful first night discussion wobbling to a close with his saying we were still the most alive, vital, beautiful, capable of love etc. etc. etc. two people and I replying that we saw them together and for each other like this, and we do. Then a really grotesque sort of apology—grotesque because it was the opposite of what it would seem, but I was listening intently with “new-critic” like ears for what was really said and not its effect, about how he supposes it all has to do with his setting Jim an image which he could not fulfill (he being Jim) and so on. And finally I remember saying something to the effect that he might better understand what really occurred in our lives when he had been longer with Jane and his interrupting me and Jim shouting at him “DID you hear what she said?” And all through this Jim eloquently leading him to things he would conceal and telling about us and what we felt saving me from ending up by defending myself against their implied accusations. Implied because the accusations are those which our love is based on and which Stan could never bear for himself so he pretends it is also impossible, really, for Jim and that I have “done it”; our equality. And that this equality means we share petty things and help each other, which he would never do, and the basic orders of domestic routine are suspect by them as we come more and more to take them easily and with certain pleasures. (Jim’s pleasure in having the dishes done so that I can more easily make meals, or his making meals when I hate it and my doing dishes.) Jim’s varnishing the kitchen table was innuendo attacked when Jane made theirs of rough planks and they pointedly assured us they couldn’t stand a varnished table to worry about! Or let me say if Stan does help in petty things it is as a great and thoughtful favor which he leaves his masterful realm to encounter. It is also not having children which is killing Stan’s soul and a passage of immortality and life process. This they take out on Kitch: saying she looks plump which means “Have you spaded her, vile life-killer?” Which we hadn’t and this puzzled us. There was also the small betrayal on the kitten business; they were promised and saved

39

1956–1968 40

one of Kitch’s. When they came to Flushing111 to see us, and also to take the kitten I thought, Stan sheepishly informed us they had just gotten a kitten—Jane wanted a “real” kitten not one of Kitch’s. The petty things are so distressing because they accumulated over the past year like a great fermenting compost. Who can walk by it now? And it makes us afraid for larger betrayals. When Stan says that thing about Jane having reason to be jealous I tremble for he could be capable of a remarkable sort of lie in which his coveting me, which I never treated at all, not to play that game, may have been handed on a gilt witch platter to Jane to expedite matters with my head on it, mouth open at him! Why not? [. . .] He has a different quality to him now; it is one of a patriarch but not in relation to the child so much as to Jane and to everyone else. The characteristic head gesture of his which I recall was one where he leans slightly forward to you intent and absorbed or speaking, the eyes fastened both inwardly and out to you. Now the eyes are singularly in between, hesitating between subject and object while the head is lifted, inclined up with a removed and yet power-holding attitude. With this gesture and a heavier speaking than usual he says Jane is writing a “popular novel.” And since he regards us rather sternly, we respond as naturally as possible saying be careful it may turn into art, which is just the wrong thing to say and they insist absolutely Not, she won’t make art. While we accept all this (we accept everything they do say so much so that there are no longer excited conversations about anything, but ideas and situations are handed to us with a factual stoney magic). [. . .] They have arrived at a concept of will to life; everyone who dies really wants to, and Jane is working this out for nature also—withering plants wanted to die, their dog (good dog was killed on the road and a nice new one now) wanted to die. We have ourselves talked about this in particular cases but as a generality it is a horror to me; I grant chance or fate the ultimate powers. And so did Stan very very much once; so perhaps this is working out his will to death. But again thinking it in and out was not possible together. But every night we drive home we see the pathetic animals dazed by the car lights, so slightly equipped for THE saving reaction and it is Jim who drives fiendishly around them who saves them. And continually the unspeakable agony of an ant or a fly by chance hurt or trapped struggling, struggling like a person to life. And the plants when the bulldozer came through—trea111. Flushing, New York.

sured plots of wild violets crushed, willing this? But further my sense of tragedy largely has to with the frailty of the body, its incomprehensible vulnerability while the will or spirit is strong as a sun, and how either the nobility of body or spirit or both can be destroyed in an instant (or in endless time) no amount of will to life prevailing—but the will and its process is its grandeur, in the face of impossible destiny. If this will always triumphed life would present, I think, one unending soap opera where even the paltriest spirit and energy “triumphs over enormous difficulties,” or tricks fate, like a Tarzan and a wild boar. It has gotten so I cannot kill an ant walking across my book because I am so in awe of its wish to continue the length of the book, and same with moths and other pests. Anyway it’s all so tiresome. Jim has given it all up as he saw he might have to in the past (Stan’s absurd letter before the abortion and a frantic garbled phone call on top of that) and won’t think about it any more. But I am always gluing broken china together and finding it has a new interest that way; but here I may be working only with snake skins. I do not believe that the positive conditions which “conflict” has afforded Stan is at issue here. It is something worse yes, but why, really does that need to be so. It seems ultimately based on superficialities. We have reacted as little as possible to what to us were artificial “conflicts;” we wish for the old state of mutual intensity and tautness from which we can best generate and focus our strongest feelings and ideas. CS to Naomi Levinson

So much to write that I nearly, with each sentence, abandon the letter with each sentence. Stan and Jane & menage at the end of May here with a struggle-penetrating improvement wracked out between us four. Helped to possibility by bettering of their together life which reveals Jane as richer and finer than she could before express and a warmth between us which should always have been. Their working concept of catching the ghosts of the past which interfere with the present and thereby facing motives which are often disguised destructive forces; “not to destroy the past but to put it back where it belongs.” And from this then that the clarity of true-will create what it really wants—but also that black-will can create what primary motives cannot admit. To the extent that nothing is fortuitous; if you get sick, you want to be sick; if you cannot pay the rent you really do not want to be able to pay it. All

1956–1968

17 July 1959

41

very close to my own way of being except that they carry to the point where there is no “chance/fate,” which I feel as one ultimate shared with a few others, such as time, and personal will to life. Perhaps I mentioned this before but now again since I better understand how it works for them and since it led to startling times for the four of us and then for Jim and me. It prepared the way for real confrontation which started with their visit here and has culminated this last week in Boulder where we spent one intense and exquisitely deep day with them. CS to Naomi Levinson

1956–1968

1 December 1959

42

I am writing from a black time—in itself inaccurate because the sun corresponds to, develops monstrously the darkness in me, the prisons of remembrance without meaning. And why the sun touches what is death, destroys the darkest sources of clarity, deflects my own illuminations, I cannot know but for associations from an ancient child-hood when what seemed most false—evil, threatening, and full of horror was struck clearly by the sun . . . Sun day afternoons of abandonment; the Russian cathedral (being placed by another child on red plush seats, facing an unfathomable Glitter which rose high, growing high, very distant, ominous . . . the altar). The endless treacheries of yellow row houses tottering maliciously over & lawns too steep to climb . . . eight concrete steps to an old lady whose hand I wouldn’t kiss and was therefore punished before her . . . painting forms falling from the picture plane or striking them down and then walking over their sur-faces to reveal, almost embarrassedly their form, the convolutions of energy caught there, dragged from beneath a passive surface. For two days now unable to order my own surfaces; being prey then to a spin of unpredicted sensations, images, being funneled into them so that I would want to call out to Jim—to be restored to a present which acts not only as a screen on which hallucinations hurl themselves, or no, often slowly unreel—like a car without a driver still following the road—a film reel spinning out its independent mechanical act in an empty room. 10 December 1959: [. . .] Being swamped in teaching, writing “Seminar” papers, painting and etching and the convolutions of sensations and difficulties which often stagger between our love and its life here, makes a letter seem paltry . . . futile. I have been reading the letters of Proust; studying a history of snow (Schnee krystalle), photographs of snow crystals, and have in the past week plummeted into a mysterious

world of myth and symbol emerging with a bloody revelation concerning a primordial dualism in the masculine psyche (serpent-son), and the magical act of possession effected by image-making, relating then from the first paintings of beasts to the sustained preoccupations—in time—with the nude, the female form as alternate and how and why “other.” It is not yet clear; intelligence is mediocre faced with organizing mysteries. [. . .] There has been a fine snow; it gives me a complete joy; a soft heavy fall which has made the fields of grasses, the trees thick by the stream wondrous. The cardinals swing on white stems in an atmosphere of sky as land, no perspectives, all immediate white. A magnificent hare came leaping across the snow yesterday. Kitch has wild game of catching the flakes and dancing their falling. CS to Mona Mellis

A fine letter from you and a true one which makes me feel to be answering. Previous ones somehow suspended with a diffused sense coming to me of you so that I could not sense anything in response forming in me. [. . .] The absorption of one identity into another being at best a glorious dream, a romantic fantasy and at worst—what it really is—an economic and social convention. Somehow we have had to and still do, take apart everything “given” explicitly which does not correspond with some implicit sense of truth, truth to us. We do not expect agreement with what we do but we do expect that our principles be respected (even if they may seem madness). And as Stein112 writes about understanding something “And if not why not.” All this leading into your letter; your struggles being as ours are basically; many others are also trying to be this very difficult thing of two people with creative lives in themselves uniquely, sharing this together. I see certain things: that the woman of these couples is always in the position to be “asking;” asking for understanding to really be this complicated person putting art before love, and personal duty before marital “duty;” asking to be loved for herself when the conventions have taught us all that woman is really loved for what she does for man—to sustain him, the family, the nation, etc. etc. but not to create with the will of masculine prerogatives. 112. Gertrude Stein.

1956–1968

2 February 1960

43

1956–1968 44

[. . .] Somehow we should not have to become what we are not— more good, more bad—it all depends on what we really need to be. Two levels of needs though; primary—what we admit we want and secondary—something we may not admit which works against the primary. I have had these straightened out for me very brutally and it is as your letter states, a realization between art and life. When my life was most a nightmare (Wayne’s leaving)113 the art—like a monster—gained a devouring strength for itself, developing in spite of my misery and carrying me along, a crazed puppet: misery “it” did seem to use as would a crippled magician sending a servant into horrors which the magician could then vicariously comprehend, and worse, transform into glorious spectacles. The servant is forever trapped in the wonder role the magician creates. The servant—or life capacity—is tragically replaceable no matter how all art-magician discoveries seem to depend on her . . . no, but the art cannot be replaced or if it dies the servant in us is mutilated and tries always for a double entendre role: to make life an art: to make life like art, endlessly adapting the wild art-magician tricks to temporal utility . . . (they will appear in the soup, in an orderly closet). [. . .] The art-life interaction differs for different ones. For me the best working times lead to the strongest life expressions also. This is not for so for Naomi;114 she says it makes no difference. All extremes seem to be very nourishing for me, all fevers as you say, even fevers of tranquility . . . but that is a strange word and my “fever of tranquility” would appear orgiastic to . . . say, my mother. Well, it is very terrible to “mature,” I hope none of us ever really does this. [. . .] Every day when I drive to the studio the road is studded with carnage and heart twists; yesterday a fine black and white cat, an older one we had noticed on the porch of the farm house many times, split apart, and three miles further a grand sheep dog we often saw playing among the cows and chickens or standing watch in a field of corn, this dog lying nearly on its side as if napping by the fire, but on the very edge of the road and today there is a grave there marked with a stick. Always and always it is so . . . an orange cat also today. And this death of animals is coming into the paintings. The paintings change and I can say very little about how they relate to the past or to the future. But they are no longer forces of nature but rather presences, presences emerging from forces of nature or from unpredicted sources of feeling, and seeing. 113. Wayne Battelle (United States, 1934–98), painter and Schneemann’s boyfriend at Bard College. 114. Naomi Levinson.

CS to Naomi Levinson 5 February 1960

115. “This fire took place in the MFA paintings studios at the University of Illinois,” Schneemann recalled, “which were situated in an old Urbana house.” CS in conversation with the author, 5 June 1994. 116. Etching plates.

1956–1968

I am smoking an enormous cigar, 3 months old—no cigarettes—I found in Jim’s music drawer; he has gone to work in a studio because mine BURNED DOWN 115 . . . yes, it is burned away . . . two nights ago and I was the only one working there every day—it is “Between semesters”— and I left it at ten-thirty wandering the car home thru the highway carnage of cats and dogs, rabbits and birds and grouse and groundhog, and at eleven o’clock it ripped into flames. I am all right because miraculously it spared my studio; paintings were floating on their faces, streaked with ash but intact; the plates,116 the drawings all salvaged but nothing . . . not a dry point needle left for the four who worked on the third floor. He is gone so that I work now in the house, and the two fine rooms which are for painting but this has been a problem for us both to be working here at the same time; it can be fine but more often we need each, an isolation, a space with only our own searchings in it and the anticipation of the presence of the other. [. . .] The morning after the fire I found her (the house) squarely, resistingly set on the lawn, the upper floors a splinter of black wretched beams, crumpled networks of dendrites, stalagmites all in abrupt ruin . . . a crow where there were gables, turrets, sloping eaves and slow wide windows . . . the rose-colored roof burst to bits blown over the lawn. And etchings—from a wound they were caught by the wind and blown endlessly into the mud. With characteristic persistence and irony her front door was solidly intact and needed the key! Inside, mutilation and the steady, eternal dripping of water . . . no other sound and the charred broken obstacles, torn apart walls and ceilings, blackness, putrid (the acrid odor of the fire-like blood, fascinating, revolting . . . very tenacious in memory leading me to the burning room at Bard and I wrote of it to Elsa and she read it to you in the hospital where you were jaundiced, I remember and we hadn’t met). Scraps of paintings like torn flesh floating in the black waters, or caught on fallen beams, yet all so recognizable; within the mutilation the familiar steps, and landings; as if when the sun came out the house would be restored of course, or we would wake up to it as before . . . moving to the Monet tragedy, Gorky’s

45

1956–1968

Charred Beloved, and even Lipchitz’117 losses to fire. It took a day for me to accept the joy of being spared and to realize what was lost. The new place to work a horror, a complete absurdity . . . a pristine refugee center which was a Grocery Store (they were to move in there next fall) an arena, a camping ground without the slightest relief of a stair, a door, a panel and we to be working there, exposed on all sides . . . all making love in a skating rink. My flesh creeps, I cannot imagine lifting a brush . . . And the Sixteen Americans118 . . . I wish I could see these works themselves; the California painters seem incredibly foul to me, a marvel of self-assumed piddle. Schmidt, whom I’v met is an idiot, simply.119 Only the Rauschenbergs120 have the vision of NOW, they penetrate my seeing; I rejoice in them, full with love . . . his sight, seeing is all that, in such a way, can be. You know the hard lesson I hold to, learn from all the time, is that the significant, moving forces of art are never “available,” one can never hold such a work “in hand”; it is difficult, evasive and infinitely rich . . . I feel a tremendous undulation, breathing in such work & there is always a tortuous time until I “know” it . . . it is finally encompassed but never exhausted for me. So this rids me of interest in most of these “things”; I like the Nevelsons;121 close hand packed a magical new quality of a literal enchanted world—not as formally exacting or rich as Rauschenberg—but close in glorifying garbage and waste to a wonderland of inner and outer vision-scapes. And the Lytles122 are good . . . very appealing to me and I wonder about the color, is it fine, is it difficult—but I do not like this painting . . . it belongs too much to the past, to my favored parts of paintings past and when you put it in a book by the Rauschenberg I know which of these searchings leads furthest . . . not the Lytles. Johns123 and Leslie124 interest me . . . kinds of virtuosity and the Stella125 earns a heap of contempt . . . sophisticated impoverishment . . . like the new de-kerneled, de-wheated, de-grained, de-husked, dough conditioned, preservatived, “no-pores” white bread!

46

117. Jacques Lipchitz (Lithuania, b. 1891, Italy, d. 1973), sculptor. 118. “Sixteen Americans,” an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1959. 119. Julius Schmidt (United States, 1923), sculptor. 120. Robert Rauschenberg (United States, 1925–2008), artist. 121. Louise Nevelson (Russia, b. 1899, United States, d. 1988), sculptor. 122. Richard Lytle (United States, 1935), sculptor. 123. Jasper Johns (United States, 1930), artist. 124. Alfred Leslie (United States, 1927), painter. 125. Frank Stella (United States, 1936), painter.

CS and James Tenney to Charles Olson, Fall 1960126

126. Charles Olson (United States, 1910–70), poet and rector of Black Mountain College 1951–56.

1956–1968

18. Carolee Schneemann and James Tenney letter to the poet Charles Olson, fall 1960. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

47

CS to James Tenney 31 October 1960

My love, I am missing you so, write to me until you can touch me.127 I think I am breaking through to become my love for you. So many strange hours: a speech heard on Roth’s128 radio about Cuba, Algeria, Ghana, a speech quoting Thomas Aquinas,129 The Bible, saying “raison d’etre.” [. . .] “To be truly politically free, a country must be economically free” . . . a rebroadcast from the U. N.—CASTRO!130 [. . .] How is your work? How does the landscape transform to winter? I am dancing towards Thursday evening—drawing, reading, letters, nipping the hours in lines until I will lose all sensation in your arms, your eyes. It seems so long that I have been away. Now only let time work for our desire. This room mellows; the bedbugs are subdued. The North light over city noises so easily contained by the room sustains. I anticipate your presence here. I love you, kiss Kitch—she will give a sign of how I want you. James Tenney to CS 3 April 1961

1956–1968

Snowbud—Sweet-love I write now after the third full day of working—but not on the paper— that began to annoy me, infuriate me (you remember my complaints about the language-form being wrong)—sending me finally, dizzily, to the lab to make some noise!131 Nobody was there to invade my ears with inane piano-music, etc., and things began to happen. I had come prepared for it (you’ll understand this when you hear it) but I couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t go like all the fits and starts with equipment etc. that had always happened there before (that is, either I got hung up on a mechanical problem, or the sounds were too dead to keep me going). That was Thursday morning. I was in the lab till late that night, and

48

127. As part of the completion of her masters in fine arts at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Schneemann had a temporary position teaching at its Navy Pier campus. 128. Martha Roth (United States, 1938), writer, married to Martin Roth (United States, 1924), writer. 129. Thomas Aquinas (Italy, 1225–74), Dominican priest, philosopher, and scholar. 130. The Eisenhower administration began unilateral economic sanctions against Cuba on 19 October 1960, imposing a partial embargo that became a total embargo sixteen months later under John F. Kennedy. 131. Tenney worked in a special program for experiments in electronic composition at Bell Telephone Laboratory from 1961 to 1964.

all day Friday. Today (Sat.) the lab’s ugliness became noticeable to me again—but fortunately I had reached a stage where I could bring materials home and do the work here. Now it’s just a matter of a couple of days before this piece will be finished. When I’m not working I feel an unbearable loneliness for you, my love—and I follow you with my thoughts as best I can. I hope Philadelphia is not too bad—nor N.Y. with its old terrors—nor the job-hunting. (Still no word from BTL) It is so very quiet here now at night, and often in the stillness in my ears just before sleep I think I hear your voice, and I speak to you then. And if you’re listening then perhaps you’ll hear me say I love you—love you—love you—and Kitch will meow in her good new voice, and then it won’t be long till you hurry home. CS to James Tenney

I find that I have re-presented, again located spaces of nightmare, (years before a dream premise but that dream has been recast by us, together). I know you understand this and give me all strengthenings, empathy towards what is positive energy for being here. Every moment demands a tremendous effort of Will; heart is with you, with the expanded times of places we found for each other. My love for you has been, in these past four days, so needful; wanting your presence, pressures insisting on your proximity—pressures of sensation, not concrete but that I might hear you move in another room, see you through a door way, even to be frantically separated together in the kind of ceaseless activity. [. . .] Where we are together the world becomes so plastic, tactile that every gesture, the breath of a pore, fart, belch, embrace or insight structures and informs. It is exactly as I have described it before—when we lived in Vermont. I am gorged with dust, with the tears of a middleaged Negro boot black, his hands over his face, the stream of 23rd St. and Eighth Ave. enveloping his bench. I take a walk and men follow me ceaselessly, and the walks are desires to measure and absorb which each turn of a corner ridicules, makes absurd. I am whipped with senses of people senseless, I measure myself into monstrous walls of concrete, wrought iron stairs, railings; the rhythm of walking tears into buses, masses of traffic, someone limping, running colliding. My shape and size are so distended, so battered that small, directed actions in the

1956–1968

19 August 1961

49

1956–1968

studio are performed with vague clumsiness a grotesque slowness. Very little has been done in the studio; even the space here so exceeds my control that every motion for order simultaneously produces chaos and it does now seem like a jungle of works, or materials. That the curator of the Met.132 & the gallery dealer came here Tuesday is strangely unaffecting, all senses hovering wherever I happen to look—in a jar of brushes, under the arch of the cow skull. It is the same with a series of meetings and recognitions which would once have seemed magical while now I watch, detached, cold . . . false magic; turnings of chance whose meanings penetrate as repetition. Feeling this way I exert all energy to disciplines. Disciplines in the search for a job. That is what I do all day; phone booths, buses. I am able to write letters of inquiry but not wash a fork. In the night I read Dracula133 which was under the bed. And the dog upstairs turns over, scratches on the floor, and a rat each night is clawing and scuttling in the walls, in the bathroom? Jimpy and Al are warming;134 very beautiful together. We saw L’Avventura135 last night and the newsreel, a maudlin, blood bursting bath of patriotism, propaganda . . . language of hypocrisy so blatant that the audience hissed and booed. The sense of the end, here strong as it was five years ago, but then fresher, more desperate and Tom136 says his friends have the same conversation over and over . . . “when are we getting out of here” . . . but ten years has made us tired of fighting against shadows for the illusion of a future. Atmosphere of despair and apathy. I am tired to find old fantasies of the city being destroyed while we are separated . . . swimming the Hudson to New Jersey . . . sitting under a bathtub clinging to each moment of consciousness as the walls fall in . . . and so on . . . Or on the other side of the river, bedded down with jars of herbs and yeast pills. I am laughing. Know I can see you, my sweet, image Vermont holding your work with Carl,137 Kitch on your chest when you stretch out in rest . . . your posture at the dinner table, the attentions to Carl intensely in your features. [figure 19] That this miserable time is bearable for me because it

50

132. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. 133. Hamilton Deane, Dracula, The Vampire Play in Three Acts (New York: S. French, 1933). 134. Jennifer Lurie (United States, c. 1934), artist; Al Cooke (United States, c, 1935), artist. 135. L’Avventura, 1960, a film by director Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy, 1912–2007). 136. Thomas Etter (United States, 1938), mathematician and philosopher. 137. Carl Ruggles.

19. Carolee Schneemann and the composer Carl Ruggles, 1961. Photograph by James Tenney. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

has been so before, that I have chosen it . . . that it cannot be worse and will provide for what I expected, in certain ways needed to happen. CS to Peter and Coille Hooven138 Early November 1961

138. Coille McLaughlin Hooven (United States, 1939), ceramicist; Peter Hooven (United States, 1934–91), painter.

1956–1968

The past two weeks held pleasures and incitements of Brakhage being with me. A series of film showings: beautiful new work and the older images showing us in best depth possible how we have really grown,

51

1956–1968

changed. That crucial estimates of memory, of physical fact are capsulated in his work and the three of us139 can reveal in a level of personal experience which the film itself provokes and simultaneously transcends. Beside the private and visual wonders, a flood of social ones— identified with art, struggling to eclipse its own public nature . . . hours and night hours of rooms full, fulsome with the aroma of artists ego . . . 2–7 December: The two things which are not possible for me to do without sustained solitude: drawing and writing letters. The crap which drags after me into this loft: I have four years of shifting, sifting to do in two months. (Even Wally and Jack whirled out of a rainy subway to catch me. Ten minutes later a wild Chicago girl caught our past friendship through a plate glass window at 79th St. and Madison and gave me coffee at Rembrandts, and ten minutes later Ivan Karp said he’d come see my work and by three o’clock John Weber said he was going to look at my work. And then there was still a six-o’clock for Beethoven’s first piano concerto and that means a following, accompanied with Jim and me on the last long drive from Illinois to be here . . . at least those dark hours.)140 Pause John Weber knows you. What do you know about Him? I liked him ... What is your remembrance? So it is that while I went away to see what I had to, elements of this city-life tumbled to change within the same rigid format. DeKooning is down. Kline141 is kicked in the balls . . . NO MORE BALLS . . . not even for Christmas trees this time, baby. The gang, swinging on top of its own scene, has finished with FEELING . . . (it only means feeling themselves up). “Nobody wants to make that scene” . . . “FORM” that’s how you handle yourself at openings, on Long Island concerts, clubs, bars and it is also where you put this effort . . . but effortlessly, man. Several past admirers of Guston have said. “Guston!142 That’s masturbating with paint.” Aesthetic struggles find a social solution. Art is a style of living.

52

139. Schneemann, Brakhage, and Tenney. 140. Wally (Helen Tworkov), founder of Tricycle Magazine, a journal of Buddhist studies, married to the painter Jack Tworkov (Poland, b. 1900, United States, d. 1982); Ivan Karp (United States, 1926), director of O. K. Harris Gallery, New York; John Weber (United States 1932–2008), director of Martha Jackson Gallery before he founded John Weber Gallery, New York. The first piano concerto of Ludwig Van Beethoven (Germany, b. 1770, Austria, d. 1827) was published as Piano Concerto No. 2. 141. Franz Kline (United States, 1910–62), painter. 142. Philip Guston (Canada, b. 1913, United States, d. 1980), painter.

143. The Pharisees were a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple Era (536 BCE–70 CE). 144. Allan Kaprow (United States, 1927–2006), artist. 145. The Black Mass parodies the Christian Mass, including profanation of the host, black candles, the recitation of Catholic prayers backward, and rituals related to sexual practices. The communion is occasionally performed using human blood on the body of a naked woman.

1956–1968

Moments and seasons are churned to activities, locations, and ideas all circumscribed to sustain those artificial hierarchies which may image SUCCESS. What a scene it is. I am like a naïve rag picker sorting through a morass which by sheer quantity burdens all clear principles, defies insistence on quality, qualities. I have spent my last hours at some opening for crap standing like a stony Pharisee.143 I’v never been so out of “it” because I am always out of it but now there is more of it. Then, I am also in another “it” . . . but directly from work & to Rauschenberg, Kaprow144 & a few others which goes into working or could be described in another letter—an aria, while now I have to exhaust this black mass.145 If I write more of the-way-to-art-this-month, you should draw strength from who you are, where you are, how you are. The directive now is to SIMPLICITY . . . it occurs to me that Gargantuan follows the exemplary vision-inversions-retrogressions which we so painfully found at U. of Ill., and in the old days it was the reverse. . . . Has the cycle simply so accelerated that the tail end has the character of the battered head, the head the quality of the tail? There is here a plot of joy over a bland-floating-death for vision, for sensation . . . stuffed, pillowed. At its strongest it moves into language: intellectualized, a concatenation of metaphor, allegory, ravaged emotion, denounced for PURITY . . . “The immediate hereness, thereness, whereness . . . the disappearance of the SELF.” And crazily the purified ones are cursed with the terms—convoluted—of the wild, dirty-eat-paint ones, whom I have yet to mention. Last week: three old friends: each with: twelve blue (grey) canvases: “I’v struggled to find this blue which has no character . . . it asks for nothing: it takes nothing away.” “These circles which you can barely see have no intrusive life . . . my work surprises me; maybe it isn’t art but something else . . . I take a chance.” “A person can look at this or not; look at it and turn away and nothing has changed for them.” Then the LOVE PUKEFUCK SHITSUCK SCHOOL draws sword . . . sword plays. Happenings. Events. Circumstances. Blow up your life. At-

53

1956–1968

tune your senses. Oldenburg’s Store146 full of delicious plaster cakes, dripping enamel; splattered plaster clothes over sized for his wild wife147 who deserves them, dreams them on. Then from the gutting, sweating, kicking happenings, events, accidents, resplendent with paint, glue, dirt, blood . . . and so on, comes the turn to the Happeningin-The-Head. Some good intellectuals, lacking temperament, holding a source of meaning to Cage’s148 way, they evoke objects and situations with a Purity which can only relate to the most hateful group of Abstract-[Expressionists] who now make the all flat no color blue modest rectangles (see above) and look on Pure Happenings—Objects as pure fraud and bereavement. Round and round and no body turns into butter . . . ( just all buttered up). I told Brach:149 “When I see your black hat I think of Feldman.”150 “That’s very funny. For years ago I picked Feldman’s hat for him.” What I describe becomes more aggrieved as the artists are even younger. There was—in the loft across the way, where “lives” a friend not seen since Phila.151 seven years past—a twist party152 to celebrate an opening. Hundreds of young artists twisting, racked to insensate delirium. An insidious German tried to teach me the twist: “Babby, babby . . . cool it, relax babby. Yez, Yez, think that you’re rubbing your azz wiz a tovel.” “I’d rather fuck.” I said. “Sure, sure babby but that’s not kicks . . . this iz better babby, fucking without touching.” I won’t go into the other fringing group exemplified by Lucas’153. . . . jars of pins and razors, pastels of fuzzy female figures doing what homosexuals can do a-bed so much better, now at the Green Gallery.

54

146. The artist Claes Oldenburg (Sweden, 1929) founded “The Store” in his New York studio at 107 East 2nd Street in 1961; there, Schneemann participated in his happenings. 147. Patricia Muschinski (Oldenburg, Mucha) (United States, 1935), artist and wife of Oldenburg, who helped make his sculptures. 148. John Cage (United States, 1912–92), composer. 149. Paul Brach. 150. Morton Feldman (United States, 1926–87), composer, who always wore a black Fedora hat. 151. Philadelphia. 152. Hank Ballard and The Midnighters wrote and recorded “The Twist” in 1958. Chubby Checker made the song famous in 1959, inspiring the dance craze “the Twist.” 153. Lucas Samaras (Greece, 1936), artist.

CS to Paul Carroll154 27 January 1962

154. Paul Carroll (United States, 1927–96), poet, editor, and educator. 155. Margaret Randall (United States, 1946), writer and publisher who founded and co-edited the literary magazine El Corno Emplumado (The Plumed Horn) in 1961. 156. Schneemann refers to an FM radio station. 157. Big Table (1959–60) a poetry magazine founded and edited by Paul Carroll. 158. “The Second Coming,” Schneemann remembered, “was the bold, elegant, avantgarde magazine organized by a bunch of twenty-three year olds in a small apartment near Columbia University.” “It reeked of kitty litter, boiled coffee, was cluttered with books, papers, and overflowing ashtrays. Michael Benedikt, poet and editor, was in charge of literary submissions. I was the editor for fine arts, bringing Susan Sontag into our group, gaining material from Cage and Cunningham.” CS email to the author, 29 June 2004. 159. Samuel Pitts Edwards (United States, 1939), founder of The Second Coming (1961– 63). 160. Jean-Jacques Lebel (France, 1936), artist, poet, and activist. 161. Aimé Césaire (Martinique, 1913–2008), poet, dramatist, and statesman. 162. Henri Kréa (Algeria, 1933), poet and novelist. 163. Benjamin Peret (France, 1899–1959), poet. 164. Alain Jouffroy (France, 1928), critic. 165. Antonin Artaud (France, 1896–1948), poet, essayist, actor. 166. François Dufrêne (France, 1930–82), artist. 167. Jean-Pierre Duprey (France, 1929–59), poet. 168. Richard Maxfield (United States, 1927–69), composer. 169. George Brecht (United States, 1924–2008), artist.

1956–1968

I send you an ancient Christmas card and some note about Oldenburg’s Store. When you come to New York I would hope to see you. I’v been working on a series of boxes—some out of glass and I imagine it would be a pleasure to show them to you. I found a very beautiful poem of yours in The Plumed Horn155 (? was that it?). Also I have curiosity as to how the FM 156 venture develops for you and what of Big Table.157 I have been doing advisory work for Second Coming,158 getting them works by Brakhage, Cage and others. Edwards159 sends best remembrance to you. . . . he is 23, fresh sprung from a Nevada ranch and straight, sincere. Do you do any programming for the f.m. station? Are you interested in tapes: Jean-Jacques Lebel160 reading Césaire,161 Kréa,162 Peret163 and Lebel (o.k.)—Alain Jouffroy164 (fantastic reading, he grows language viscerally into sounding) on Artaud,165 Dufrêne166 (these two are wonderful), Duprey167 and Jouffroy. It is a poor recording but so far as I know no other reading of these poets is available now; we made it last week at The Living Theater. Also availing a large tape collection of contemporary works—electronic: Tenney, Maxfield,168 Cage, Brecht169 and

55

all others. Then I can get a tape of Cage’s Four Simultaneous Lectures170 which is an ecstatic performance. CS to Julian Beck171 March 1962

1956–1968

More people than you may imagine rejoice that you are recovered; that you recover the hood of response-ability by which we learn to choose to act. My own feelings are beyond wording and it is really a dramatic irony that you bore the assault which all who share your beliefs feel. We have been clubbed. Many who participated in the demonstration had no knowledge of the violence and I believed it should be exposed and contacted every source of communication media I could.172 And I hope that was right. The disorganization was incredible; I was trying to put the editor of the Morningside paper in contact with Mike Smith,173 Mark Lane174 and people who were with you in particular. Every one who was in process of doing something protected their “material,” their “witnesses” their meetings and plans. From this I came to feel that it should be possible to have one source of information to represent the plans, activities and experiences of the various “peace” groups . . . a desk for a sort of world secretary, public inquiries librarian.

56

170. Cage composed Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing? and performed this piece as a lecture titled “Four Simultaneous Lectures,” recorded July 1960 and January 1961. 171. Julian Beck (United States, 1925–85), actor and co-founder with the actress Judith Malina (Germany, 1926) of the Living Theatre, an experimental American theater group. 172. This letter refers to protests against the Vietnam War by the Living Theatre, which lost its space at Fifth Avenue and 14th Street when its founders, Julian Beck and Judith Malina, refused to pay taxes to support the war. During this period, Schneemann participated in anti–Vietnam War protests, fought to recuperate files from the offices of the Living Theatre when the CIA confiscated its belongings, and provided training for draft resisters in intensive workshops. Her techniques included “the examination of the psychological origins and depth of personal resistance to militarism, paternalism, and nationalism; sleep and food deprivation (as a way to destabilize codes of masculinity), and extensive psychological focus on forms of behavior that would result in the inability to perform tasks deemed appropriate for fitness in the military. For instance, with one young man the talismanic element of resistance became a woolen cap his girlfriend had knitted for him; concentration on the cap developed so that during induction, he was physically unable to remove this cap.” CS in conversation with the author, 4 February 2006. 173. Michael Smith (United States, c. 1935), journalist. 174. Mark Lane (United States, 1927), defense lawyer who researched the U.S. government’s involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and who opposed the Vietnam War.

There is one other structural need I feel: a school. If it is so that we go to “school” to learn to articulate what we already feel than I believe there should be a consolidation and a throwing open of those precedents of thought and action which we seek individually and often haphazardly. Classes where groups could struggle together with those questions we must be able to answer both privately and publicly. I image a series of seminars conducted by yourself, Judith,175 McReynolds176. . . . Paul Carroll to CS 2 March 1962

175. Judith Malina. 176. David McReynolds (United States, 1929), attorney, socialist politician, and activist who opposed the Vietnam War. 177. WFMT Perspective: The Monthly Magazine of Ideas and the Arts, published by WFMT Chicago’s fine arts station. 178. Claes Oldenburg.

1956–1968

It was good to hear from you; I have always felt a kind of nagging regret that I didn’t see more of you when you were in this part of the country. I like you. I asked Norman Pellegrini, program director here at WFMT,177 if we would be interested in the tapes you mention. “Great,” he said, “ask her to send whatever she can—the French poets being read, the Cage Four Simultaneous lectures, etc.” It would be good of you to do it. When I accepted this position last spring I decided to discontinue publishing Big Table: I knew a great deal of my energy would go into this new publication, which it has, and I wanted time for my own life and writing. Big Table had run its course. Publishing it was a terrific experience, good, and I learned a valuable lesson about freedom: I published nothing I did not consider first rate and even when, on second thought, a particular poem or story seemed not as good as I had originally thought, the decision to print it did not have to suffer from any outside considerations—university faculty board, advertising department, etc. It was the nuts. I am in good spirits, generally, writing, trying to let myself learn something about love. I hope you are happy, in love, working. Message to Claes:178 God looks at the world through rosy colored 5 & 10 ¢ sunglasses, pretending He is NOT blind. My best to you, Claes, and The Store. I will see you next time I am in NYC which I hope will be in the spring.

57

Under separate cover I am sending a copy of our December issue with an interview by James Baldwin,179 which I think is simply 1st rate. Out of the misery of his life—USA Negro, homosexual—he speaks with an almost monumental dignity. I am also sending a copy of the February issue because I have an article in it about George Bellows.180 Enclosed is poem I wrote at XMAS. I hope you dig it. Joseph Cornell to CS 8 May 1962

Should I ever get wind of you life modeling again I think that I might break my taboo against academic training—swiftly enroll! DOUBTS, however, of the vision of last weekend—Persephone181 (includes sister graces, sister sylphs)182 preferred—even being exceeded.183 Should I ever be able to overtake such an elusive ethereality, I’ll wing it your way with a 4¢ stamp doing stint for Mercury.184 CS to Philip Corner 17 June 1962

1956–1968

Just now needing to assure you of what Yvonne185 will tell in other ways of ORDINARY DANCE. (Hopeless pause to word her images and here by chance Brown186 of McClure187 fallen open for gold of that dance): . . . “I expand the face arm nerve muscle of myself to include myself. The step to fill it is easy. Oh all unsimple. Simple. Oh beatened darkness huge and whole.” And that entire black massed audience splintered to each gesture.

58

179. James Baldwin (United States, 1924–87), novelist. 180. George Bellows (United States, 1882–1925), painter. 181. In Greek myth, Persephone was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus who was abducted to the underworld by Hades, God of the dead. A compromise had Persephone spend part of the year with Hades and part with Demeter, and thus she came to represent the budding and dying of nature in spring and winter. 182. The Graces are the beautiful daughters of Zeus and Eurynome who embodied grace and charm. Sylphs are invisible mythological beings inhabiting the air. 183. The day before Cornell wrote this letter to Schneemann, Cornell reflected in his diary that “loneliness is stronger than sex.” Caws, Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind, 293. 184. Mercury, the Roman manifestation of the Greek god Hermes, was messenger of the gods and brought the mortal Psyche (Greek personification of Self, Soul, and Mind) to Mt. Olympus to marry Cupid, the Roman god of love. 185. Yvonne Rainer (United States, 1934), dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker. 186. Trisha Brown (United States, 1936), dancer. 187. Michael McClure (United States, 1932), poet.

188. Molly Bloom is the erotic, concert-singing wife of advertising agent Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). Molly Bloom’s soliloquy is the final passage in the book: “. . . I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

1956–1968

A recognition. Bringing the “house down;” and if a bravo jumped my throat it was followed with roars, a stampede of satisfactions. Do you remember driving out to the country one of those weekends; I talked about white and yellow (gold-lemon) around a dance of Yvonne’s which I projected; scrims, sheeting for a pure, spaceless play of unmottled color—white and yellow planes; no forms but those she might evolve physically. ORDINARY DANCE holding this quality of light (ochre tights, yellow top) maintaining an incredible radiance over that gym-stage–radiators gloating to the left, exit signs to the right, pillars, the choir loft above balanced with a clutter for Sunday pageants. Still, the focus on Y. before white draperies to mark the “stage.” Movement into white light separate and intact from the massed bodies, sweating hot night, stringy hairs, Rauschenberg standing in the pulpit under the cross as opposite pivot if one were to make a head swing. Very few of the other dances held in this way, tending to grow soft; limpid shuffle into audience restiveness, a slack belly into all of us, a contrived movement which might produce eddies of uncrossed legs, yawns . . . So did she write you that this difficult, beautiful work extended what she has done before; an incredible range of evocation all the way from incisive, interior sounding motion to a bright sensuous desire rolled out on the floor. And very difficult with voicing, pacing Place-Names from her past always escaping their own location (the way Proust would burrow and recharge insistent sensation from time past)—not this then, but more some sort of charging forward into immediate time (I thought then of Molly Bloom188 . . . and yes, yes, yes). Simultaneity of branches breaking, crackling down while blossoms shoot forward for a moment of descent. The wonder of the worded banalities become fantastic in their motion and the emotion of the dance felt for what those sounds could never be. Dispersing and building . . . all in the shape of my eye muscle. Pure movement grown from thought behind; the thought in process of reclamation and dissolution! And as always her acuteness; uniquely now the face becoming an organ of gesture—surprising inevitability of each unit in the overall time span. We all missed you there.

59

Both J. and I working well, constantly and all goes so slowly. Several boxes in progress—using clocks now and glass. I have not started yours yet . . . mulling in me and if one not done—to—you by your return you might take a “stand-in.” A yellow and white box from sense of Y.’s dance evolving. Plans also to do in the next few weeks (before we leave for Boulder) a performance of HANDS.189 I think I will do it myself in the rocky sections under this house—I can build fires there and put them out. All in black, hair glued out in the air—what hands do in gloves, mittens, mitts, bags. CS to Jean-Jacques Lebel 19 July 1962

1956–1968

Where are you now? It is a nice current of being fleshed, meat and glad of it that I recall easy between us. So it is in your letter and if you “see” my eyes and neck I feel your eyes—but changing over the weeks in which I rediscover your letter. The larger motions on my days overwhelmed this morning by odors; that is no longer raining and the sap, fiber, flesh of landscape here extends itself in the sun: tar and pebbles melting in the sun. Wind catching grass, leaf, stone smells indiscriminately. I am at Tenney’s now. In a hand hewn house of rock and wood: the fanatic labor of anarchist, miser Jacob Romer,190 dead now and never haunting here as I wish he might. Levels of carvings into this mountain with only a small crest of rooms liveable. For the rest I plan a performance, “Hands” to be blackened, massed in the cave room where I can light fires and put them out. (All in black, crayon face . . . hair glued but in the air and hands in gloves, mitts, mittens, bags . . .) (The Environment at the Living Theatre was fantastic; an absolute equivalence between sensation and image, thought stage and action for me. That is, it became what I most hoped to see.) Yvonne Rainer whose movement and sounds were so crucial has just given a remarkable dance of her own at the Judson. The exhibit did what it oughta— gave a chance for the work to be seen by a small number of people,

60

189. Although she wrote the original score in 1962, and revised it in 1969, Schneemann’s Banana Hands was not performed until 1970 by a school group at the New Milton Drama Center, The Castle, Winchester, Eng­land. “This piece was inspired by the dancers Valda Setterfield and David Gordon, participants in the original Judson Dance Theater. They had an ineffable beauty and presence; just for me to look at them was to have imagery,” Schneemann explained to the author, 19 August 2006. See More Than Meat Joy, 25–31. 190. Jacob Romer, born in Poland in the nineteenth century, built the house in which Tenney and Schneemann lived in Meyersville, New Jersey.

mostly other “painters.” Nourishing for me; some real relief to have the objects presence taken into and away with other eyes. But still a vague hovering of dealers who seem to feel work is too “sensuous, romantic” . . . The grand tide rising steadily here of the dead in life, image as absence, exercise for exorcism, gimmick for struggle . . . you know. CS to Jean-Jacques Lebel 19 September 1962

191. Schneemann’s letter responds to what she described as Lebel’s “idealized, supersexualized representation of women in his work” and was her effort “to displace [Lebel’s] terror of luxurious sexuality.” CS in conversation with the author, 4 March 2006. 192. Schneemann closely studied the theories of the renowned psychologist and biophysicist Wilhelm Reich (Austria, b. 1897, United States, d. 1957) of a primal “orgone energy,” which Reich considered the genesis of individual and collective neuroses that needed to be discharged in sex. Reich’s invention of the “orgone box,” a device to restore sensual energy, came under suspicion of fraud by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which considered him and his theories a social threat and which initiated an injunction against him and the Wilhelm Reich Foundation in 1954. After he lost his court appeal, Reich was sent to a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he died of a heart attack in his cell in March 1957. 193. Schneemann remembers that as a child she had a reoccurring dream of a mustached villain.

1956–1968

Shave away song of castrating women;191 I have been spared that . . . mother HOOD go too and Wifery (gentle repeater-meat cutter). Why can it happen so easily. Read into Wilhelm Reich,192 into and out of de Beauvoir seconded sexus. Isn’t it child-gloss, precocious masochism to search the threat. Does it correspond to my ravishment on railroad tracks—aged to four—mustachioed Villain;193 Train roar heart beat, clitoral sun, cunt of future sands, wheel turning inexorably: Crush Me.? A delicate blunderbuss on the horizon of sensation. (No sense for a girl child to sense strength of cock in her by talcum powdered pee toy boy which mommy—daddy name him.) Positive ions, negative ions—turn the light off—plateau to temperament and the sex of each also, given in flesh to live by. I wouldn’t touch the Creating Identities mesh. Love yes; revelatory as sex is in each, between eyes, jaws, moments of separation. Years of sheeting rolled grass: still mystery. Very practically: mutuality, cherish boundaries, curiosity of respect/aspect—beyond judgment, connivance—not to exact change. Seeing one to the other, really. Don’t you know in minutes who would distort your frame? Did you collage—make other—those real women castrators or aspiring castrators so that they struggle for self-image,

61

assertion, cutting you to be free, to be known? Make clear the natural enemy, no confusion. (Mine all void sources, didactic abnegations, vacuum stances: a younger brother maybe, G. Brecht,194 patriarchs, politicians, publicists, vicarious parasites.) I love who gives light out, lightening, who assumes space, compresses time, fills a room beyond conscious intent: You do—Why do you get hurt? I can’t live by my cherished sickness; that nodule, solar-plexed despair, desire burned to terror. I tried—it tried me: blood spurting from railings, bottles, ashtrays . . . yes, really renewed to it in Chicago and buried again—through with it. Partial eclipse that it is. A sensation of love torment from the past—a self-indulgent thing indeed. Oh, well cherished but put in its place with due respect—no penalty, now as source for expansion which can be lived. (I wanted to be dying by it, but not to die . . . when the gun turned up—he carried in the car—it became banal—he became banal.) I could do that grown through seven years of one crowned over all others: of the past, “medicine beds”—beyond love. They might say “What do you want, power?” Only our bodies meeting as they do. That was good sense, all that was possible in that time, sorrowful time. But fact; men of the medicine beds wanted to be needed beyond our immediate pleasure which fringed the forces of emotion. Joseph Cornell to CS 13 October 1962

1956–1968

Thank you for the offer but please be to no trouble whatsoever about any photo pix present or future. Those bursts like the tel195 talk have an inevitable reaction of disillusion—the little sketch when & if you felt like it would more than suffice—although actually I do not need it in my work. In the meantime you’ll be receiving the ricordanza196 although I fear the very nebulous shorthand copy probably got lost in the shuffle.

62

194. George Brecht. 195. Telephone. 196. The composer and pianist Franz Liszt (Hungary, b. 1811, Germany d, 1886) wrote Etude No. 9 in A-flat, known as the “Ricordanza” (Remembrance), as one of the twelve compositions for his “Transcendental Etudes” (1826–51).

CS to Joseph Cornell 26 October 1962

Here are remains of Lake Champlain hours. You mentioned that they may not be what is needed and I understand. I hope their appearance will not disturb the balance of your quest. Not a question of being “disturbed”—I just haven’t any use for photos or drawings either, THANK you, as it turns out. I have not been able to draw yet: this week—first snow in autumn—the fake emotions, usurpation of Paternity, Black Mass catharsis leaves me walled, (Cuba’ed).197 I hope you are able to sustain your own work with crisis communications banging out every which way. George Brecht to CS198 December 1962

197. Schneemann refers to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which lasted August through November 1962. During this period, she produced works that included torn maps of Cuba layered into panels of black tar. 198. Brecht included in this letter “A CHRISTMAS PLAY for Joseph Cornell,” one of his Event Scores. 199. Schneemann wrote to Brecht, a chemist by training, to inquire about repairing works burned in a fire in her studio in New York that occurred on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated: “I had been creating a series of constructions through a process of controlled burning in 1961. I took small sturdy boxes, painted them, and built layers of glass collage inside them. They were adhered with epoxy resin and stuffed with straw. I poured turpentine on the straw, threw in a match, and slammed the lid on it. They were frightening and risky because sometimes the fire would throw the box across the cement terrace; I made these outside. The resulting small conflagration heated the adhesive, which positioned the layers of glass and mirror, so when I opened the box and extinguished the fire, the fire had created the configuration in the box. This day [22 November 1963], I was burning the wooden edges of ‘Four Fur Cutting Boards’ [in my studio] with a blowtorch. Fragments of wood fell down onto a pile of straw. I immediately threw my water canister on the fire, which instantly flared out of control. I had mistakenly thrown the just-cleaned-out turpentine canister onto the fire! By a completely strange coincidence, a fire truck was parked in front of the loft. I screamed down to them, black smoke billowing behind me. They were in the loft within moments with axes, hatchets, and retardant foam. More terrible than the fire was their assumption that all the works looked at if they should be smashed with their axes. They put out the localized fire as the sprinklers sprayed through the loft drenching all of us: the works and Kitch who insisted on observing this disaster from the bookshelf.” CS in conversation with the author, 18 January 2004.

1956–1968

Sorry to hear of the fire.199 If the carbon particles are not loose enough to brush off with a camels-hair brush it probably means oily residue is making them adhere to the paper. You could try mineral spirits, benzine, odorless thinner, or something similar. But you may have to accept some smudging, since some very small particles will get between the

63

paper fibers, unless the paper was previously shellacked, or otherwise coated. Good Luck! CS to Hannah Arendt 200 ca. 1963

1956–1968

Every wish for your return to good health and vitality. I am forever a student of Heinrich’s;201 you and I have met briefly but I know you best by your writings and by Heinrich’s happiness. Your accident was especially horrifying to me because of a premonitory dream I had the night before. In that dream a tall, thin woman I admired very much and did not know well told me she would not be able to do as she had planned nor could she see me again for a prolonged time. The quality of the scene implied incalculable trouble from some external force. And the sensation of the dream bothered me the entire 19th so that I was worried and my concern centered on my god-mother, whose birthday it was, and on Louise Varèse.202 I spent the morning trying to reach the two women. At the birthday dinner for my god-mother203 that night I was reassured about her and finally spoke to Louise Varèse. After the dinner I happened to pick a newspaper from a garbage can and brought it to my loft—its cover was of the accident. The yellow bird is from “Charlie,” a Polish refugee whose shop is an inundation of every possible artificial flower; he loves them for their lasting quality! (Cézanne cursing his still life of peonies when they wilted midway in his study from them.) Charlie sends this bird as “symbol of smart good hope.”

64

200. Hannah Arendt (Germany, b. 1906, United States, d. 1975), political theorist. In this letter, Schneemann alludes to an accident suffered by Arendt: she stepped off a curb and was hit by a car. 201. “Heinrich Blucher was the inspirational cultural-philosophy teacher at Bard College,” Schneemann has noted, “who founded ‘The Common Course.’ His lecture discussions utterly transformed his students’ awareness of history and self-determination. He never wrote for publication, while his life partner, Hannah Arendt became renowned . . . As a young Christian social activist, Heinrich—at great risk—facilitated escape from Nazi Germany of Jewish musicians, artists, and writers.” CS email to the author, 5 July 2004. See Hannah Arendt, Heinrich Blucher, Lotte Kohler, and Peter Constantine, Within Four Walls: The Correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blucher, 1936–1968 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 2000). 202. Louise Varèse, wife of Edgard Varèse (France, b. 1883, United States, d. 1965), composer. 203. Eve Bailey Lerner.

CS to Jean-Jacques Lebel 18 January 1963

204. Schneemann reports on the party she threw after an abortion in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 205. The catalogue for Francis Picabia (Spain, b. 1879, France, d. 1953), artist, was Jean-Albert Cartier’s Picabia (Marseille: Presses municipals de la ville de Marseille, 1962). 206. Kurt Schwitters (Germany, b. 1887, Eng­land, d. 1948), artist. 207. Hermann Scherchen (Germany, b. 1891, Italy d. 1966), conductor. 208. In 1954, Scherchen founded an acoustic research laboratory in Gravesano, Switzerland, with the support of UNESCO. 209. Ileana Sonnabend (also known as Ileana Schapira, Romania, b. 1914, United States, d. 2007), director of the Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris. 210. Leo Castelli (also known as Leo Krauss, Italy, b. 1907, United States, d. 1999), director of the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York City. 211. Martha Jackson (United States, 1907–69), director of the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York City. 212. Richard Bellamy (United States, 1927–98), director of the Hansa Gallery and founder of Green Gallery, New York City.

1956–1968

Finding this letter to you of months past; can you recall how it takes on your wording of misery of a new cycle. Where have you come to now? For myself an indescribable glut of crisis, slow motions and scenic involvements. Too much to capsule now. Extremes: explosive bash of a festivity two days after end of needless fertility204—the underworld horrors, weeks of searching help and high energy of return to my work. Illumination of Puerto Rico, flood light on thighs; strength of a veteran to explore the streets of old San Juan and what little national expression exists in our comfortably strangled plantation colony. [. . .] Your letter here. Yes, send me catalogue of Picabia show.205 A very lovely Picabia, Schwitters,206 Duchamp exhibit on at Alan Gallery now. Claes into big time, working well. That “ole gang” sort of shifting hands and faces now, new alignments week by week and the shaking social ladders of making it making more than it should. Now a possibility to Europe for next year. Tenney is invited by Scherchen207 for work at Gravesano lab208 and if he gets a grant I may be able to take passage also and the cat. But really needing entrenchment in N.Y. for a few years more—beginnings are continual there for me and stretch towards some ballast seems close . . . but eclipsed by leaving, I see that over and over for others. Would you have any ideas for job— teaching and wild, electric pace it takes by my eyes—in Europe? For Gallery? Theater? Little Ileana209 has a folder of my photographs which I’d like you to have. Do you see her? If yes ask for them—she don’t want em anyhow and keeps some butterflies pressed between 8 x 10 frame compressions. Castelli,210 Jackson,211 Bellamy212 et. al. showing

65

stuff with the zing and laughter of an infant’s sleeping cock. Dreary. With newspapers out for month (what blessings—possible to resist context of conditioned horrors, manipulations) slow songs from Washington take Women’s Strike for Peace213 in House UnAmerican Activities,214 now Pacifica Foundation215—WBAI,216 KPFA217 and I’m fighting madly on that . . . setting up petition lineaments. I’ll send you the statement going out to Sen. Keating218 and if you want, have sympathetic grouping with knowledge of this you might add on a pressure link. Allan Kaprow to CS 4 February 1963

What’s happened to Second C.219—are they ever going to publish? JeanJacques Lebel wants to know about his piece. What of my photos? Can’t seem to reach you by phone. Liked your happening at Judson!220 Allan Kaprow to CS 5 March 1963

1956–1968

I was busy Sunday AM giving a lecture on Pop Art so I couldn’t call. I have tried you since with no luck. Best you call me most evenings except Tuesday. If I’m not in, tell Vaughan221 when I can call you. When is Second Coming coming? What do you refer to when you ask, “How come you get a Lincoln with a bowed head?” P.S. Your copy of my drawing was very good!

66

213. The group Women’s Strike for Peace protested nuclear weapons testing and was co-founded by the feminist activist Bella Abzug. 214. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was founded in 1947 to investigate communists in the U.S. government. Among other activities, HUAC blacklisted the “Hollywood Ten,” screenwriters, directors, producers, and actors, sentencing them to prison for contempt of Congress. 215. Pacifica Foundation, a nonprofit, alternative, free speech radio station founded in 1946. 216. Community Radio WBAI, New York. 217. Community Radio KPFA, San Francisco. 218. Kenneth B. Keating of New York served in the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1965. 219. Second Coming. 220. Judson Church. 221. Vaughan Rachel, artist and photographer, was Allan Kaprow’s wife at the time.

plate 1. Carolee Schneemann, J. T. & Kitch, S. Shaftsbury, Vermont, 1958,

oil on canvas (31″ × 42″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

plate 3. Carolee Schneemann, Portrait of Jane Brakhage, 1958, oil on canvas (36″ × 32″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

(opposite) plate 2. Carolee Schneemann,

Colorado House, 1958, plywood base, wood, wire, fur, bottles, fabric, broom handle, flag, photographs (61″ × 47″ × 29″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

plate 4. Carolee Schneemann, Mill Forms—Eagle Square, 1958, oil on canvas, (36″ × 44″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

plate 5. Carolee Schneemann letter to Jean-Jacques Lebel, 22 April 1964. Courtesy of Jean-Jacques Lebel Archive, Paris, and Carolee Schneemann.

plate 6. Dorothea Rockburne on the cover of Border Crossings: A Maga-

zine of the Arts (winter 1998) with photograph of Schneemann’s Meat Joy, 1964. Courtesy of Border Crossings and Carolee Schneemann. Photograph by Al Giese. Permission by Meeka Walsh.

(opposite) plate 7. Carolee Schneemann, still from Fuses, 1964–67, a self-shot 16mm, 18-minute, silent film of collaged and painted sequences of Schneemann and her husband, the composer James Tenney, making love as observed by their cat Kitch. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

plate 8. Carolee Schneemann, “Genital Play Room I,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966, watercolor and ink on paper (21 1/2″ × 18 1/4″). Courtesy of P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York.

plate 9. Carolee Schneemann, “Genital Play Room II,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966, watercolor and ink on paper (26″ × 26″). Courtesy of P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York.

plate 10. Carolee Schneemann, “Guerilla Gut Room,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966, watercolor and ink on paper (22 3/4″ x 34 1/4″). Courtesy of P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York.

plate 11. Carolee Schneemann, “Liver,” from Parts of a Body House, 1966, watercolor and ink on paper (27″ × 26″). Courtesy of P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York.

plate 12. Carolee Schneemann, Plumb Line, 1968–71, Super 8 film, step printed to 16mm, color, sound, 15 minutes. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

plate 13. Carolee Schneemann, Nude on Tracks, 1974, body action on railroad tracks

in Springtown, N.Y. Hand-tinted prints on archival paper, 11ʺ × 15ʺ (printed 1986). Photograph by Charles Stein. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

(facing pages) plate 14.

Carolee Schneemann, details from ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards, 1976, artist book with 158 note cards, photographs, and text, in a boxed edition of 151, published by Brummense Uitgeverij Van Luxe Werkjes, in Beuningen, Netherlands. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

plate 15. Carolee Schneemann

creating Hand/Heart for Ana Mendieta in Springtown, N.Y., 1985. Photograph by Dan Chidester. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

plate 16.

Carolee Schneemann, Hand/ Heart for Ana Mendieta, 1985, chromaprints, paint with blood, ashes, and syrup on snow (central panels); acrylic paint, pencil, crayon (side panels) (each unit 22″ × 57″; total size 154″ × 57″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

detail of plate 17.

Detail of Schneemann, Infinity Kisses I, 1981–87.

(opposite) plate 17. Carolee Schneemann, Infinity Kisses I, 1981–87; self-shot photo-grid (84″ × 72″). Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

(facing pages) plate 18. Carolee Schneemann, Video Rocks, 1987–88, multimedia installation with two hundred hand-cast rocks (cement, glass, ashes, wood), five video monitors, ten Plexiglas rods with ten halogen lights, two-channel video of feet walking on rocks, painting, acrylic on paper (5′ × 20′). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

(facing pages) plate 19. Carolee Schneemann, Jim’s Lungs,

1989, twelve panels with ink, paint, chalk, photographs (43″ × 64″). Photograph by Marc Bernier. Courtesy of P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York.

plate 20. Carolee Schneemann, Vesper’s Pool, 1999–2000, multichannel video and

installation with wall niches containing found objects, photographs, and diary excerpts. Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio. Photograph by Ansen Seale. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

CS to Yvonne Rainer

Good morning! Thinking why you-for-rooster-madness and now it is snowing. Most simply: STANCE . . . but I can’t begin there. A given visual image, as distinct from mental image: a group of dancers/performers standing at ease. Individual body contains, projects its potential energy, a very particular articulation of weight, mass, contour within space all determined by structure, by the proportions structure gives. I assume an aim for extremes; for expressive control in areas of movement both likely and unlikely for a given body. Any movement appears to be the quality of its physical source—intuition is only what is done, how it is possible at all. (A small compact body will not cut space with propulsion of a long, thin limbed body.) The feet maintain connection, support the beginning, the ending of weight. The body will return to its vertical. Axis can be described; I can’t describe the variation of axis from one body to another . . . it is felt. The body is a unit. (I would like the arms to fly out of the sockets, the head to levitate a few feet above the shoulders . . . to the left . . . to the right and Spin around!) Then the face: plastic concentration of expressive details—psychological focus. (Have the body grin, wink, stare, subdue a question.) Glass fragments for a construction. The green glass: bottle shoulder, curved edge, three raised letters COI. Can’t place it where the rectangular brown fragment is placed, each moving to its particular function . . . not interchangeable. Where I need an arched strip of wood I do not put a vertical strip of wood. Visual Projection, a piece for theatre/dance, may develop for/from performers (core material). While an environment sustains a basic image realization (I account for its complexities, determine its variables). Performers then are complementary to it. With a set environment the use of performers can be unpredictable, random . . . they function as delineation, dialogue, inclusive detail. Begin with performers and a piece is cast to time, growing by the look of them; how one is not the other . . . what they set off as image, as metaphor. Aspect. Sensation grows from presentation of material. Use anything/anyone but

1956–1968

19 March 1963

67

1956–1968 68

once chosen, boundaries chart proceeding . . . form then committed to possibilities of boundings, bindings . . . a dream moving in on itself. Rooster. Rooster music has greater dramatic variation than chicken music. Figure of independent movement. Continually in quest. Standing self-absorbed . . . something about the floor . . . the look of it . . . not grass, not water, not a hand. Following slow motion of eye passage— crack between boards—walking into minute space may be the sense . . . that the body could be where the eye is, actually! All withheld to this. Consciousness of looking down draws energy into stance. Walking chickens. The floor patterns are set by where you need to be. Head moves to free itself from eye peel: quick succession of staccato head assertions and the arms begin to grow rhythms against this head, (eyeful). Squawk could be breath release on tension between head-arm movement. And quickening. Independence of head from arms and neck provoke the feet, the knees . . . they are lifting . . . jumping . . . fingers fly apart. (A bird can fly . . . a rooster flies a little more than a man can.) A way of becoming another source of energy; its necessity takes on our own aroma, hue. Strangeness of exceeding, incorporating banality of chicken feet image (in soup, in chicken shit, in pebble, grass, a wood railing edged by them). Flapping wings, flapping arms. Indulge it: flapping, squawking, flying, screeching, scratching. No more space. All time time drawn into rooster (figure of independent movement, eh?). This ends the piece. Why you to do it. What I mentioned about the goose on stage, in fright during concert, and your turn to help it, that you assumed its gestures, and its intent. Range of energy you control is what I see for this part and No One else has a comparable range. That the imaging of rooster dance evolved from sense of your particular qualities (eyes, ears, knees, nose and throat . . .) or some aspect of them relating to something I want to see! and this turns then to the first notes here. The other parts in this piece which I’v noted for you—the top, walking-writing backwards, the ballet run through—could be given to somebody else if that would conserve any time for your other work. Finally I don’t know yet if this piece will work at all.222 I may chuck it . . . I don’t think so though. But it really is only alive in my head at this point. What I hope is that we can run through it in workshop before you decide Yes or No.

222. This work became Schneemann’s Chromolodeon, 1963.

James Tenney to CS

From a long letter to my love to begin on her birthday. Hello! I have only just left you again, to travel back through hardedged, hostile space to this portion of it I must inhabit so much of the time. That other portion—yours—seems from here very warm and soft by any comparison. And it is that; how my senses revolt within me when the time comes for me to relinquish it, though I know (and do keep reminding myself of this, for comfort) it is only temporary. Or when, differently, you are the one leaving, carrying away with you the qualities of your space, leaving with me only what has been absorbed into my own body, and that so quickly—cruelly—dispersed. I ask myself, how can this separation be made less separating, less dispersive. What is needed? Perhaps my own space needs warming some way, from within, and then outward, expanding, reaching out across these miles to touch yours, retain that contact. But I don’t really know how to do this. Better, that I should face the more critical problems that arise even when we are not separated that way, when only the feelings are. Curiously, there too, a warming and expansion of my own internal space would do what is needed. I am learning, slowly, and changing. I am hopeful, and would like you to be hopeful—to have patience with me, and with yourself, when the coldnesses set in, drying us up, separating us. Try to think of the best we have, to hold onto that image, those images. Because that is at least a beginning—a good beginning, and not an end. Think of the best we have known with each other, in each other, the best we have found there. And then imagine this as a beginning only. Imagine that this best be expanded greatly, the worst shrinking, finding less room to thrive. What might we discover then—with each other, in each other. There need be no limits to this. I become, daily, more convinced of this. Just as we use only a small fraction of our brain-capacity (as the scientists tell us)—so—so (what was I going to say?) so we only use a small fraction of our capacity for love and joy, surely. 25 November 1963: (Yes, that was it. I don’t know why I stopped— probably some trivial thing of the moment—must have expected to continue it soon. So these pages rode around in my pocket all these weeks! Mutely. Perhaps I never got back to it because of the sense of crisesjust-past that is behind them—I may have wanted more to tell of my

1956–1968

11 October 1963

69

love without that shadow. I see now this was a mistaken, because unnecessary. The shadow makes the light brighter by contrast. In any case, reading it tonight, I feel still very close to those words, and you should have them to read, too. And I will send them now—not such a very long letter as I must have had in mind—because (it being my way) I would never finish it.) Happy Birthday! (all our days) Joseph Cornell to CS 16 January 1964

Enclosed 2 shadows. We have a spare room that is available for the right person to take over on a part or whole time live-in basis. This is realistic, much more urgent than the “tableaux” although how beautiful it might be if there didn’t have to be any too fine a line drawn. Should you be able to forward pix of a poetic potential I’d like to work up some collages perchance a new vein or direction/young blood— dancers, models, etc.223 Joseph Cornell to CS 22 January 1964

1956–1968

A black look from Caliban224 emerging from the grotto didn’t cancel out the pungency—in the creeping up of the business hour bustle—skirting it enroute home with treasure for Ariel—remembering courtesies of the sister-sylphs, the grotto nymph . . . [figure 20]

70

223. “Joseph was utterly phobic of any overt sensuality, of blood, live organs,” Schneemann has observed. “He was in my opinion a blessed, enchanted necrophiliac. Each young woman friend had to appear in a ballerina sort of skirt and slippers. Tactile, fetishistic, haunting encapsulations of sensations and memories were meticulously boxed—metaphors, which occluded the forbidden embodiments of his own physical experience. Without threatening the friendship, there was no possible way that I could show Joseph “Eye Body” images . . . with perhaps the exception of one of the most delicate ones in which I am combined with fur. Maintaining this magical relationship required a complete suppression of my life with Jim, [who Cornell called] “Mr. Tenney,” and avoiding any mention of my actual erotic visual works. His relationship to his crippled brother Robert was devotional and possibly erotic. Certainly there have been powerful negative ‘inspirations.’ The fragile, Victoriana of Joseph’s sensibility could be considered a source of contrary inspiration—how can I open Pandora’s box! How to release these sensitive atmospheres into an embrace of heat, blood, lubricity— overt arousal.” CS in conversation with the author, 5 July 2004. 224. Caliban, the deformed son of the witch Sycorax, and a character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, attempts to rape Prospero’s daughter Miranda in the play.

225. Cornell’s letters contain esoteric meanings and references that Schneemann did not understand then or now. She notes that many of the names in his letters were “fantasy girls.” “Debbie,” however, may be the dancer Deborah Hay (United States, 1941), whom Schneemann recommended to Cornell “as an actual beauty.” CS in conversation with the author, 10 April 2004. About her own visits to Cornell, Schneemann recalled: “He would have everything set up like a little tea party, and it would be enchanting, something out of a poem. But he’d get very upset if I’d say anything real.” Caws, Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind, 202. 226. Cornell noted in a 1964 diary entry: “‘collage’ = life.” Caws, Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind, 311. 227. A bright red bird with black tail and wings that Cornell collaged onto the letter obscures the fourth-to-last word in this sentence. The bird appears to be a male Scarlet Tanager. This visual reference may be a rebus alluding to male/female contact that continues the vernacular identification of female genitalia as “muff,” or “a nest for the mating bird.” The Scarlet Tanager’s colors change throughout the year: red and black in spring, red in summer, and muted in the fall and winter. Relatively inactive, the Scarlet Tanager is usually located by its song, characteristics consonant with Cornell’s own hermetic behavior. On Cornell and birds, see Diane Waldman, Joseph Cornell: Master of Dreams (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002). 228. Cornell may mean “maybe” with this use of capital letters.

1956–1968

Debbie225 (she contacted me; something went awry: she hasn’t shown up according to date; don’t know yet about it—she sounded so darling, enthusiastic, etc.) . . . and yet . . . so wonderous the expectancy . . . a collage resulted . . . cont.226 (continued) only a crowded mood ran so much into identifying Ariel . . . I heard from a mutual friend (not Tenney) that you had been trying to raise money for your trip . . . Would you allow me to wire you at least $250 “noblesse oblige” . . . for the very (lovely) inspiration of the week-end? It would be “for services rendered” just as much as n.o. and I am still very much your debtor. You just simply cannot imagine what a grace was wafted over the phone with Debbie’s call, at high noon, and how it sent me into town on wings and brought me back just as ethereally . . . catching up that “total drama” you mentioned, the “child-*body” with her muff revealed afresh . . . now I pen.227 Love, Joseph *Debbie is the “fawn”—I believe—just now after research (Yvonne Rainer) fawn’s number to hand & shall call her this evening—from experience I’m reconciled to whatever happens—“it is more than the clasping of hands or a loved person present, it is a spiritual idea that lights your path.” M. BE.228

71

20. Joseph Cornell letter to Carolee Schneemann, 22 January 1964. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

1956–1968

in Vogue came across adv. for “little girl’s at-home muu-muu of quilted cotton”229 am not feeling too sure about ever being able to get into town with enough leisure for the drama & feel very far away from just a week ago with it’s “bursts” (the trio sending) & so regardless wd like to express my gratitude with enclosed for your friend230

72

229. This fragment and the following two additional fragments appear in the letter as partial sentences, each on their own slip of paper. “Adv.” is an abbreviation of “advertisement,” and “Muu muu” is the name of a popular tent-like dress of the period that followed traditional Hawaiian women’s attire. 230. “Wd” is an abbreviation for “would.”

thank you kindly for your trouble—please be to no further unless it’s really not a chore.      best, j. CS to Jean-Jacques Lebel 1 March 1964

hola Jean-Jacques::::::got yours also—peppermint and bullet; vitality, fire light, the forbidden desires and yes, naiveté, are going forward for your effort and it is a tremendous undertaking. Everyone I’v spoken to is willing to help me raise the money to come and rebounding further so that Second Coming will consider using an article (when you or someone can create it) on the Festival.231 Kaprow is going to try to have the Eng­lish Grove Press man sponsor him a voyage to Eng­land which would include time for work at the Festival. I’m trying every possibility—and they increase rather than diminish so far—to get coverage for the Festival. If you have time I’d suggest you write, when the catalogue is done, to Otis C. Guernsey at Show Magazine, 140 E. 57th St: rumor is he might be inclined to do some pieces on happenings and an international situation should appeal to him. I’ll contact him also. Erró232 is of great help to me; I’m performing a sequence of images he’ll photograph tonight—they relate to the “Meat Joy” piece and will be sent on to you, end of this week, for any use you might have of them. 1 March 1964 Title of work: “MEAT JOY”

231. Schneemann refers to the first Festival of Free Expression organized by Lebel, which included happenings, poetry, music, film, and other arts. The festival took place in 1964, 1965, and 1967. 232. Guðmundur Guðmundsson (Iceland, 1932), artist, also known first as Ferró and later as Erró. He photographed Schneemann in her Eye Body series of photographs. Schneemann explains that she began the preparatory drawings for this series in December 1963, and he photographed the action in March of 1964.

1956–1968

About thirty minutes; depending on your programming this can be extended or compressed—I’d like as many performances as possible for this particular work or others. Most of my happenings are dense and repeated viewings are called for and then I like to live in a vision naturally reached far beyond where other pressures evolve. I hope you will be able to provide something for materials—about thirty dollars would do; it might be possible that certain materials can

73

be shared on different works. If you do get some backers it will be to their credit to assure us what we are normally assured—some funds for materials. Basically I’ll need a quantity of plastic sheeting, grease and poster paints, a large mirror; most of the objects can be found (tables, ropes, assorted debris, clothing) but certain details usually add up, especially since I’ll be starting to work without basic equipment—the brushes, glue and homely refuse used repeatedly here. Jean-Jacques Lebel to CS ca. March 1964

1956–1968

Got your letter. O.K. I won’t go into any details about the crazy combat of Paris, but, you know, as bad as N.Y. is for people with visions, Paris is worse. It’s old & stale. That’s why this Festival of Free Expression must work out in May. It will probably take place at the American Artists Center in a 400 seat room, using the environment of the exhibition for happenings, concerts, movies, theatre, etc . . . I will have the final answer this Friday and will let you know as soon as possible about further arrangements. But one thing is sure: we have no money. I’m running around like a jaguar trying to find money for a good catalogue. The participants will have to pay their own way and their own expenses. But if it works out, for the second year I have been promised important financial backing. At last a really international avant-garde festival. Your project sounds excellent, it is perfect for the festival. If all goes well, I suggest you arrive at least 15 days ahead of time to prepare it. I think it should be put on twice (the festival lasting 10 days in all) or perhaps 3 times. We’ll see. If you are looking for a cheap way to come over try Islandic [sic] Airlines. They are half price. May is the best time because everybody stops in Paris on their way to the Venice Biennale. Did you see current issue of Vostell’s233 magazine Décollage?234 It’s all on happenings, excellent. Meat Joy sounds good and infernal. Great blood filled lungs and other things swinging into the beholder, well well, you are becoming tantric and tibetan . . . rising, falling . . . who could ask for anything more as Dizzy used to sing?235 If you need recruits from here

74

233. Wolf Vostell (Germany, 1932–98), artist. 234. Vostell edited the journal DE-COLL/AGE : Bulletin aktueller Ideen (1962–69). 235. Lebel refers to the last line—“Who could ask for anything more?”—of George Gershwin’s song “I Got Rhythm” as played and sung by Dizzy Gillespie.

for your visual dramas, you must let me know in advance. They are few & far between. But anyway VENCEREMOS.236 Love & all, J.J. Who the fuck is this? Leo Castelli?237 Jean-Jacques Lebel to CS ca. March 1964

236. “We shall vanquish,” from the Spanish vencer, meaning “to surmount” or “to vanquish.” 237. Next to this closing remark is the stamp issued in 1936 by the United States Postal Service to commemorate Sam Houston, who is depicted wearing cowboy attire and sporting a rifle. Samuel Houston (United States 1793–1863) was a senator, politician, and soldier who played a key role in the liberation of Texas from Mexico and the only person in U.S. history to have been the governor of two different states—Tennessee and Texas. Leo Castelli was a powerful art dealer in New York. 238. Allan Kaprow. 239. Lebel recalled: “About 15 artists (Carolee, Daniel Pommereulle, Fréderic Pardo, myself, etc . . .) were indeed invited to London for a giant happening (composed of excerpts form the Paris Venue [of the first Festival of Free Expression]) by the theatre producer Michael White (who had made a fortune with ‘Oh! Calcutta’ and who rented a large space, Dennison Hall, for us and paid our train tickets). It was called ‘Collage’ and made a tremendous splash. Kenneth Tynan (the famous theatre critic) and Peter Brook (the Marat-Sade genius) attended amongst hundreds of others. The evening lasted till 3 AM next morning. At a party afterwards, at Michael White’s home, Peter Brook and Ken Tynan told us: ‘What you

1956–1968

Unicorn! UNICORN—thank you for your meat joy tenderloin revolutionary peace-totem black magic Pearl Harbor. Must I Hiroshima, now? This Festival, it seems, is going to be a 10 day psycho-physical flash, the gathering of these mental worlds into one (river)bed is going to create an ascending torrent that will probably end like a sun ceremony, with human sacrifice and general illumination. Of this it appears now that you are one of the vital poles Carolee and I take 2 minutes off from the (interworld) electric congress to tell you how content I am to be seeing you again with and without your Apache organs. I shall send you details of program as soon as we have structured them, we now have about 6 psycho-events planned + show + Jazz + movies. Great to hear Allan might come over too.238 Bear in mind that we shall probably be invited to London after the Festival to repeat it (or continue it) there in pretty good conditions, we’ll probably even make some loot there too, which won’t do any harm to our mouths.239 Now, practically speak-

75

ing, it will be as tight as usual but we shall manage (as usual), you can most probably stay with friends here instead of hotelling and eat flesh instead of meat. Luxembourg is a garden (somewhere on the Rhine) where planes land and where Paul Valéry used to take his dog to piss every morning. I just finished a book “La Perception de l’Image” about happenings and collage but I am afraid I’ll have to write all over after the Festival!240 See you soon, witch. I lick thee. What eyes!!241 CS to James Tenney 9 May 1964

1956–1968

Cat like (that consistency, paste -) not really at work yet: Every Thing is chopped up here in delicious bits. That is, I am still utterly unable to find my way home (my usually strong feeling for directions shows no promise); I ask basic questions with an accent that makes everyone assume I can manage to say anything I want to and that I understand them . . . but I can’t, I don’t. Some utter psychic disorientation cored in sexual hunger and pain—The old body makes no adjustment to circumstance, sexually—fantastic! Eating, sleeping, crapping have all taken new cycles, patterns with some utilitarian pleasure—as I learn to handle door hinges, bells, gates, steps, stones, phones, light fixtures which are unlike anything I’v known. A good place to live, simply that. Sweet air, clean light, a warming sun—all smells distinctive, edged; beautiful food any place you go, fruits & vegetables fresh and flavorful— grown in manure, unsprayed I think. So, my hair is growing, my skin is fresh, I feel strong . . . and miserable! The romance of Paris is in its historical past and its continuing physical beauty. I don’t see greater “joie” here at all—the movements of life are more charming, lyrical, pleasant but within the traditions of sexual drama a gloss of impotence and emotional absence as real & deadly as

76

did tonight is going to revolutionize the theatre.’ Coming from them, that was quite a statement. It turned out to be true. But, of course, that was only a very tiny part of what we had set out to revolutionize, since we aimed for the entire social structure not merely the entertainment industry. Our ambition was to materialize four years later in May ’68, if my memory is correct! By the way, Michael White writes about ‘Collage’ in his memoirs.” Jean-Jacques Lebel, email to the author, 6 August 2008. 240. “La Perception de l’Image” was the working title of Lebel’s book Le Happening (Paris: Denoe, 1966). 241. This letter is decorated with what appears to be a Venus image accompanied by symbols such as scales, both associated with the Zodiac sign of Libra, Schneemann’s birth sign. Lebel connects this image to a piece of paper with Schneemann’s signature.

it is anywhere in the world now. That love is rare—among couples I meet here, who in some specific ways correspond to our friends. There is rarely a strong tenderness and free appreciation for one another. [. . .] Strange also, I don’t long for you to be here, I don’t think you would like it! But then my focus is on work and all my joys have advanced from small confusing steps by which I do manage to secure rehearsal time, select performers from a crowd with a cunning loving instinct. Next week I’ll see Xenakis242 and that might balance perspective from seven days away from the intensity, energy and seriousness which are natural to us and here, soft, sweetly dying or playing strangulation (paradox & parable) games of artifice or an endless process towards intellectualization closing hours in coffees, drinks, shaking trees . . . into the night. CS to James Tenney 11 May 1964

242. Iannis Xenakis (Greece, b. 1922, France, d. 2001), composer, music theorist, and architect. 243. Jean-Jacques Lebel. 244. Café de Flore is situated in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and is the celebrated rival of Deux Magots, where Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and others regularly met. 245. Deux Magots is a famous café in Paris on the Left Bank with a long history as a meeting place for poets, artists, writers, and philosophers. 246. Earle Brown (United States, 1926–2002), composer. 247. Maria Alvares (France, ca. 1938), close friend of Schneemann. 248. Daniel Spoerri (Romania, 1930), artist and writer.

1956–1968

I worked on “Meat Joy” material. An ambivalent (very amorphous) invitation for dinner or movies avec JJ243 & friends. Going to de Flore,244 my name called from a table at Deux Magots.245 Earle Brown & 2 friends.246 We spent the evening together, a stability for me—speaking Eng­lish! The reflective, close worlds and his showing me places as we walked. Maria247 refuses to answer questions on place/language, feeling I’ll absorb “all that.” Erró, if I go some where with him, is talking continually like a guide, which is useful but frantic. JJ doesn’t care except that I get where I know I need to be & most of all ’em do always speaka de French except when alone mit me. (Spoerri infatuated with Maria, so they keep a certain privacy in French when I am along. Oh, this poor inarticulate beast.)248 But it is—dear love—as you say. Presence moves right thru. I have one dear being here, a friend of Spoerri’s, a half

77

blind, crazy sweet faced poet, Filliou.249 And his beautiful young Danish woman, Marianne.250 I’v met lots of jente251 but these two have light in ’em & strength of love. Filliou understands me in some complete, tough, psychic harmony. And the performers I picked are very beautiful people. Rehearsing today—all as raw & fragmented as possible & I see no organization as yet . . . hopefully it will shine & flame. I cannot express the ideas in French yet there is no great problem in communication. The American Center a superb palace, run by the predictable fish (Zonk) (A Weller type)252 very tricky for this festival! And the guy is scared shitless. (C’est juste!) CS to James Tenney 16 May 1964

1956–1968

Yes; such a crazy French typewriter;;;;; things are sxitxhed253 around; it belongs to Rotraut Klein,254 friend of Arman255 and Eliane256 (please see them, Traut called them & I spoke to Eliane today)257 are greatest gift of them (of Paris) to me; an excellent painter, living in a luxe and vibrant shrine where Klein258 is present without pain and those hypnotic blue works continually absorb and return energy and light—a beautiful life size cast of Arman, wonderfully naked and vividly blue, there against a gold panel, the white wall. And she, younger, more radiant than I could imagine, full of love and gentleness . . . her caring boyfriend, golden Russian dog . . . many things one never finds in Paris for comfort and work. We are already friends . . . somehow she needs me, opens her life to me naturally. [. . .] (Rotraut has invited me to live with her—the apartment is huge, but I need to keep my perfect room over the growling, singing street where I build my circles of work, mobility and friends . . . as long as the

78

249. Robert Filliou (France, 1926–87), economist, poet, and artist. 250. Marianne Filliou (Sweden, ca.1935), wife of Robert Filliou, who participated in many Fluxus and other art events. 251. Schneemann misspells the word gente, Spanish for “people.” 252. Term for a university dean. 253. Switched. 254. Rotraut Uecker Klein-Moquay (Germany, 1938), artist, married first to the artist Yves Klein and then to Daniel Moquay, and sister of the artist Günter Uecker. 255. Arman (Arman Pierre Fernandez) (France, 1928), sculptor. 256. Eliane Radigue (France, 1932), composer. 257. Traut is Rotraut Uecker Klein-Moquay. 258. Yves Klein (France, 1928–64), artist.

259. “All my loving I will send to you . . .” is a line from the Beatles song “All My Loving,” 1963. 260. Rotraut Uecker Klein-Moquay. cs called her Trot and Traut. 261. The Beatles. 262. “Amourican” fuses “amour” (“love” in French) with “American,” and “doulers” (douleur, “sorrow” in French) with “dollars.” 263. Paul Carroll. 264. P. Adams Sitney (United States, 1944), film historian and critic. 265. Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris.

1956–1968

money lasts, I’ll remain.) London is set and sounds very good for the 9th of June ALL MY LOVING . . . I WILL SEND TO YOU 259 . . . imagine! Trot Trot260 keeps a radio playing and there they a re;;;;zee beetles.261 So yes, I live on 10 francs a day easily—it’s about two dollars, I simply treat each 10 franc note as ten Amourican doulares262 . . . of course I’v lost about eight lbs; but it’s from all the shops closing at the hours of my hunger, then I’m at work by the time they open again. The French keep themselves content by having “a little something” all the time and all time is possible for the “little something” . . . bonbons, coffees, cakes, ice creams . . . hours in the sweet sun with a warm cup. The work is getting better—today I feel some clarity, a shaping force. Then Body is moving to atrophy (hurray) so there’s some blood for the brain. Now this is utterly scattered remnants the crucial communication is for you to stop in New York, open the brown storage chest by the bed and pull out the negatives of Eye Body—they are frantic for them here! They are in a long colored paper strip, plainly marked, not too far down because I anticipated some need of them but not well enough! As much air mail as possible to me at the hotel. If you cannot get down call Carroll263 and ask him to try this for us, it’s that important here. Jean-Jacques and colleagues are very good to work with—it’s a very formal relationship, not complicated in any way I might have anticipated . . . I see him and others working for the festival only in a context of the festival . . . and really Paris is warm and receptive to me. Sitney264 turned up—waiting for me at Sonnabend Gallery265—where the fierce ole Rauschenbergs I’d seen in his studio looked like softened, loosened fragments of a dream of Rauschenberg’s . . . Sitney is good and sends his best wishes off to you.

79

James Tenney to CS

1956–1968

18 May 1964

80

My dear, distant Carolee, I have written a letter that I cannot send. I wish I could send what I cannot write. But I know I must try. What makes it so difficult is that I would have it be both true and relevant—“real and present” (as of certain legal “dangers”). My clearest, most collected thoughts for you and about you—for your safety and success etc.—these are relevant and present, but, in some way, not quite as true and real as I would have them be. Of course I want these for you, but they are not what occupy my mind most of the time. On the other hand, my own despair at being here alone, while true and real, is neither relevant nor—as I should not want it to be—“present” to you; could not be of any positive value for you there. I am only very gradually learning how much I have to learn about life—living—passing time, alone. I’ve not been able to do much work—can’t concentrate on it, get no satisfaction from it—so my time sits very heavily on me. I think it must be different for you now—with things clearly to be done. But in addition, the one thing that could make the difference for me—some kind of sexual contact if not relationship— seems utterly impossible. I am somehow at a loss to know how to effect even a very superficial situation. (“Superficial” is probably the key to the problem here: all I know is what I have already done, and that was (is) you, involves time, and can never be repeated.) So it is that your absence has been extremely painful for me. I am made to realize how dependent on you I had become (am), emotionally—as on a constant source of nourishment, and (earth, air, fire, water) so assumed that it becomes most palpable when withdrawn. Also I see how unfit I am to “forage”—in a simple utilitarian way (as for temporary sources, in anyway able to nourish “in lieu.” It ought to be possible when the time comes—to choose to do this and do it well. But, though I may certainly choose it, I do not seem to have any sense of how to effect it. You said you wanted me to write what I felt. I think I cannot, and probably will not—though I may try. From what I have written, you may get some sense of it, but it does not seem to me now a thing we can really share, though it has only to do with us. Just as we can in no way have “celebrated” May 17th this year (best not even to mark it I think), though we will surely celebrate many things, including all imaginable anniversaries when you return.266 266. May 17 was the day Schneemann and Tenney met.

I must tell you that the first and only time I have felt good since you left was last Friday, after receiving your letter (the 2nd). I was that evening in New York, spent the time wandering around the village (on foot), ending up at a movie (Bergman’s “The Silence”267—better than most B’s)—all the time feeling somehow comfortable in my aloneness, even pleasantly amused by the scene as I passed through it. This because of a strength derived from your letter, your presence there, though only briefly. So write when you can, or when this seems a natural or necessary (“present”) thing to do, in the context of whatever experiences you are presently enjoying (or “suffering”—curious how these two are merely interchangeable in this kind of usage). CS to James Tenney

Of course you are love to me, LOVE, all it can be hoped for and created as “real and relevant.” And I think we endure a mutual condition now—that is what we say—This separation which still unites us, the distance which incessantly measures absence. What you describe so well, the bearable loneliness—“somehow comfortable . . . and pleasantly amused” . . . yes, I’v felt that and last week (now I’m enjoying the body’s business with a forceful period) also a certain crazy irony that my time here focused, absorbed in “Meat Joy” should be without meat joy! A simple, provident occurrence for loving—any sharing—turns out to be a rare incredible moment. I’v become happy here—really at home in some way which many people comment on. There is almost a wave of good feeling which moves to me now from the people I’v been meeting. And that is close to a hundred now! Such is the structure of French society as I find it. Paris is small; springtime and the people are constantly out, walking, taking coffee in the open cafes. And then I’v good fortune to know a hand full of unrelated people through whom the greater part of Paris art activity opens to me—(galleries excepted—but for Sonnabend) and through me the groups circle and sometimes come together. “Meat Joy” needs another three months of work but I feel very good about it. My people are beautiful—extraordinary and I am enjoying performing—absolutely! I am something rare here—everyone asks questions, is concerned and responsive. I feel free and working intensely 267. Ingmar Bergman’s film The Silence, 1963.

1956–1968

22 May 1964

81

1956–1968

with love and decisiveness and an energy related to my classes at Navy Pier. We—in the piece—have to work very hard to find one another, to chart the course and no time is lost, no structures in this world impinge on the clarity of working together. An incredible day for work—your letter palpable as your beautiful hands on me—brought up in the morning by Mâche, a composer—concrete.268 At his house I heard the twist tape—very moving, upsetting— our world, our actions compacted in those banal & marvelous songs, there in the high little Paris room, full of sun, treetops & domes. And I was looking at Mâche’s book of Greek erotic art! (Pete Jo in temples, mouths (oh, mine), cunts (MINE) hands, vases . . .). Mâche’s girl & Xenakis joined us for lunch. They will both help me get Rue de Seine sounds, my reading my French thru pictures lesson on “La differences entre desire et plaiser.”269 I played your music for them . . . Phases270 was too stochastic(?)! Blue Suede271 O.K.! O, la la. A very sweet Italian girl272 came to translate my M.J.273 notes into French for the performers and I discovered that Dictation is the way for me. All the damn collage-process hours of shifting those mad notes & drawings was utterly freed in vision—speech, growing the entire piece into sequence, order . . . as fast or slow as image—speech can hold it & writing can not. What would have taken several days was achieved in three hours. And I’v just finished a strong collage on panel—all the debris and wonder of flight from N.Y. to Reykjavik—one of the most dramatic, romantic experiences of my life has come through in the work.274 I hope you’ll get to see it—its full of broken glass, blue sky—water light, hands, tickets, maps and a plunging energy. Paris is good for life—for walking and sitting, for complexions and

82

268. François-Bernard Mâche (France, 1935), composer. 269. “The difference between desire and pleasure.” 270. James Tenney, Phases (for Edgard Varèse), December 1963. 271. James Tenney, Collage #1 (“Blue Suede”), 1961. 272. Annina Nosei (Italy, 1939), gallery owner and art dealer. Schneemann recalled that Nosei “arrived in Paris from Rome just out of university. Having previously worked with Ken Dewey in Italy, she became my assistant for the organization of Meat Joy, despite our confusions of language. I filled out her Fulbright application in proper Eng­lish. She received the Fulbright to the University of Michigan; and joined the music performance ‘Once Group’ (Robert Ashley, George Manupelli and others). In NYC, I introduced her to handsome young gallery dealer John Weber, assistant to Martha Jackson. Nosei and Weber married.” CS, email to the author, 29 June 2004. 273. Meat Joy. 274. Schneemann gave the collage to Michael and Ina Corner in Amsterdam; it was lost or destroyed.

growing hair! A lot of cats—and wonderful! You see them in expensive shops, sleeping on diamonds displayed on blue velvet, or napping among shoes, vegetables, flowers. But not ONE Maltese comme our own. You’ve been miserable not to write more and I’ll take anything with joy (toenail clippings!) and I want some description of the grey beast.275 Finally a note here to you that all things suffice; the little clothing is simple, fine; I like not having a radio, records or anything to read. What do you think? How does it sound? I love you—I send desires & plaisirs to bite you all over, chew you to bits and devour you completely—Sweet Jim. Carolee Also: Paris is an amazingly safe city for a woman: The violence and physical dangers of NY do NOT exist here. Except for ecrassé276—they do drive FOU.277 As Kowalski said, “You won’t get violated here.”278 James Tenney Telegram to CS 30 May 1964

GOOD LUCK WITH PIECE WISH I COULD SEE IT LOVE, JIM. CS Telegram to James Tenney 30 May 1964

BEAUTIFUL FRIENZY WILD MEAT JOY TRIUMPH OUR LOVE COVERS PARIS.279 [figures 21, 22; plate 6] CS to James Tenney 30 May 1964

275. Kitch. 276. “smashed.” 277. “crazy.” 278. Ludwig Peter Kowalski (Germany, 1891–1967), artist. 279. Reviews of Meat Joy appeared in several Paris newspapers: France Soir (June 3), Paris-Express (June 4), and France Observateur (June 4). It was discussed in the London Financial Times (June 9), the Rome L’Espresso (June 14), and Die Welt in Germany, December 18, 1964. Two reviews of Meat Joy appeared in the Village Voice (November 12 and 26) when it was performed in New York City.

1956–1968

The night after Meat Joy joy inundated the American Center—but totally at the climax, crawling, slithering, twisting, in a lake of paint, battered chickens & fish, ropes, mountains of paper—drenched with buckets of red, white, & yellow, eight bodies almost naked—the men

83

[Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.]

(above) 21. “En attendant le happening: Le Workshop de la Libre Expression,” France Observateur (Paris), 4 June 1964. Review of Schneemann’s Paris performance of Meat Joy, 30 May 1964. Research Library, the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (9500001). Photograph by Pablo Volta. Courtesy of Le nouvel Observateur. 22. “Tre ragazze nel pollaio d’ avanguardia,” L’Espresso (Rome), 14 June 1964, 1. Review of Schneemann’s Paris and London performances of Meat Joy, 1964. Photograph by Pablo Volta. Courtesy of L’Espresso.

280. Dionne Warwick sang “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” 1964. 281. Rita Renoir (France, 1938), stripper, film actress, and filmmaker. See the actress Delphine Seyrig’s documentary film Sois belle et tais-toi (Be Beautiful But Shut Up) (1981) in which Rita Renoir, Shirley MacLaine, Maria Schneider, and Jane Fonda talk about sexism in the film industry.

1956–1968

drenching us, the women struggling ( joyfully) yelling, crying, howling, shouting, laughing: screaming, “Basta, Basta, Enough, Assisi” to Marvin to throw the lights & the men carry us away! And the thing built like a monument—rhythmically: materials, movements, sound, lights. And everything went awry, timing “off,” the lighting missing cues all the way through the first two sections, the sound man pursuing “Anyone Who Had A Heart”280 like a pregnant pig after truffles—full volume when his instruction was “Silence” or “Rue de Seine Sounds.” (And the double track tape where I overlay reading of all notes made since February on Meat Joy and my French lessons (thru pictures) on “La difference entre plaisir et desir” not used at all—equipment insufficient. The patterns in space utterly confused by an immense crowd (400 people and taking half an hour to make them move, make space after Rita Renoir’s281 wild & terrible (witch magic terrible) piece: refusing to begin, walking around telling BEN (Vautier of Fluxus), Jean-Jacques, Erró—“No, we can’t perform yet that four rows has to go . . . that whole semi-circle must be moved” and the men relaying in French instructions for the audience to pack tighter and tighter. (Image of a bullfight ring.) The impossible French audience I’d come to know & fear so well, hypnotized into a silence which no one ever had experienced before! They normally talk, yell, cheer, set up peculiar organizations of whistles, chants, cries, instructions, jokes! Even during Xenakis music at the Odeon concert they yelled comments, whistled, stomped, howled. Beautiful to be in it—I didn’t see it the way I “didn’t see” Chromolodeon, but I was in it and alive in the center of this radiant, fierce organism and a pleasure to me unprecedented in my theatre/dance pieces. You and me in it—what the telegram said—to make this possible our love, our life like a buried nervous system, a blood stream. I didn’t see the audience (felt them as some huge enveloping beast and my body, our eight bodies strong, vital in the space and time we transformed). I didn’t know photographers were leaping between us—(splattered with paint & fish guts). Until my entrance with Daniel, I was aware of everything that was wrong, askew; and then that he was lousy on our “undressing-walk” (not concentrated, mad as usual), that I was buried too long under the paper mound doing “leg choreography” but it flew,

85

and blossomed, the bodies were rolling, I painted D.282 with a concentration on his face of all the love I ever knew (he drags me from the paper mound—three of them—only the legs of the women turning in the air from huge paper piles—the other women continue, the men who have buried them there, watching, then they take off their pants, jump into the mound and do double legs). And he lifts me into an awkward, rough carrying, drops me. I raise my arms from where I’m lying: he grabs them, jerks me to my feet. Stop, watch each other; grabs me and holding me high as possible shakes me violently in the air—interminable—that energy perfectly turned and I knock him over onto the table for “Love-Paint,” “Exchange,” “Mixture!” No, no—utterly beyond description. I didn’t wait for applause but ran down stairs, plunged into the pool, covered with paint, reeking of fish, black & blue and everybody joyful! All those people moved, (some to hysterics! and Michael Corner283 said even he “tried to get out when the flesh pots exploded” but he was up on the ladder, surrounded by the crowd) moved past their mouths (which is the French mise-en-point) into their bodies, their senses and later one after another sort of staggering over to me, everybody looking wide-eyed, charged, amazed, muttering, stammering, holding my hand, hands, looking into my eyes! I learned so much—the way I need to work and been given all that I can use. They have given me very much—how I want to develop all this now; later we’ll discuss it my love! June 1st: Your beautiful, beautiful letter sweet man I want you so much. The angels send someone for plaisir et desir, spontaneously, exactly when my work would become impossible—all shifting, clear and slight (believe it!), just as a performer arrives in time or someone suddenly appears to be a sound technician for me hours before performance. CS to James Tenney 3 June 1964

1956–1968

Sweet love, I am content, even happy. The life (“too soft, too sweet”) is full of dream currents, archetypal riches which move fluidly—without the

86

282. Daniel Pommereulle. 283. Michael Corner (United States, 1933), scientist and twin brother of the composer Philip Corner (United States, 1933).

284. Jocelyn de Noblet (France, ca.1934), a participant in Meat Joy in Paris, who became a scholar and theorist of industrial design.

1956–1968

dark resistance. The physical, atmospheric & interpersonal hardness (I mean Hard as a substance) I find as condition to New York life. My own energy and clarity are buoyed. It is not just that I am “a Turkish delight” here, a novelty or that the festival gave me each day the luxurious pleasure of Caravan, of troupe, of human relationship moving through a mysterious voyage; or the compressed and simple focus of this small grey room where I congratulate myself that the few clothes, materials & objects I’v brought or gathered here are sufficient—serving well without weight, (when I am away the room is cleaned; no cooking, cleaning, sorting . . . all that webbery!). No, all this but more—that I seem to carry in my presence and to have “exploded” in Meat Joy an energy, an intensity of psychic proportion which is needed here! Simply as that—I cannot deal with it more thoroughly. And that my personal relationships have assumed, carry the quality of my works relationship to the world here which sees it. Not an easy situation. There was a great deal of disgust, outrage and upset in reaction to the piece— as there is also to me by some people. But it has been like a bright, vivid sexual light in which eyes could open or as Jocelyn de Noblet says: “The French begin always with the mouth—you have given the body a chance to follow.”284 They began with the eyes though and the body followed. There will be a good deal of writing on the piece soon—some of the best or most active French critics are engaged in serious battle over it. Old critics with unquenchable libidos come to interview me, almost to rediscover some field of action which lay fallow here, which rested in some memory—a dream. And relationships with my performers are interesting! None of the men I work with (with 2 exceptions . . .) would “touch me.” I am strictly ole elephant foot to them and very delicate for me to handle their fear— non-desire and respect for me. And to have them work for the piece beyond their annoying, their non-health to focus on their strength and not provoke them to move into life with me what we discover in “Meat Joy.” I don’t make this very clear I’m afraid; it is a detailed panoply of personality and action. (Or if I were radiating sexual hunger, need, and had to perform an erotic section with one of my performers!) Some terrible times indeed. “Meat Joy” also, marvelously separated “men from boys,” sending the melancholy Italian—my sanity source before perfor-

87

mance—back to Milano rather toute de suite the next day, and bringing me a visit from Mâche (who helped me with tape sequences). The afternoon after performance with his spontaneous good feeling and tenderness—that is, health. I want to say what occurs without bringing you pain or jealousy and I know absolutely, love—there is no man as healthy as you! And the embrace of affection and appetite is of a different nature from the embrace of love. I noted yesterday in the day—book: “over and over I realize what is involved in sexual health/non-health by knowing what Jim would do. Effective, sex-positive men have a space of silence to them; a looking outward which maintains an inward presence, a perceiving presence; one feels physic unity as a physical fact.” London will be quite incredible! Ferró, Jean-Jacques, (who came into the hotel yesterday saying in French “I’m the father of this little girl, where are her bills!” and he paid), Daniel Pommereulle (my handsome blond, neuresthenic leading man who will not be in the piece again (as I expected!), Jocelyn de Noblet (who turned up suddenly to be technician, very protective of me & my work, think of him as “my manager, full of the energy, intensity & intellectual speed which protects, transforms some ancient damage)—and me! We take the last plane tonight. If you knew them & all their various struggles, their sexual horrors, disgusts, guilts & fears! C’est drolle!285 In London—all expenses, four days to find & train new performers. My good friend Annina286 joins us. Traut Traut287 visits today . . . It is raining hard, suddenly. I love you, beautiful one—I wrap myself in you, on you and carry your love now to another journey. Kisses and pats to little beast. I’m glad she is well. What do you both do now? CS to James Tenney 14 June 1964

1956–1968

Sweet Love: Gift of ticket to Venezia! Off tonight with Annina on the train and marvelously so I can return to Paris next Friday. I need your words, presence, so longing for you is terribelle–

88

285. “It’s funny.” 286. Annina Nosei. 287. “Traut Traut,” a nickname for Rotraut Uecker Klein-Moquay.

CS to James Tenney 16 June 1964

288. Richard Bellamy; Patty is Patricia Muschinski (Oldenburg, Mucha); John Chamberlain (United States, 1927), sculptor; James Rosenquist (United States, 1933), artist; Ileana Sonnabend. 289. Daniel Spoerri.

1956–1968

You should come here immediately oh no words—we could lie in gondolas & float to the sea & swim & love night & wake in the sand, in sun and presto! A sweet arrangement of little chairs & tables under umbrellas for meals—anything you dream of you forget here there is only this complete mad, baroque, lyric, sensuous, ancient, wet, zinging banging, repeating pillars, arches, blossoms, pigeons—It is a wash away to dream, desire, worry, plan, reflection, intrigue being itself all this beyond human presence—Venezia (I want to see how it holds space as word V E N E Z I A) Sounds: arrange them for yourself every 24 hrs, as a beginning: 1. Doves, 2 pigeons, 3 lapping water, 4 cat meows (howls & calls), 5 church bells, 6 boats: horns, bells, clappers—then let it reverberate over small waterways & large, bounce into stone on water (in sun, in moon light) 500 years. Phallus: groups of pilings, their heads shiny in moon light: and spires and trees in the parks—falling blossoms, glass, water and where is flesh? Ah, flesh is front page “L’Expresso” di Roma—I send it, incredible. There’s Daniel et moi in the “undressing walk” and the two page spread inside—I can’t have any idea what they say! Take it to your landlady! & ask. Finding it after Lido beach hours, in the sea, the sun, (riding there as anywhere by boat—bus, no cars in Venezia). Such perfect content with the older European friends who took me there—they are raising funds to get me back to Paris—broke now & no worry because here “on marche”—it goes on. Even the sour, cold old friends from New York and the circus art—fog leaves me clear—clear to see again what I’v felt before with barely dream of love to carry through: the incredible coldness of the Americans* (Leo Castelli, Bellamy, Claes & Patty, Chamberlain, Rosenquist—who has a very beautiful show at Ileana’s in Paris—others;)288 they “care” in abeyance like a force of history; the Europeans surround me with respect & affection & as I said of Erró, Arman, Spoerri289 (in N.Y.) they speak, introduce, instruct & guide me. [. . .] 19 June 1964: Days have passed—Rauschenberg has won the

89

Biennale prize; a sweet celebration at a restaurant we frequent. I am only longing, longing, longing for you—terrible now. Certain positive things continue to develop in the sleepless meandering hours in which people & circumstances shift presence. I love you so much; you are always present—the good photograph, your smile, your hand on the cup moves everywhere with me—such a rare, beautiful man you are and do not doubt it an instant. Soon then to use, to give, to find every thing there is in each of us– I never see a cat like Kitch here. There are lovely hundreds of them sleeping in quays, resting in squares in small groups. WE should have this together—I’m frightened of America after this ecstatic vision of a world. I go to sleep. I reach for you, sweet love. James Tenney to CS

1956–1968

17 June 1964

90

Beautiful One, How can it be this way? There’s too much ground (and (mostly)) ocean between us! As though we had not yet found the other—among all millions of just people—half (but thank Gott we have). What a search that would be! Could I ever know to go looking for you in l’ hotel La L.,290 or you for me in (impossible!) New Haven? I mean it could be so much worse than this being separated is (I keep telling my self, to evade self-sorrow)—especially since you will be back in a few (dozen) days now (as it was only “a few weeks” that you were to be away (not months) (how the right word helps here)). I keep telling myself . . . (It’s clear now how some older people (and not only older ones) get to talking to themselves) . . . And remembering the sight and feel of you (though I find I have to be careful with this, can indulge in it only sometimes or risk crags and cramps and stony aches and pains). Objects around me that are of our life help to assure me that yes, you do exist (or did—must have), must really exist because they wouldn’t exist otherwise (and sometimes I really need that assurance, when things in general begin to become or seem unreal). Oh yes, it is always possible to avoid the more extreme symptoms of all this by finding someone “to be with” (your phrase—on the tele290. Schneemann lived at Hotel La Louisiane in Paris for a time.

phone—and a lovely one it is)—to avoid, that is, the cramping pains and the sense of unreality (or at least part of that). But it isn’t the same, not the same thing at all (this was no little surprise to me in fact). And when that comes to an end (if it does come to an end) (as it has, easily, even neatly, though ironically, via a plane to Europe to rejoin old boy-friend after six months etc.)—when that is over, everything comes flooding back into consciousness, over it, leaving it swimming in exactly the same spot it was in before, though it has changed (rested, got air, oxygen, energy to swim some more)—but in the same spot (the tide is strong—one can do little more than keep from being swept away by it), waiting for (you, my love) what will give one the power to (magically) disperse the waters (like Moses) and walk across (together!). And I laugh with joy when I think how true it is somehow that you and I will be together for a couple hundred years, no matter what. The way I love you. James Tenney to CS

Carolee _________lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove I want you to come home so much (and toute suite) but I have yet no home for you to come to, except for this place, which is so depressing for me that I can’t imagine its being any good for us. [. . .] I hope USA will not be too drab when you return. But prepare yourself for that possibility, and for the “long haul” of rediscovering its perverse beauties too. Also, you are right in anticipating problems of environment and context after arrival. What’s needed is a buffer for a few days, and I’m trying to work something out for this. [. . .] There is to be a FLUXUS concert at Carnegie Recital Hall this Saturday, and a new thing of mine will be done there—called CHAMBER MUSIC [. . .] Each of these is on a small card; the sequence taped together accordion-fold-fashion the cards, and the verbal gesture, thus—the dedication to G.B.291 I’m well into the work here (on research proj.), but haven’t done anything else (like music) (except for CHAMBER MUSIC, which is theater not music) yet. Have very little inclination to do it, in fact, which is the 291. George Brecht.

1956–1968

23 June 1964

91

most disturbing part of it, though it may simply mean that what is to be done from now on is not what I have called music before. (Kitch just had such a bad dream that she jumped (out of sleep) right off the red-top stool that is hers, onto the floor, giving me a start and goose-pimples—she sits now on the floor, looking round, obviously trying to find the cause of it—the image that frightened her, or its source. The point is, she acts as though (for her) there is absolutely no difference between the dream-world and this one! This is to be remembered.) Sometimes, my science seems enough (though only as a small part of life). Other times, I would try to write (about love, mostly—like after reading McClure292—though I finally don’t and won’t). Stillothertimes, I assume that I will return to the music—making in the sense I have known it, but just assume and wait, because I’m not moved to do it. Maybe I will never return to it. “Life” has come to be so much more absorbing than any “art” process I was ever involved in, that it may simply suffice (for me—I would still hope that somebody did it). And I think I am getting another wisdom tooth, for which I haven’t room! (What wisdom have I gained?) And I’m very gradually getting suddenly drunk (on gin + tonic, my new solace—so much like lemonade). And (p.s.) I love you (but you’d better get back here pretty soon because I’m beginning to have a hard time remembering who this “you” is—besides someone who writes lovely letters (more often than I do), and who was the most beautiful woman in the world, and taught me everything I know about love, and was never loved by anyone so much as by me (nobody ever was loved so much!), and who—because she gives me so much, can take away so much, when she leaves, because . . . I want to look at you, I want to talk with you, I want to dance with you, and walk with you, and lie with you in a bed that is ours, and move in you, around and over and under you, before and behind you, with you, with you, with you, my love——————J. CS to Arturo Schwarz 293

1956–1968

5 August 1964

92

I met you in Venice during the Biennale (you were eating your dinner when Erró introduced us), we arranged to meet at Jardini for me to 292. Michael McClure. 293. Arturo Schwarz (Italy, 1924), art historian and art dealer. Schwarz never did call or visit Schneemann.

show you slides of my collages and constructions but we missed one another. Later I said I would write and send slides to you. The enclosed color slides are of works of the past two years; more recent work has not been photographed. Many of the constructions contain moving parts (motorized or magnetized) and lights; these elements as well as the dimensionality of the works are difficult to see here. The materials in the constructions and boxes are predominately glass and wood; fur, paper, photographs and clocks are often used. All the elements are transformed with paint, with fire (through burning) so that they function in a total visual field—the dimensionality is ambiguous, the image metaphoric. I was in Europe to present a Happening (Visual Drama), “Meat Joy” in Paris and London on Jean-Jacques Lebel’s Festival of Free Expression and I hope to be able to return to make theatre pieces next spring in France, Germany and perhaps in Italy. I will be having performances in New York this fall and I will continue painting in my studio in September. Until then I am at the above address should you need to contact me. I hope very much you can see my work when you come to the states. Joseph Cornell to CS 12 August 1964

The long deferred visit even sans the Russian princess with a muff on her chin might yield same mix pressing rich dividend from so long a deferment. Caliban STILL hovers above the nymph grotto the floral realm will evoke memories even untraversed (rest Persephone).294 Toot a vous, Voyageur295 CS to Jean-Jacques Lebel 12 January 1965

294. Over the word rest, Cornell placed an “n” and an “s,” suggesting that “rest” could also be read as “rents,” referring to Persephone’s life in Hades and the fecundity and barrenness of the seasons. 295. This letter is collaged with an image of the shoreline and beach of an ocean and contains a stamp that reads “Peace on Earth Holy Bible,” depicting a child holding a lamb. 296. Michael White (Eng­land, ca.1935), entrepreneur. 297. Cavalcade was a men’s popular magazine similar to Playboy.

1956–1968

Michael White296 writes he never had “Eye Body” negatives, only a few prints; PLEASE check through your materials again for me. Cavalcade297

93

needs some of them and a lawyer has volunteered services to help me out on “pornography” tightrope. I’m making a color sex film, plowing through all the sick, depraved technical complications . . . socialpsychic depravations of law & order and fortunately this lawyer swings or has a feeling for what should. He is very itchy to have all erotic material I’v made under his jurisdiction before processing the film. Send the negatives to me or to him. [. . .](Do you remember they’re in a long, narrow cardboard holder, taped on the edges?) Happy Meat Year, love. Jean-Jacques Lebel to CS Monday, c. January 1965

Thanks for your letter. Things here working up like victims after cyclone, our cyclone-party seems to have done them good, a half-step towards awareness. Finally found a large place fine for permanent workshop, shall try to get it “legally” this week. That could be a base for future world ventures in human electricity that we are planning. This year seems a bit less obscure and hopeless. Maybe I’ll make it to N.Y. in November for a show at Gertrude Stein’s since she asked me too. If so, I’ll also do a Santa Claes happening—nasty about Xmas type “certitudes”—if I can find a place to do it (one night + rehearsals)—maybe at the Judson. What do you suggest I try, the Judson? Or else I’ll just rent a loft for a week. If possible. I probably won’t stay long because I want to concentrate on Workshop here which has tremendous possibilities for a free artistic enterprise. Many more articles in magazines on Festival and also on Meat Joy, I’ll bring them to N.Y. to show you. Concentrate solar energy, yes but don’t forget lunar forces, feminine forces must blend not conflict with flamme. Much love to N.Y. underground love-artists our family. See you soon. CS to Wolf Vostell 22 January 1965

1956–1968

Lil,298 Allan,299 others advised me to send material on “Meat Joy” to you. Contact prints and a press-photo sheet are enclosed and some stills

94

298. Lil Picard (Germany, b. 1899, United States, d. 1994), artist and critic. 299. Allan Kaprow.

300. “I adored Yvonne Rainer,” Schneemann has explained. “Seeing her early performances. It was a very lucky moment in culture, electrifying. I would have thrown myself at her feet. She hated Meat Joy and walked out. Messy, brainless. There were great aesthetic battles. We assumed we would have a world and we would change it. Otherwise there would have been no point in working.” CS in conversation with the author, 5 June 1994. 301. Al Hansen (United States, b. 1927, Germany, d. 1995), artist. 302. Schneemann refers to her film Fuses (1964–67). 303. Christos Joannides (Greece, ca.1930), art dealer.

1956–1968

from “Eye Body”—which I think you know about. If you’d have use for shots of earlier work let me know: Happenings in country side wilderness; “Lethal Environments,” provocation, enforced response to physical situations and the start of my concern for physical response as a means of intensifying visual process. So, there were fires, explosions, pyres of garbage, glass, reeds, stones, fallen trees located in a landscape the audience walked, climbed, ran, crawled through. Previous to that— interior Environments for films by Stan Brakhage: Loving (exterior!), Cats Cradle, Day Break and White Eye. 1962, return to N.Y.C.: Glass Environment for Sound and motion at the Living Theatre with Yvonne Rainer,300 Philip Corner, and others performing with instructions that the environment would transform, deflect. Follows Newspaper Event, Chromolodeon, Lateral Splay, Looseleaf and others. (Some reviews—reviewed as Dance which it ain’t but they had no reviewer for “happenings” . . . but using dancers for what Hansen called my “bridge from happenings to theatre.”)301 “Meat Joy” most furious, erotic and dense so far; I keep working toward a visual-audial complex, making tapes now . . . after a total inundation of the senses; time structures which inflict, reveal extremes in expectation, response. (Somebody vomited during the first night of “Meat Joy” in new york . . . which pleased me!) Hopefully I’ll find a source for a few hundred dollars to proceed with genital landscape film I’v begun.302 Also, hope to return to work in Europe awhile. Theatre des Nations has invited me to create and destroy an architectural environment in which I’d make happenings . . . Berlin T.V. and somebody in Munich (Christos Joamides?)303 are interested in my doing something but when it comes to simple financial provision . . . you know what difficulty that is.

95

CS to Joseph Berke 304 2 August 1965

1956–1968

Hello Joe! Such a good balmy letter from you—full of the roads I think about walking, and you just swung those gates! (thankyouthankyouthank you) Course would be about empathy—that is SEEING, eye and hand as perception leading to action.305 Starting very tight—the simplest animation of motion in space, lines . . . black on white, white on black and the eye moving emotion (that is real feeling) through the hand for those first strokes in which the whole life line of gesture becomes actual and also metaphoric as the action of simplest verticals, horizontals, diagonals in space. Composition with improvised free form lines (where the armouring breaks open) . . . going very slowly so it becomes organically clear to each one in each ones own way, still with a simple pencil, crayon . . . Collage then; gestalt form . . . where one enters space (shift from the projective space of the initial studies); that is, an increase in dimension, complexities of weight, texture, color, transparency, overlaps, and tactile carrying of kinetic relationship between the eye and bits of material setting up a universe.** All in relation to history of art, and strangely paralleling it: reproductions, slides, visits to where it is. Environment as where it can be. Rubbings, drawings from dirt, debris (particle as structural visual unit); concentration becoming very intent on smallest units of any environment . . . and then perhaps into the street, boiler rooms, cafeterias for a thickening of the action of forms. Body into space. Physical action as imagery; transformation of the environment; interplay of body and environment necessitated by eye’s (heart’s) desire . . . what does it have to be/become . . . each one in their own way. **Collage with movement, with smells: steam, fire, water, reflections . . . food. It would all take a full term, classes meeting twice a week for about

96

304. Joseph Berke (United States, 1939), physician and psychotherapist, founder and director (1973–2008) of the Arbours Crisis Centre, London. 305. “Joe Berke planned to establish a Free University in London parallel to the Free University in NYC. My course would have incorporated the kinetic, physical contact exercises that I had initiated for the Judson Dance Theater and my subsequent performance groups.” CS email to the author, 5 July 2004.

two hours. A certain amount of written assignments also . . . wording perception; another way to share, exchange and open the journey together. Budget would have to provide for studio materials. What do you think? Shall I type it out proper . . . teaching outline, prospectus etc.? My cat is kissing my hand so hard . . . can’t type no more . . . Soon, yr. own DR. C. Schneemann Joseph Cornell to CS 18 November 1965

Thank you for the glimpse of the pix. They are something different than I could ever incorporate into any work; so much done already. They are put in the mail first class. And since I may be out on the Island306 for a spell I took the liberty of putting Judson307 for a possible return. I called one time when you were not there to tell you that I am not out of the woods yet with regards to energies, getting around, etc. Am hoping perchance to find some new source material (sadly wanting) and shall try to shape up a collage for you. CS to Aldo Bruzzichelli 308

James Tenney and I propose to do concerts in Europe from late Spring to the Fall of 1966; our programs could be done as combined evenings of music and theater events or as separate programs of music and kinetic theater. Our plans are tentative and it is not clear, as yet, who would pay our way and sponsor these programs. L’Opera de Lyons and Teatre des Nations are interested in my creating a full-length spectacle, “Water Light,” for them. It is an elaborate, dimensional work using a network of pulleys and nets in space on which the performers, lights, materials, and contact microphones move. If this piece is done it might be possible to travel with the Paris cast to other cities. Or, I could find and train performers in other cities—intensive preparation would require at least 306. Long Island. 307. Judson Church, New York City. 308. Aldo Bruzzichelli (Italy, ca. 1890–ca. 1970), music publisher in Florence, Italy.

1956–1968

23 November 1965

97

1956–1968

two weeks. Perhaps you know of theater groups which would be interested to work with me. Tenney plans to perform piano music of Ives309—the Concord Sonata, Dane Rudhyar,310 Henry Cowell,311 Carl Ruggles and John Cage. He could also present programs of electronic and computer music by Cage, Corner,312 Maxfield,313 Goldstein,314 Ashley,315 Mumma,316 Varèse and Tenney. If the situation was right he could conduct any of the works listed in his resumé; (Ives, Cage, Varèse and Ruggles). [. . .] Listed below are a series of shorter works of mine which could fill a program or be done in combination with a concert of music. “Lateral Splay.” For twelve to fifteen performers. Three to five minutes, or repeated throughout an evening of other works. A study in fast, violent, expulsive energy. Sound: varying patterns of running and falling. “Newspaper Event.” For eight performers using benches, stools, and a pile of newspapers four feet high. A work of evolving relationships between performers and materials; concentrated and spontaneous. Ten minutes. Sound: speech and paper noises. “Looseleaf.” (An eating piece.) For three performers. Table, chairs, a large mirror, candle light; a quantity of wine and cakes. Sound: rock and roll music of delinquent students beating songs on classroom furniture, collaged with tape of my voice reading notes on theater. Ten minutes. “The Queens Dog.” For three women and two men—the magician and the “dog.” A dream-slow creation of movement and response between the magician and the individual women. Sleek, somber and enigmatic. Sound: tape of crickets and insects. Time: 25 min. “Noise Body.” (A duet for myself and James Tenney, or a trio with the inclusion of Max Neuhaus.)317 [figure 23] The performers are covered

98

309. Charles Ives (United States, 1874–1954), composer. 310. Dane Rudhyar (also known as Daniel Chennevière) (Paris, b. 1895, United States, d. 1985), astrologer and composer. 311. Henry Cowell (United States, 1897–1965), composer. 312. Philip Corner. 313. Richard Maxfield. 314. Malcolm Goldstein (United States, 1936), composer. 315. Robert Ashley (United States, 1930), composer and director of the ONCE Group, a collective of musicians, visual artists, architects, and filmmakers. 316. Gordon Mumma (United States, 1935), composer and co-founder (with Robert Ashley) of the Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music, the first electronic music facility in the United States. 317. Max Neuhaus (United States, b. 1939, Italy, d. 2009), percussionist, composer.

with sound producing debris—a moving assemblage from which sounds are developed / the movement being determined by the process of sound making. Time: 15 min. Happenings for audience participation can be created for particular environments. Since we are not sure what is possible—where the sources of help and interest may be—in Europe, any ideas or information you think useful would be gratefully received by us. And I thank you sincerely for your consideration. Ferdinand Kriwet to CS 318 30 December 1965

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to see you once again when I was in New York but I hope that I will come back to New York in the next future and stay longer. Before I have to find some money. Please send me information about your activity furthermore. You also can send some material to Jean Pierre Wilhelm, Düsseldorf. [. . .] He is a friend of Paik,319 Charlotte Moorman,320 Dick Higgins321 and many others (inclusive Vostell, Beuys, etc.).322 I am very unhappy that I missed your performance together with Gerd Stern.323 Can you give me his address. Best wishes for the next year and your work! CS to Jean-Jacques Lebel 7 February 1966

318. Ferdinand Kriwet (Germany, 1942), artist and poet. 319. Nam June Paik (Korea, b. 1932, United States, d. 2006), composer, artist, and founder of video art. 320. Charlotte Moorman (United States, 1933–91), cellist and artist collaborating with Nam June Paik. 321. Dick Higgins (Eng­land, b. 1938, Canada, d. 1998), artist. 322. Wolf Vostell; Joseph Beuys (Germany, 1921–86), artist. 323. Gerd Stern (Germany, 1928), poet, playwright, and founder of arts/technology cooperative USCO, a collaborative group that produced electronic and computer generated multimedia projection systems and performances. Schneemann performed with Stern in Ghost Rev, 1965. See More Than Meat Joy, 97–101. 324. Charlotte Moorman organized fifteen festivals of the avant-garde in New York be-

1956–1968

It’s been a slow, hard year . . . getting better now. Last spring, so broke, had to sublet my loft, go away to a free for all quiet place in the country. Things brightened to hysteria for Charlotte’s Festival324 (EVERY year

99

23. Carolee Schneemann and James Tenney performing Schneemann’s Noise Bodies, 28 August 1965, at the Judson Concert Hall during Charlotte Moorman’s “Avant-Garde Festival.” Photograph by Charlotte Victoria. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

1956–1968

EVERY one saying no, no I’ll never work with her again and every year we all are drawn in and out.) I did a new work for myself and Tenney— bodies completely encased in metal debris/a debris wheel falling from the ceiling/playing our sounds and each others with metal rods . . . in the dark, little lights flashing on our junk-bodies.325 I directed Kaprow’s “Push and Pull” with Paik326—and provoked a riot. Utter destruction of the environment we built: old ladies, collared hairless businessmen astride cracked two by fours, beating each other and the remains of the environment with objects I had asked them to go into the streets and bring back to furnish the environment. Police, paddy wagons, riot squad. Then endless interviews . . . “yes, that was a possibility, but not

100

tween 1963 and 1980. The titles for these festivals changed slightly, beginning and ending with Annual Avant-Garde Festival. 325. Schneemann and Tenney performed Noise Bodies for Moorman’s Annual AvantGarde Festival, Saturday, August 28th, 1965, at the Judson Concert Hall. 326. Nam June Paik.

327. Fredrick Kiesler (Austria, b. 1892, United States, d. 1965), architect. 328. Henry Cowell. 329. Jocelyn de Noblet. 330. Vietnam War. 331. Robert Whitman (United States, 1935), artist and co-founder in 1966 of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) with Robert Rauschenberg, Fred Waldhauer (United States, 1927–93), electrical engineer, and Billy Klüver (Johan Wilhelm “Billy” Klüver) (Monaco, b. 1927, United States, d. 2004), electrical engineer.

1956–1968

my intention.” Lawyers calling to tell me “to disappear,” the Festival cancelled, then re-instated with bonds, conditions . . . ! Violence and pent-up rage exploding in the grey ones—as you well know—but here it was the first such manifestation. Then in December all the grand people started dying: Varèse, Kiesler,327 Cowell328 . . . the plumber’s mother, Higgins’s step-mother, somebody’s father (under his tractor) . . . on and on like a rain around us. The news from Europe all garbled. That you had married; that you were living in the south of France, going to Russia. And with Joyclyn329 the misunderstanding about “the book”—Erró tells me about your book; Joyclyn wrote that HE was writing a book on your festivals; he didn’t answer when I wrote that I was broke and asked if his publisher would pay for the photos here . . . What you are doing and single-handedly is fantastic; perhaps now “they” are ready; here we are beginning to be treated differently—invited to panels on theater (!) and such; the press ready to eat us alive and belch out some capsule synthesis . . . to break down the distinctions we found by heart, nerve, funny guts. The press is hip, anxious to capture and render—harmless. I can’t imagine that process ever breaking over your head, and that finally the tension, resistance and insane, hungry response Paris can produce will keep your energies ferocious, determined. Something soft happens here . . . like the helpless, apathy over, what is now, our Dirty War;330 there is almost no motion towards political engagement, statement, by the advanced artists here . . . Warhol’s Velvet Underground giving a week of live performances: “Fairies I Have Known” . . . a perverse, charming melt into chic; the normalization of terror, sadism, masochism become a popular consecration . . . almost homey and warm and friendly in character. One end of the spectrum, specter. The “Season” here was incredibly dull-dull, in the sense of diminished finish, shine, patina, light interchange cut down. Exceptions being performances of new pieces of Oldenburg, Whitman,331 Rauschenberg at Cinematheque. Each with a beautiful piece; a mastery, fineness, and calm; clarity marking some point in our time of accepting / acceptance

101

that is completely new. I’ll have four nights at Cinematheque in March for a new work—all in the air, performers over heads of audience; strange objects. (Imagery begun in Venice into Vietnam.)332 I’ll enclose a scenario and also the issue of someThing333 documenting Meat Joy in New York—how it changed from Paris. Did you see Hansen’s Space Time Happening Premier?334 Erró is fine here, happy with Mary—more than I’v ever known him to be, working very hard. We’ll all be at Marta Minujin’s335 Environment tomorrow—going like wild-fire, perils of Pauline.336 Erró and Restany337 suggested I send you a list of my Happenings-Theater Pieces and their materials for your exhibit. I expected you would write me. Why not? Hey? Joseph Cornell to CS 7 February 1966

1956–1968

Over and above the interest in films which is limited it would be nice to see one or two of your school friends out here and possibly there might be those to whom my work might appeal for development along their own lines of activity—I am on the point of crystallizing some of those nebulosisties of which we spoke last summer under the quince tree— but it might go faster (and easier) with a little push from the young bloods.

102

332. Schneemann describes early work on her performance/installation Water Light/ Water Needle. 333. Schneemann’s “someThing” is a reference to the press Something Else Press (1966–69), founded and directed by Dick Higgins, who also published Great Bear Pamphlets (1966–69), featuring artists’ manifestoes, scores, and other short texts. On Something Else Press, see Something Else Press: An Annotated Bibliography by Peter Frank (New Paltz, N.Y.: Documentext, 1983). 334. Al Hansen’s book A Primer of Happenings & Time/Space Art (New York: Something Else Press, 1965) was the first book published on happenings. In her comment on the title, Schneemann joined the words “primer” and “premier” to signal the celebration of his publication. 335. Marta Minujin (Argentina, 1941), artist. 336. The Perils of Pauline was a silent movie serial, begun in 1914, which ran for twenty episodes. Subsequent serializations were run in the 1930s, and in 1947 a feature film of the same title came out. The character of Pauline was initially played by Pearl White, singer and star of silent films. 337. Pierre Restany (France, 1930–2003), critic and founder of Nouveau Réalisme.

Jan van der Marck to CS 338 28 February 1966

338. Jan van der Marck (Netherlands, 1929–2010), curator and museum director. 339. Firehouse Theater, an alternative performance space in Minneapolis. 340. Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 341. Martin Friedman (United States, 1925), art historian, and director of the Walker Art Museum. 342. John Ludwig (United States, 1935–1995), coordinator of the Walker Art Center Performing Arts and general manager of the Center Opera Company (later the Minnesota Opera Company). 343. Ileana Sonnabend.

1956–1968

I went to see a recent production at the Firehouse Theater (Beckett’s “Endgame”—very well done) and I talked to two of the Firehouse Board Members.339 Although they feel sympathetic to your coming (I blamed them for having backed out) they claim that they haven’t got the money and that that is the only reason—which I believe. When asked how much they would require, they answered $500 or possibly less, (by the way, I think that your demands are scandalously low) that is if Walker340 would co-sponsor it. This seemed like the right idea, so I briefed Martin Friedman,341 Walker director, and John Ludwig,342 our performing arts coordinator, with the material you had given me. Friedman’s reaction was negative, Ludwig was more “with it” and willing to give it—or anything—a try. I pleaded—and kidded—Martin, but Meat Joy, although he had never seen it, had stuck in his throat like a bone. In 1962 he invited Kaprow to come and direct a happening here in Minneapolis, and that sort of turned sour and blew up in all the good people’s faces. Now Martin is—and should perhaps be forgiven for being—a little chicken about happenings. In the end, however, he let himself be convinced to consider it, that is either to cosponsor a happening you would direct at the Firehouse Theater, or to invite you out to do something for the Walker proper in the fall. The big proviso was that he would first want to tap some more people for their thoughts on and experiences with your work. I suggested Ileana343 because you wrote me that she had asked that you edit a film on MEAT JOY, and because I wanted to steer him into a presumably positive direction. Martin picked up the phone that very moment, talked to Ileana and came back saying that Ileana had not given him any kind of encouragement, but on the contrary, had dissuaded him to undertake anything with you. I am sorry that this must be painful for you to hear—and believe me I was distressed for your sake—and

103

it made me angry to realize that Ileana apparently talks different to you than she talks to others. I decided to tell you the truth rather than be vague or noncommittal for I hate to see you being double-crossed and you should know for whom to beware. Use this information discreetly—that is not involving Martin Friedman for one—and for your own self-interest. I bet that there is a lot of dog eat dog in what you are most closely involved in as I know there is in related fields. To finish my story, the only way left to go was to approach individuals with money who might like to make a $500 donation to the Firehouse Theater Foundation. Among some 4 people I talked to, two immediately suggested that they would insist on some Walker tie-in and that they would ask Martin’s counsel as well as mine. The two others simply looked at the project in terms of theater investment and started to ask: what will be in it for me? Well, these things are sort of predictable and I shouldn’t feel discouraged—I merely started to get into all this period. I would love to see you come out here and I will continue plugging the idea. CS to Jan Van der Marck

1956–1968

2 April 1966

104

I was so glad to get your letter—I sprang at it; you ask the best questions and have much I want to tell you which is difficult and peculiar . . . some fine enlarging dream with a nightmare surrounding it. But you tell almost nothing of yourself and your work . . . how it goes out there. Water Light/Water Needle went beautifully for three nights (of the four)—opening night certain performers forgot some crucial rules and a very delicate, crystalline quality was lost in the first section. I also cut the time on two sequences. [figure 24] The audience was enthralled, fascinated and moving with the work, with certain exceptions and these exceptions center in the “establishment” or “syndicate.” Every night we had to turn away hundreds of people; had the church not been so inconvenienced by the performances we could have given the work for at least another week. And the work itself is complex enough, demanding enough for all the performers to want to dwell in it, develop their understanding of it. We gave one extra performance to film the piece; two photographers in the audience were intrigued by its visual richness and asked to shoot it and will give me the footage to edit—an incredible gift! By word of mouth an audience appeared which fill the

room again. I’ll enclose notes on W. L./W. N.344 to give some sense of it and I can send you contact prints very soon. I love this work and had fine performers—very intense and giving, an amazing, devoted technician: the almost impossible technical complications, the dangerous rigging of the ropes, the plastic “clouds” filled with blinking lights which had to pass through the audience on ropes and pulleys, layer upon layer of newspaper covered with plastic to shine like a sea (covering the entire floor), the Guides—girls in plastic work suits with bamboo poles to 344. Water Light/Water Needle.

1956–1968

24. Rochelle Owens, “Water Light/Water Needle: A Carolee Schneemann Kinetic Theater Happening,” East Village Other, April–March 1966, 13. Courtesy of Jeff Bridges, Library of Congress, and Cowles Communications, Inc. Photograph by Terry Schutté. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

105

seat the audience in the “sea” for their journey . . . lights, sounds, props, cues . . . all worked out organically, precisely. After “Meat Joy” it appeared I had lost about half my friends in the art-world-scene. Now I’v lost the other half! This is specifically those reviewers, gallery people, performers and contacts which shelter and perpetuate a small group—an unchanging group—with which I’v been, in the past, involved. Jealousy and resentment over the success of Meat Joy has turned into open hostility, systematic exclusion from ALL festivals, exhibits, parties, cocktails . . . amusements in the country etc. etc. which these people arrange and the problem Jan, is really that there are no other people here doing anything to advance works in new performance media. I couldn’t believe it and still cannot understand it! Among themselves there may be aesthetic disagreement to a certain extent but they do not cut (in word/action) each other! Chieko Shiomi to CS 345 ca. June 1966

“SPATIAL POEM NO. 3” The phenomenon of a fall could be described as a segment of a movement towards the center of the earth. This very moment countless objects on the earth are taking part in this centripetal event. “SPATIAL POEM NO. 3” will be the record of your intentional effort to make something fall, occurring as it would, simultaneously with all the countless and incessant falling events. Please write to me how and when you performed it, as we are going to edit them chronologically. You could participate as many times as you want until August 31, 1966. CS to Chieko Shiomi 346 August 1966

1956–1968

Prelude I really had only one art lesson. I was twelve. A man who painted seascapes tore up a brown paper bag and scattered it over the floor: “There” he said “see the relationships they make? That’s a gestalt!” Saturday June 24th

106

345. Mieko (Chieko) Shiomi (Japan, 1938), artist. 346. Schneemann responds here to Shiomi’s collective book/event Spatial Poem #3, 1966.

347. Fuses.

1956–1968

In the afternoon sun, at the waterfall I balanced on a rock mossy under the water. I fell into the deeper water. Anticipating rain at dusk, I went to the shed where 200 lbs. of dried, shredded cow manure was stored. I broadcast all of the manure into a light wind, across the meadow, until it was night. Sunday June 25th Kitch sits in the window in a sun beam. Jim is on the bed under the window. I am completing my love film347—quickly changing film, I dropped the camera. Sunday July 3rd At the waterfall I pushed Jim off a rock into the stream; I jumped in after him. Philip Corner let the Citronella bottle slip. Citronella spilled out over the hemp rug. “That will be a permanent stain” I said, “I claim it for Chieko.” Tuesday July 5th After shoveling shale for hours, Jim came in and called for a comb. I threw one to him which fell at the bottom of the stairs. All Summer Jim has a tiny apartment on W. 15th St. in New York City. It is high over the city, six flights up. Whenever I’ve brushed my hair there, I pull the loose hairs from the brush and throw them out the window. They blow around high in the air for a long time. Every evening in the country, I take all the vegetable garbage–shells, stalks, leaves, pods, crusts, husks, seeds, pits, skins–which may accumulate from cooking, and throw it onto the garden for mulch. Friday July 15th I dug up dozens of white and grey rocks and threw them onto the dirt road to build up a barrier. Monday July 25th Visiting Vermont again; I found the river bottom rocks and dropped them into the car. And crying; we think Ruggles may be dying. All Summer I drop hairpins, underpants, earrings, pens and pencils. Sometimes I drop food to Kitch. Monday, Tuesday, August 1st, 2nd Terrible melancholy, weeping, (Tears disappear.)

107

1956–1968 108

Wednesday August 3rd Exasperated with the footage, I dropped the entire reel of film all over the floor . . . as it fell I saw what I needed. Friday August 5th Jumping up out of bed, laughing, dripping on the floor! Saturday August 6th In the protest march, I drop my atrocity poster in front of a policeman. Sunday August 7th Throw all the dead flowers onto the grass. Throw Kitch’s fur combings out the car window. Throw pop-corn and empty cups out the car window at the Drive-In. (“The Russians are Coming”) Monday August 8th Chopping weeds out from under the huge pine tree; throw them down the hill. Prepare a glue base: throw the collage papers onto it; drop matches to burn it; drop water to control the burning. Friday August 12th Finally finish “Notes on Meat Joy” for the book; throw all the preparatory writing into the garbage can under the apple tree. Saturday August 13th In the meadow, shooting stars; throw logs onto the fire in the pit. Sunday August 14th Jump on Jim and knock him down on the couch so he won’t go yet. Throw all the books and papers off the bed. Tuesday August 16th Raining. Take the bottles for glass-box collages and throw them onto rocks to begin to get the shapes I need to use. Dancing together and with Kitch; we throw her up in the air and back and forth between us. (Purrs fall in the air!) Editing all night; piles of film scrap drop all over the floor. All summer Spilling, falling, dropping, flowing body juices. Friday August 26th We miss the ferry from Connecticut to Long Island. We drive along the coast and find a deserted estate where we can park the car and sleep. Bright stars and light house. Run over the dunes and throw myself onto the sand.

Saturday August 27th On the island: drunk and crazy after the Whitman performance and many parties. We drive to a remote cove to park and sleep. Jim passes out. In my underwear, dancing along the beach. When I turn around the car has disappeared into the black night. Calling into the wind. Nothing but beating water, cold winds. Fall down in the dark; dig out a big hole in the pebbly sand with my hands. Fall into the hole, then throw all the dune grasses, sand and pebbles I can reach over myself. Shivering there until dawn. Wolf Vostell to CS 4 September 1966

Can you send me still a program of your last performance at St. Marks?348 When I came they were all given away. Joseph Berke to CS 13 September 1966

348. Schneemann first performed Water Light/Water Needle in March 1966 at St. Marks Church in New York City, and later in May on the Havemayer Estate in Mahwah, New Jersey, without an audience. 349. This letter is written on stationery that bears the heading “Research Committee on Cannabis” and identifies Berke as “Chairman.” “Tea,” in this context, refers to cannabis. 350. The Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) took place in London in September 1966. Over fifty artists, poets, musicians, and several psychiatrists from fifteen countries participated in the three-day symposium and the month of happenings and other events.

1956–1968

Hello Kiddo—I thought you might dig it if I wrote on the stationary of my latest wonder project, i.e., save the world for the tea heads.349 Will be publishing books, papers, poetry, results of research questionnaire to prove teaheads are really nice, etc. in near future. This weekend I gave a talk at the Destruction in Art Symposium350 in London. I enclose the talk and would be interested in your comments on what I had to say. The piece itself will be published in the next issue of Art & Artists. I was thinking that I might expand it all into a book as there is a lot more that could be pointed out. Oh yes, the topic—on the subject of “Man is a work of art in the act of destroying itself.” That brings me to a question I had to answer at the symposium—that is what is art? The eternal tongue twister. And as I wanted to justify the work of some of the destructivists as in some kooky way they like to call

109

1956–1968 110

themselves, I could only answer that art is a particular idiom of human expression whose purpose is to mediate and unfold the grandeur (you know greatness, complexity, aesthetics, etc.) of being. Whereas in all days, but in particular, our days this priori involves the shedding of FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS. First this happens in the artist. Then in his work. Then in the people who participate in his work. Yet it is very possible to utilize the techniques of what people have previously called art to further embed this false consciousness into the stuff of people. [. . .] This false consciousness is a powerful, insidious, and omnipresent aspect, if not entirety, of our lives. It is initiated from the day go, and extended and reinforced by all aspects of western society, yeah if not world culture. It is that which would have us be alienated from any idea of ours, that is each and everyone’s, godliness, i.e. buddhahood, BUDDHAHOOD. Where are our bodies and our minds? They are there, right in what we are, but they are eons away at the same time. First as you and I recognize, we live in a time so perilous, so dangerous, also so illusory, that most anything anyone would do would be and is permeated by this most FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS, until even the smallest cells of the body are FALSE AND THE MIND IS riddled with thousands of layers of lives not our own. We live as the embodied “other.” We are victims of this disembodied other which we are taught and then ourselves embody, or so we think. Your art is great Carolee because you have seen through this all with your body and that is the prime mover of it all, and the source of all else. And you communicate that and would have others see through the falseness of their lives by the vision which is yours. But this battle is not something that is won, or stops or leaves breath space. It continues and each of us subtly, oh so subtly, seeks to choke of the grandeur that is us at the very moment that we would enfold ourselves into the light. [. . .] I think that art has become politicized. So much so because of being forced by the times in which we live. Either it seeks to cut away the dross, this being the political act; POLITICAL, because the world would have it otherwise, and the secret police breathe down our necks to remind us every moment; or else it twists the screw just that bit more. Diego Rivera had to paint the Indians of Mexico as the most beautiful of all incarnate creatures because they were, they were. But they had been taught otherwise and they believed that, and the biochemistry of their bodies read UGLY and for three hundred years. Your art is the most political and the most subversive of any art I have ever seen.

Joseph Berke to CS 4 October 1966

351. The article, titled “Schizophrenia as a Way of Life,” was by Ruth Abel and published in the London Guardian on Tuesday, October 4, 1966. The pacifists Doris and Muriel Lester founded the infamous Kingsley Hall in London in 1912. It had strong links with the suffragette movement in East London, and in 1931 Mahatma Gandhi had stayed there. In 1965, the Scottish pioneer of anti-psychiatry, the psychiatrist Ronald David Laing (Scotland, b. 1927, France, d. 1989), turned Kingsley Hall into a community for psychiatric research and hired Joseph Berke. 352. Mary Barnes was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was a former nurse with whom Joseph Berke and R. D. Laing worked at Kingsley Hall. See Joseph Berke with Mary Barnes, Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), and David Edgar, Mary Barnes (London: Eyre Methuen, 1979). 353. Mark Rothko (Russia, b. 1903, United States, d. 1970), painter. 354. The Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation took place in London 15–30 July 1967. Participants included Gregory Bateson, David Cooper, Mircea Eliade, John Gerassi, Allen Ginsberg, Erving Goffman, Lucien Goldmann, Paul Goodman, Jules Henry, R. D. Laing, Jacov Lind, Ernest Mandel, Herbert Marcuse, and Paul Sweezy. Although Stokely Carmichael and Carolee Schneemann also participated, their names were left off the program. 355. Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1905–80), philosopher. 356. Allen Ginsberg (United States, 1926–97), poet. 357. U Thant (Burma, b. 1909, United States, d. 1974), third secretary-general of the United Nations.

1956–1968

For the life of me I can’t remember whether I sent you a copy of this Guardian article on Kingsley Hall.351 [. . .] I am particularly proud of Catherine in the article whose real name is Mary352 who I am attempting to save from some psychotic whatever there is, especially normality. So anyway after smearing shit on the walls for two months, very artistically, I might add, she was getting people down and went on to black paint. Still people didn’t [understand], well at least too much, her Rothko-like353 figurations on the walls. So I take her in my hand and say, Mary, you’re too much. Why don’t you paint, that is, you know, try it with real paint. So she did, and hundreds of canvases later was still growing strong. So bravo except now she’s been in bed for three months . . . and not laying hand to brush, but that’s the art world for you. Our Congress for next summer, i.e. the Dialectics of Liberation354 is swimming along. Latest fish we’re trying to induce to attend is Sartre.355 Hoping to have a big Albert Hall do with Sartre, Ginsberg,356 and U Thant.357 Yes ravings of a madman. Well at least Allen will be there. Big international poetry jamboree first week of July. Our thing is the last two weeks of July and have got a super mansion where a good deal of it will take place. Friend of mine bought a 35 room house and estate 50 miles from London with 30 acres and all sorts of formal grounds and other jazz. Well, he really wasn’t too much of a friend but is more

111

so becoming, especially since has AGREED TO THE Congress at his place. [. . .] If you and Jim could come over for the Congress it would be grand. And there is a too much place where you could put on some magnificent happenings right near my pad. [. . .] Arnold Wesker’s Center 42358 which still is beautiful as an empty brick roundhouse dirt floored and hundreds of feet in circumference as well as with a hundred foot high dome. Nobody’s used it except last week a new newspaper by the name of International Times (IT) just was launched there.359 Sort of London’s answer to EVO.360 Well 5000 people and the Beatles just couldn’t make it all at once, but it was a success and the first issue has come out. Meanwhile the roundhouse is empty. No shit!!!!! Latest, Julian Beck is bringing Frankenstein to London. The big bear waits– Robert Scull to CS 361 13 December 1966

1956–1968

Thank you very very much for your letter of 29 November with the beautiful scrapbook of your work. I am not as unfamiliar, as you might believe, with your work for I have had the pleasure of seeing “WATER LIGHT/WATER NEEDLE” last March. I also saw one of the productions at the Judson Dance Theater. Unfortunately, I am not, at this time, able to help you realize the production of your new Kinetic Theater work. All my funds are allocated for 1967 and part of 1968. Some artists are depending on these monthly payments, not only for loft space and materials, but in some instances, a stipend for clothing and food. It would be impossible for me to re-arrange these payments. I am truly sorry that I cannot give you a more encouraging answer,

112

358. Sir Arnold Wesker (Eng­land, 1932), playwright, founded “Center 42,” located in London’s Chalk Farm area, in 1964. It soon became known as the “Roundhouse,” and was a famous venue in the 1960s and 1970s for such bands as the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and the Clash. The Living Theatre performed there and Schneemann directed Round House in the building on 29 July 1967 as part of the Dialectics of Liberation. Wesker also played a leading role in the “Committee of 100,” founded in October 1960 by the Nobel prize–winning philosopher Bertrand Russell and the peace activist Reverend Michael Scott to commit nonviolent civil disobedience on behalf of nuclear disarmament. 359. International Times (IT) (1966–78, and irregularly from the 1980s into the 1990s), underground newspaper published in London. 360. East Village Other (EVO) (1965–72), underground newspaper published in New York City. 361. Robert C. Scull (United States, 1917–86), art patron and collector.

and I hope you understand that my respect for your work cannot be measured by my inability to help you at this time. CS to Joseph Berke 14 February 1967

362. Schneemann’s contraction of “fashion” and “Fascists.” 363. Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City. 364. John Vliet Lindsay (United States, 1921–2000), lawyer, U.S. congressman (1959– 65), and mayor of New York City (1966–73). 365. With this comment, Charlotte Moorman protested the exposure of Watutsi women of central Africa (Burundi and Rwanda), often depicted bare-chested in such publications as National Geographic. 366. Abraham Johannes Muste (Netherlands, b. 1885, United States, d. 1967), Christian pacifist, worked for the American Civil Liberties Union. Involved in emerging liberation movements in Africa, Muste helped organize the World Peace Brigade and was a close friend and

1956–1968

Dear Valentine Mine Yes I want to see where you are—be where you are . . . how are the other fashistis362 living (it up?) and who all is around, allowed to be doing what they as conscience do. Here, all being arrested—not development—sequential actions/activities . . . just the FUZZ heavy in “plain clothes”—long tweed coats grabbing before the move is made (in St. Patties)363 (WHO leaked HOW leaked?); jumping up on the stage in midst of most tender, courageous and witty performance of Charlotte Moorman (long formal skirt, bare-breasted, playing the cello and Paik at the piano, gentle, twitching, incomparable . . . there with badges they waved in the air yelling “WE’RE the POLICE, you’re Under Arrest.” And three hundred of us—an invited audience, heard Paik ask the three cops sitting in the back . . . “is o.k. Mr. policeman?” And since for the sensations Charlotte had flashing lights attached to nipples and pussy they shouted back “o.k., o.k., Beautiful!” And Paik said “thank you, you very Lindsay administration police.”364 But for the Bach, Charlotte had the lights off and just the big skirt. And Paik shouted to the police: “is o.k.? We want everybody in harmony.” Police mumbled, she ought to cover her top. And Charlotte refused, yelling out to them “Leave the Watusi’s uncovered and cover me? NO!”365 Bumping bodies . . . all jelly and cloudy, milling on the stage, Charlotte shrieking for her wedding ring and cello; utter confusion (ring she parks on the music stand and has always had freedom to retrieve in the past (one of those funny fragments with arbitrary consequences . . . trundled away); we charged the stage—a few of us. A. J. Muste died yesterday).366

113

1956–1968

My morbid unhappiness is midst of happiness/joy to have all I dream of (in my own system that is) . . . to be giving wild form and realization to my dreams (hampered, crippled only by lack of money); and you wrote I would “go commercial” this fall and the next week a producer phoned and asked me would I like to do something at his theater— the Martinique. I was skeptical and “Snows” was rising.367 We talked about a country without a connection to conscience, an art world/a culture vapid, intensely self-absorbed, devorative,368 frenetic, corrupt, mechanical in its emotions and insane with cold lusts to be gotten at, to feel and so armored nothing could strike empathy, root viscera in its snobbish plastic body. A deluded, warped, self-righteous, mythic society. And he said go ahead. I wanted to do SNOWS on a boat at Xmas but we couldn’t get the boat—(to go out each night into the Hudson and perform) and that dreadful vaudeville, “Viet Rock”369 [figures 25–27] stammered on until New Years. Six of us—the most beautiful performers I ever found (Japanese, Negro, reddish, whitish) turned on, turned out like one fantastic bloom together. And five technicians and I welded, enchanted the whole slow mysterious collage over a month . . . building while Libin370 the producer, lost $1000 a week to keep the theater empty for us. I covered seats with miles of white shining plastic scraps, hammered and nailed a huge water lens onto the stage, took away all his curtain and collaged the walls with shards of paper; closed the entrances and built a fat plastic, pink mouth from floor to ceiling, fat and foamy which the audience would have to squeeze through. We wired the seats with contact microphones so when the audience shifted about the noise was picked up, amplified and fed by SCR’s371 into the light system, dimming, raising streaks of revolving lights. It was gorgeous and ominous; icy white, purpled, cold, penetrating and ecstatic. Jim made a tape372

114

mentor to Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King. Trusted by all radical groups protesting Vietnam, he led pacifists to Saigon in 1966 and later that year met with Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. 367. Snows was a production of Schneemann’s Kinetic Theater at the Martinique Theatre on 32nd Street and Broadway 21, 22, 27, 28, and 29 January and 3,4, and 5 February 1967. Schneemann and Tenney performed in Snows, as did Shigeko Kubota (Japan, 1937), artist; Tyrone Mitchell (United States, 1944), artist; Phoebe Neville (United States, 1942), dancer and choreographer; and Peter Watts (Eng­land, 1946–75), artist. 368. Schneemann altered the verb “to devour” into the adverb “devorative.” 369. The play Viet Rock, 1967, directed by Rafael López Miarnau, satirized the war in Vietnam. 370. Paul Libin (United States, 1930), stage producer, director, and president of the League of Off-Broadway Theaters and Producers. 371. SCR (sustainable cell rate) determines the long-term average cell rate that can be transmitted. 372. Schneemann refers to a sound tape that Tenney made for Snows.

25. Flyer for Carolee Schneemann’s performance Snows, performed 21, 22, 27, and 28 January 1967, Martinique Theater, 32nd Street and Broadway, New York City. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

26. Carolee Schneemann, Snows, 1967. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

1956–1968

27. Carolee Schneemann, still from Viet-Flakes, 1965–67, 16mm, black-and-white tonedblue film with a montage of atrocity images from the Vietnam War; sound by James Ten­ ney. Viet-Flakes was shown as part of Schneemann’s Snows, 1967. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

116

from trains coupling (in 1958, Illinois, three in the morning tracking the mysterious train which haunted our life there) and orgasm (we just left a little tape recorder under the bed for three years because coming-song is the only kind I really can sing and it is, within certain time and structural conditions the most varied and incredible expression! (And so fantastic!) You can’t believe how many people had no idea what that sound was! Especially women said, did you make those sounds for this piece? They are very interesting. I said, I didn’t make them voluntarily. And they look bewildered. I said that is, those “sounds” are produced spontaneously. And they ask, “how?” People arguing: that was a baby . . . no it was a sheep . . . it was someone being tortured! No, it was a woman in ecstasy . . . no it was electronic treatment of a classical song . . . So long as the dead ones don’t know sexual sound it won’t be prohibited . . . we won’t be arrested! Like the rock ’n’ roll sex songs in secret language—most fantastic and beautiful funky 96 Tears . . . which got to be No. 1 cause they didn’t know what the hell it was!373 (“And when the 373. The Mysterians recorded “96 Tears” in 1966, one of the quintessential songs of the sixties, sung by Question Mark (also known as Rudy Martinez) (United States, 1945).

374. Lyndon Baines Johnson (United States, 1908–73), 36th president of the United States. 375. LBJ had gall-bladder surgery in 1966.

1956–1968

sun comes up . . . I’ll be on top, you’ll be down there looking up . . . and you’re gone to cry cry cry cause I know how . . . 96 tears . . .”) And Jim made a tape collage from certain sounds deeply carrying for me, through the past ten years . . . in audial fragments (choosing the songs/sounds for radical juxtapositions which set off associative material, configurations of affect which unify disparate forms) . . . Mozart Piano Concerto 20 (black souled, BARD); Bach Cantata #78 (“Yellow Ladies,” Vt.); Bach Partita C Minor (“Horseshoes,” Ill.); Bach, “Alleluia” from Xmas Cantata (Illinois eight in the morning); Beatles, “We Can Work It Out”; Bobby Hebb “Sunny”; Fontella Bass “Don’t Mess Up a Good Thing”; “What the World Needs Now”; “96 Tears”; Vietnamese Folk songs; Laotian love song. The collage only twice . . . during “Body Sculpture” and at the end with film I made from still photos “Viet-Flakes.” Rescue of the silver (foil) walkers (out on the planks into the audience), they are covered in silver foil (the silver King, the silver Queen); dragged back by the silver cocoons when they have finally slowly, agonizingly emerged from the skin wrapping them; flashing blue floor lights (the floor silver too); an incredible effort to make rescue and finally the two groups of rescued and rescuers regain the stage, the central white circle where they lie collapsed, heaped and on the circle comes “Viet-Flakes” and ecstatic terrible sound collage, horrifying fragments of those beautiful people caught in instants of disaster, swimming, dying, bleeding, dragging, being dragged, running, crawling, weeping and the harpsichord, the oriental cry, “We can work it out” . . . from above the snow begins to fall on us . . . encrusting our already white, greased faces, filling our eyes, our ears, our mouths. And I lay there every night in the warm heap, feeling the turns and weights of our combined bodies, watching, watching the start and stop, in and out focus fury and pain and outrage watching and in the middle it stops on 3 stills of LBJ 374 in bed, sheet under his chin, glasses on his nose, “Surgery O.K.”375/his thumb and index finger make donut curved O.K. he winks/cut to child with side ripped open, guts fallen out, floating corpses, burnt rubble face . . . the exquisite Bach . . .”Don’t Mess Up a good thing” . . . “love sweet love” . . . “life is much too short” . . . the snow keeps falling on us. Almost nobody gets it . . . any of that fantastic metaphor, sensory arena . . . which most simply, intellectually is strung out between 1949

117

28. Poster for Carolee Schneemann, Round House, a happening at the Round House, Chalk Farm Road, London, 29 July 1967, sponsored by the International Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann. 29. Carolee Schneemann with the poet Paul Blackburn at a “Be In” in Central Park, New York City, 15 April 1967. Pho­tographer unknown. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

Newsreel, 1940 snow films and Viet-Flakes; the touching, carrying transforming we do . . . nope. Audiences like paper stones. Too late and too soon for me as usual. I want to get out of here for a while. I’ll make you something great—you say where. CS to Jan Van der Marck 12 June 1967

The performance for London—Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation—which had to be cancelled for lack of funds—is on. [figure 28] They’ve managed travel expenses and accommodations and then for the rest . . . I’ll see. . . . The Congress will talk for three weeks about the basic conditions of man (Sartre, Marcuse, Jacob Lind, Paul Goodman, Allen Ginsberg, etc)376 at the end of which I’ll have a work ready— perhaps using all them that are willing. The space is Weskers’ Round House377—an old railroad station with a glass roof they tell me. Then the Lincoln Center Library on performing arts is starting a sort of archives on my work; that’s wonderful for unloading, storing all manner of documents, drawings, photos and letters. I’m so swamped with memorabilia of current culture—other peoples works, letters, writings. As well as my own—the whole span of it since 1955, that this is a real help to me. (Mine goes back to 1938!) . . . A very ugly business with. . . . R. Kostelanetz378 is softened by what I can do with good energy now. (He sent me a note he would exclude my interview from his Mixed Means book; I was the first artist interviewed and helped him to meet Kaprow, Rauschenberg, Whitman etc . . . And I used the forthcoming book as a reference for grant applications—a source for information on my work! Everybody very upset about it—a kind of drawing together now between all of us . . . some mellowing it seems.) CS to Joseph Berke 15 June 1967

376. Herbert Marcuse (Germany, 1898–1979), philosopher; Jacob Lind (United States, 1927), novelist; Paul Goodman (United States, 1906–98), philosopher. 377. Arnold Wesker. 378. Richard Kostelanetz (United States, 1940), artist, author, and critic.

1956–1968

Can I meet the Beatles? I am hoping for a small grant $125$ to help us get me going to/in/with

119

CDL.379 I’ll use part of it to process Viet-Flakes & 1949 Newsreel films. (Sound collage on V-F is incredible) which I’ll bring. I hesitate to bring “Fuses.”380 [plate 7] 1. A print is $60. 2. It is so gorgeous . . . dangerous, if censorship be rampant on your Island? 3. It’s heavy! [figure 29] 21 days is a desperately short time to make a work (I understand an extension on the flight is possible at the end, if one is “sick”) and I should start now to contact a possible work crew to start digging up materials. We’ll also need some money for materials. I’ll need 2 strobe lights and 2 16mm projectors to borrow for performance/enactment. Do you know any collage artists—Robin Page,381 Mark Boyle382 I could write ahead to? What will be the space? Is rehearsal time available? I also want to do some “physical encounters” with Kingsley Hall people. Joseph Berke to CS 10 August 1967

1956–1968

[. . .] Tuesday I went to see the “Worlds first performance” of Yoko Ono’s film No. 4—which really bored the ass off me.383 Those thousand years of culture and we arrive at total negation. The art of the asshole! We live in a creative society that has encouraged people to ask all things. By people I mean the intellectual minority. While encouraging them to question all things, has at the same time given them a freedom

120

379. Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation. 380. Jonas Mekas called Fuses the most “beautiful film of 1968.” See “Over 300 Films at Cannes,” Variety [London], Wednesday 28 May 1969. Dave McCullough wrote: “The cultural history of male America has passed down too much shit for a man to have made ‘Fuses,’ which views love-making subjectively, from within. The interior view is both more erotic and less pornographic, more like doing it than watching it. An American male would have to uncloud his eyes of several thousand playmates to see things that way . . . ‘Fuses’ is also intersubjective, merging two foci of sexual experience—male and female—analogously to the way binocular vision fuses two images. ‘Fuses’ presents a complete fuck, not half a fuck, which is a joy to see and doubtless satisfying to make . . . Schneemann’s main technical accomplishment is in overlaying forms to reiterate the theme at several levels, e.g. when the coupled bodies making it on the bed themselves make it with faces and forests, the trees with the sky, etc. This can only be done by careful cutting; working with limited footage, there are bound to be rough transitions from one overlay to the next. Despite this, the imagery flows well enough that I didn’t notice until the third viewing that there was no sound track.” See Dave McCullough, “Eat Movies,” San Francisco Express Times, 25 February 1969. 381. Robin Page (Eng­land, 1932), artist. 382. Mark Boyle (Scotland, b. 1934, Eng­land, d. 2005), artist. 383. Film No 4 (Bottoms), 1966, by Yoko Ono (Japan, 1933) artist. Both Schneemann and Tenney appeared in this film.

which is in fact a kind of anarchy in which they enjoy the novelty of questioning only! The world is turning (the cultural world) not—into creating giants, but mini-men. I want a “creative in Art-symposium” not a “destruction in art symposium.” As Antonin Artaud wrote, “It is not a question of brandishing the butcher’s knife every minute but of re-introducing in each theatrical gesture the notion of a kind of cosmic cruelty without which there would be neither life nor reality.” As “the theatre is, first of all, ritual and magic, tied to faces, and founded on a religion and on affective beliefs whose efficacy manifests itself in gestures, and is directly linked to the rites of the theatre which are actually the exercise and expression of a spiritual need for magic.” I wonder if Yoko Ono understands what James Joyce said about— “History is a nightmare that I am trying to awaken from.” Really Carolee, your piece, was and is, twice or thrice etc. more prophetic and beautiful than anything she’s doing. I don’t understand what you find so enchanting about her work. You must believe that Carolee Schneemann is, Queen!! Of course, not forgetting Trog for king! CS to Joseph Berke

Finally dreaming about you, and London elements—bringing the present into focus. It’s been extremely difficult to be back, as if a curtain simply dropped down, everything here wiping out those three weeks in their immediacy and I was feeling wrenched away. But I’v already made an action environment situation—with Jim, whose ideas while I was away developed as mine did. . . .Without any rehearsal we went onto grasses (mountain back-drop), a random pile of pillows about forty “spectators” standing, sitting around: we went through a series of physical encounters, movements and contacts which we then shifted directly to the spectators: carrying them, riding them, piling them up until twenty of them were rolling down hills together, touching each other . . . moving together. It was astonishing and lots of beautiful qualities working through . . . as well as for some of them, a “terrible exposure,” “an imposition,” “presumption!” The Congress384 more and more starkly a mag384. Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation.

1956–1968

15 August 1967

121

nificent conjunction of energies . . . you, who made it should be proud and working like crazy to manifest what was thrown open. My need now is to come back. There were beginnings, promises, things to try and a group of people who, more than any others I suddenly found or was found by, I should work with. And London itself—all that might be, what it was giving me and asking . . . not wanting it to be become “background” . . . to get my teeth into it, really having to live there. If I could set up a lecture series on Happenings in NY (slides and film) for colleges around London, and further perhaps a series of action-environment experiments for students I could support myself and have a workshop in London itself with Michael,385 Jean,386 Neil,387 Craig388 and any others. For a month or two? Sept. through Oct.? I’v a lot of commitments here, and for Jim everything practically stops when I leave; but I do need being alone, singularly focused and the intensification which really facing unknown circumstances makes possible. So . . . it should be possible. [. . .] I am grateful to you for every moment there, and what carries from that time . . . (that I feel revolutionized) and finally very pleased with the performance, which means the total action-reaction situation. Is there anyone here you would need me to contact about the Congress, any way I could be helpful to your future plans? In the meantime—while I refuse to abandon image of tiny flat, sitting and thinking, eating prawns and eels on the way to work, meeting you in a pub for lunch, and finally launching a barge in the Thames on which a fantastic journey would transpire. Tomorrow begin torture environment for architects at Judson.389 Joseph Berke to CS 1 October 1967

1956–1968

Hello—Dig. We shall probably go ahead with making a full length film on the Congress. Peter Davis390 who will be doing it asked me to ask you if he could

122

385. Michael Kustow (Eng­land, 1939), writer, filmmaker, and director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, who performed in Schneemann’s Round House, 1967. 386. Jean Michaelson (Eng­land, ca. 1945) was a student at the time that she worked with Schneemann. 387. Neil Hornick (Eng­land, 1939), performance artist and playwright. Hornick also appeared in Schneemann’s happening Round House, 1967, at the Round House in London’s Camden Town during the Dialectics of Liberation. 388. Craig Gibson (Eng­land, ca. 1942), artist. 389. Schneemann refers to her installation at the exhibition Manipulations, 1967, Judson Church. 390. Peter Davis (Canada, 1937), filmmaker.

use excerpts for the film you showed during the happening. It would be nice if we could. If no, could you send it to me airmail. We pay all expenses involved of course & also be very careful with it. I spoke to John Haynes391 who shall be sending you copies of the pictures he took of the happening. Also, and this will please you, Peter Davis films the Happening and we’ll be glad to send you the footage available of the Happening as soon as he can. Hope you are enjoying the fall autumn—changes of colors—last vestiges of summer etc. Feel Blue myself. Has rained here every single day since the beginning of Sept. CS to Joseph Berke

sweet joe hello yes indeed the colors are glorious fire lights, radiating from within, confounding the sun’s effects and tiny crust points of bright apples still shining close to sky heavy soft sun leaves falling slowly moment by moment very still warm quiet (brilliant enveloping as my last day in London—all those roses, bees, cats, heavy leaves turning). Slowly slowly getting to BE here, London psyche-out softening tiger claws I mistook for gentle touches sitting back; I was overwhelmed so long, not wanting anything here . . . still very turned off by city itself and “crystal clear” all the social bull-shit pathos brittle little jobs symbolic of friendship, concurrence no time no sympathetic-nerve-end pulse to environment; all chewing on each other voraciously; dancing, drunk, stretching the telephone to incredulity and scurrying around through dirt noise anger compression concrete exhaust to achieve some little????? We have no time, we have to advertise, we have no fleshy space, we have to make propaganda when we mean to whisper a confidence. I’v got a lot of work I want to do, quiet work to finish up now. You know I want to come back and now I am trying to plan for four months starting in London and going to June in Venice for the biennale. Second week of May London?????hahaha xmas? I’v got to fly around a lot but the old $$$ game tricks my speed. FILM Cannot send original print of “Viet-Flakes” since I use it; my lab can 391. John Haynes (Eng­land, 1937), photographer.

1956–1968

4 October 1967

123

make a print overnight and you could pay them directly for it. I want some idea of how Peter intends to use the Vietnam footage in the overall Congress film, and a note from him agreeing to credit it; Vietnam footage from “Viet-Flakes” by Schneemann, 1966. I was wondering what he did manage to shoot of the happening; have you seen any of it? If he wants to super-impose any of Viet-Flakes on the happening footage that would be good—the way I’m using it in film of “Snows” also. Pete Whitehead392 had a big party this sat. in film studio, a New York scene and a very strange one, real madness. The people he invited often didn’t show up; others he should have filmed, he didn’t know and no one had time or wits to introduce him to them when they were under his nose/camera eye. Eddies and circles of artists, socialites, hippies, p.r., mad. ave.393 people and poor Peter hurtling through it all under his zoom lens. Jim and I did a tiny fierce encounter on top of a dolly, Viet-Flakes on us, and by time to provoke, physically involve others, the liquor ran out and so did they! Leaving us, Ken Dewey394 (actiontheater) and Open Theatre395 people holding the empty cups. Very funny, certain charm and also Evil of New York energy stream. Can’t explain it very well.396 Michael Kustow to CS 22 November 1967

1956–1968

Dallas Day plus four years. Isn’t that incredible?397 I sit down to write you a too-long delayed letter, I carefully type out the day and the date and lo, it’s assassination day. I still don’t believe in cosmic coincidences, but it’s true that the last thing I did for our Carolee was to go out and buy on your advice the Garrison398 interview in October PLAYBOY, which riveted me to my seat on a train journey all the way up to Yorkshire, so I found myself digging people in the compartment next to me

124

392. Peter Whitehead (Eng­land, 1937), documentary filmmaker. 393. “p.r. mad. ave.” refers to public relations agents from Madison Avenue advertising agencies. 394. Ken Dewey (United States, ca. 1934–72), playwright and artist. 395. The Open Theater (1963–73), experimental theater group. 396. Schneemann refers to a party where she rode naked on Robert Rauschenberg’s shoulders. 397. Kustow refers to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 398. Earling Carothers Garrison (United States, 1921–92), district attorney of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1962 to 1973, known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

399. William Blake (Eng­land, 1757–1827), poet and artist. 400. J. M. W. Turner (Eng­land, 1775–1851), painter. 401. Bertolt Brecht (Germany, 1898–1956), poet and playwright. 402. René Magritte (Belgium, 1898–1967), painter. 403. Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1930), filmmaker. 404. Fidel Castro. 405. Charles Wood (Guernsey, 1932), playwright. 406. John Arden (England, 1930), playwright. 407. R. Buckminster Fuller (United States, 1895–1983), architect. 408. Archie Shepp (United States, 1937), saxophonist and playwright. 409. Allen Ginsberg. 410. Adrian Mitchell (Eng­land, 1932–2008), poet, novelist, and playwright. 411. Sir Roland Penrose (Eng­land, 1900–84), painter, poet, and critic.

1956–1968

in the ribs and saying How about this? Just listen!—with little effect, but I’ve been getting good friends to read it left right and centre . . . Carolee, I’m right in the thick of it now, and I need all the help I can get from all the friends I’ve got everywhere. You got my postcard, I hope. Forgive me not writing sooner, but some big changes have been happening since I got back from Turkey in September, and the major, incredible result, is that I’m now director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in its new premises in Carlton House Terrace. [. . .] The ICA was given, at a very favourable rent, a gallery space 7000 square feet with a natural stage at one end, plus a small auditorium and stage equipped with projection facilities. There will also be, at a later stage, bar, restaurant, library, etc. [. . .] And this is what I have been asked to direct into a centre for the contemporary arts. And this is what I am gambling to turn into a revolutionary centre, right plumb smack in the middle of British privilegeland. Impossible? Maybe, but worth having a go. The problems are very simple really. If I tell you I want to run the place in the spirit of Blake,399 Turner,400 John Cage (whose A YEAR FROM MONDAY I’ve just read with great delight and illumination), Brecht,401 Magritte,402 Godard,403 Fidel,404 you, Dick Higgins, Charles Wood,405 John Arden,406 Julian Beck, Homer, Aristophanes, Botticelli (I was in Florence for five days last month, and he has the joyfullest women you’ve ever seen), the Beatles, Buckminster Fuller,407 Archie Shepp,408 Ginsberg,409 Adrian Mitchell410 and all the other unhung-up angels, you know what I’m after. Translated into press-statement language, find it enclosed. If I tell you that the existing ICA establishment, sweet old outdated surrealists who’ve sold out to the British class system like Sir Roland Penrose411 who hangs on Picasso’s coat-tails, that this establishment

125

1956–1968

sees themselves as aging avantgardists, pledged to bring the gospel according to Paris 1930 home to insular Eng­land—and that the Arts Council, on whom they hang for funds, sees the new ICA as “Looking after the avant-garde side,” to quote a schoolmasterly spokesman I met yesterday—looking after the avant-garde side, instead of just making the place alive, intricate, joyful, and undefinable / / THERE IS NO MEANING TO THE WORD AVANT-GARDE ANY MORE—CAGE’S BOOK LINKS ALL THE NEW THINGS IN ALL THE MEDIA WITH ONE KEY PURPOSE, OR PURPOSELESSNESS: MAKING THE WORLD WORK, AND THIS PLEASES ME BECAUSE IT IS TRUE POLITICS AS WELL AS TRUEST ART FOR NOW/ / / If I tell you all these things . . . and then remind you that the sterling has just been devalued, and that there is a terrible money hang-up on the place altogether (20,000 pound deficit predicted for the first year)—a deficit which in a, volatile I believe is the word, volatile economy like the USA’s would be insignificant, but here assumes funereal proportions, and that anyway the one main thing in the place should be to get the arts, ach, I mean the experience, out from under Mammon—bite and into people—flow—and that this should happen in the very hub of the tired old poor shaken bruised British system of power and prestige, with untold reverberations— —then you see what sort of tightrope I’m teetering on. This weekend I get Paul McCartney412 to see the place, and we take it on from there. You see there’s no true Underground in London in the NY sense, partly because the Overground is more subtle and insidious in its distortion of people. On the other hand, there is a possibility in sweet old ramshackle Britain of thrusting new life through the stiff underwear of the Establishment, in a way which is probably much harder in your much harder city. But here too the powerhouse of change must come from the Beatles generation, and the style of revolt, revolution, the tone of the place, the flavour of what we create there, comes from them. Longterm aim: a FREE FESTIVAL next summer starting in Nash House413 and spilling out over into St James’ Park, among the Royal swans . . . In the mean meantime, until I get this crazy cash situation straightened out, and can really get down to the interesting work which I feel

126

412. Paul McCartney of the Beatles. 413. Standing next to the London ICA, the Nash House was built by John Nash (Eng­land, 1752–1835), architect.

(though I haven’t had space or time to tell you how full of new things I am at present) rising inside what you must do is: feed me with all every evidence of that true American/Zen openness I see so clearly in Cage, felt so firmly in you even among that chaos and thistleforest of the Roundhouse, and know is happening all over USA. Send me Bucky Fuller414 texts. Send me pictures of your work, mags, poems. Tell me what to subscribe to. Above all, write your own thing back, where you’re at now, Carolee. CS to Michael Kustow 19 December 1967

414. R. Buckminster Fuller. 415. Michelangelo Antonioni. 416. Caterpillar (1967–73), literary magazine. Stills from Fuses appeared on the cover of Caterpillar 2 (January 1968).

1956–1968

HOORAY DARLING AND BLESS YOU ALL DREAMS SOCK IT TO EM US RIGHT THROUGH ALL TACKY HORSE SHIT SEND IT FLYING HORSE SENSE TO TAKE THE LEAPS (BRITISH ARE GOOD ON HORSES in our books they always are . . . leaping (onto royal swans))! Me too—“in thicket of it;” so dazed crazed can hardly write . . . I’ll just list. Fuses: edited, shot moved into gut magic I’m really pleased it is almost finished. [figure 30] By peculiar circumstances it was shown to Antonioni415 among selection of other “new” films and this was the one he cared about, talked about (he being shy, reticent, taking to shadows) which made me more pleased than I could have imagined. Stills going onto cover of Poetry magazine. [. . .] Caterpillar out in January—will send it on.416 Tomorrow I jump naked, covered with glue, into a paper environment I’v prepared to become body-collage. This for invited photographers who will get what they can—like a drawing class—and from their images I will find what I need for flyers for 1. Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, where I go for three weeks in January to find people, materials (Container Corp. putting up paper). This all a turnedon-return, my first time back in five years (they brought me out two weeks ago to plan) where it all first began in blind loose searching—a very wild special place, overwhelming landscape impact which will be base metaphor for piece titled, for now Illinois Central (name of main train line and orgasm-train tape made in Urbana shunting yard middle

127

of the night, 1961 . . .) and, 2. in February and March I go on hinterlands (mostly) tour on commission from N.Y. State Council on Environmental Arts. [figure 31] This to be run like insane guerrilla cadres—a troupe of varying persons (Brenda I hope)417 to take off through snow and sleet (I hope!) explode open some little place, turn it all over into them and on to the next. Material still unformulated . . . we’ll see, it’s scary all this momentum . . . waiting, where will visions develop? CS to Michael Kustow 16 May 1968

1956–1968

Michael Darling: You must forgive my long silence: Jasia418 may have given you some idea of how hard I worked all winter and how much my life has changed—the separation from Jim, three months now and strangely without pain and with our usual accordance of feeling and concern for one another. The ICA news is really thrilling . . . I have no doubt about blazing successes for you but I hope the details and struggles to realize what you want will not be unnecessarily difficult. Any thing at all I can do on this end for you let me know. Brenda Dixon419 will be in London soon with the Open Theatre; will you be doing anything with them? [. . .] All manner of fantastic things are swirling around me now; the Intermedia Tour was fantastic . . . going out with groups of my troopers to turn on whole cities, living in our crazy rented truck (full of bales of paper, straw, cellophane, exotic foods for the various diets, drinks and smokes, lights, slides, film, amplifiers . . . unbelievable madness—gestalt hurtling through bleak landscapes and every stop some volcanic eruption). Grove Press wants to distribute Fuses; finally completed four months ago and it is the best thing I have ever done. Many private screenings called for (Antonioni saw it, Kubrick420 screened it yesterday at Time Life . . . Mus. of Mod. Art, Lincoln Center people all treating it like lyric dynamite . . . so far nothing settled about it). This Sunday Times magazine section will have color photo from “Snows,” one of me in Illinois Central and long article on Intermedia ’68 . . . all of which may help me to realize most immediate plan—dream: to be in Venice

128

417. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild (United States, ca. 1930), artist, dancer, and cultural historian. 418. Jasia Reichardt (Poland, 1933), art critic and curator. 419. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild. 420. Stanley Kubrick (United States, 1928–99), filmmaker.

and London this June & July. I still have no money—sold my Rauschenberg drawing to live on but . . . I am determined to get over; there is a water event I envisage for Venice and/or London; activating a particular section of architecture on the waterfront, using barges or gondolas, a series of rope bridges from which performers, materials and lights will be moved; imagery of moving elements doubled on the water itself; lights and sound streaming from surrounding buildings and grounds; a flash of night journey, audience participants making everything work with a random “score,” program in passage as passage and the convergence of elements carried onto a large boat or barge appearing when it all seems “over” to concentrate, conflagrate imagery. Is such an idea any possibility for you this summer? Venice Biennale itself, such an extreme fantasy in action the realization of the work seems doubtful right now—much verbal support (Castelli, Van der Marck etc.)421 but no one really ready to lay commitment on any line. In any case I expect to be in London by the 24th of June! 421. Leo Castelli.

1956–1968

30. Carolee Schneemann, still from Fuses, 1964–67, a self-shot 16mm, 18-minute, silent film of collaged and painted sequences of Schneemann and her husband, the composer James Tenney, making love as observed by their cat Kitch. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

129

(opposite) 31. Gene Youngblood, “Underground,” Los Angeles Free Press, 19 July 1968, 8. Photograph of Schneemann in Body Collage, 1968, from the flyer for her performance Illinois Central, 1968. Research Library, the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (9500001). Courtesy of the Los Angeles Free Press. Landscape background photograph by Art Sinsabaugh. Photograph of Schneemann by Fred W. McDarrah. © Fred W. McDarrah.

Tom Molholm to CS 422 13 June 1968

My darling Carolee, A brief note to be waiting for you in Venice—very rushed– Do you know sleeping alone/without you is terrible? Something that I’ll be doing again tonight but in the meantime I don’t really care to think about. The overcast heavy weather continues and that and everything else makes me very down I guess it will pass. [. . .] I miss I want you. I love you. Tom Molholm to CS 14 June 1968

1956–1968

At last the weather has changed my mood has lifted. I feel calm and am—at last—getting things done. Delivered formica counter to Ginsberg’s423 yesterday and put in about 5 hours on odds and ends down there. The place is really starting to pull together. The cabinets & counter look splendid. Got check for $240—at my last account is out of the red. [. . .] No word from Jim yet (tho the phone did ring insistently at about 2 am). I’m just as glad. Kitch and I comfort each other when things really get bad. She even had moments of wild play & usually greets me at the door. (Also a few moments in the closet.) Needless to say I’m spoiling her to death with chicken livers. [. . .] Must go now. I miss you very much and want you and want you and want you and want you.

130

422. Tom Molholm (United States, 1941), carpenter. 423. The Ginsbergs were customers of Molholm.

[Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.]

Tom Molholm to CS 15 June 1968

Friday Daily News—June 14 is Flag Day! Flag Day 1968 finds the Star Bangled Banner in a bad way as regards its legal protection against desecration. The Senate Judiciary Committee has been sitting for a year for a bill passed by the House to make any public flag desecrator libel to a fine of up to $1000 or as long as a year in jail or both! Sen. Ev. Dirksen424 is muttering about speeding Senate action on the bill. In New York State a still funnier thing happened: for a long time the state had a law permitting citizens to bring about prosecution of flag desecrators as the U.S. Flag Foundation did successfully early last year against Manhattan’s Radich Gallery.425 In the 1967 legislature, this law was amended so as to permit only District Attorneys to start prosecution for insulting, burning, mutilating or otherwise abusing the flag. A happy & patriotic Flag Day to you and couldn’t our elected lawmakers in Washington and Albany please do something about the matters above mentioned—something vigorous as well as patriotic before too long? [. . .] I had wanted to give you some more of this but it’s getting late and I’m behind schedule again. Jim picked up Kitch last night (Friday). Spock & friends found guilty.426 Let me hear from you. CS to Tom Molholm 18 June 1968

1956–1968

Dearest Tibums! How is your London! I want to tell you everything and so much happens a day it’s like a week—and my sense of you/us goes in & out of focus because when I really feel your presence it’s so unbear-

132

424. Everett McKinley Dirksen (United States, 1896–1969), U.S. senator from 1951 to 1969. 425. Molholm refers to Mark Morrel’s Flag Constructions, 1966. The American Flag Association was formed to protect the U.S. flag from damage or destruction in 1897. Sidney Street, a civil rights activist, would eventually challenge these laws in 1966 when he set fire to the flag in protest over the shooting of the civil rights activist James Meredith. Street was prosecuted in New York, but the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1969, ruling in a 5-4 vote that the First Amendment protects verbal disparagement of the flag, one of the reasons for Street’s arrest. The Court did not address the constitutionality of laws that banned physical flag desecration and later also overturned convictions in two other Vietnamera flag-desecration cases, Smith v. Goguen (1974) and Spence v. Washington (1974). 426. Benjamin Spock (United States 1903–98), American pediatrician who studied psychoanalysis and authored the revolutionary child-care book Baby and Child Care (1946), which encouraged flexible, affectionate parenting. In the late 1960s Dr. Spock’s child-rearing methods were blamed for the hippie generation, described as seekers of instant gratifi-

cation. Vice President Spiro Agnew called Dr. Spock the “father of permissiveness.” Spock was one of the founders of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy and an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. In 1968 he was prosecuted by then attorney general Ramsey Clark on charges of conspiracy to counsel, aid, and abet resistance to the draft. Although Spock was convicted, his two-year prison sentence was revoked on appeal in 1969. 427. “La Guapa” means “good looking” in Spanish. 428. John Wilcock (United States, 1927), editor and co-founder of the East Village Other (EVO) in 1965, the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) in 1967, was involved in the early stages of the Los Angeles Free Press, Detroit’s Fifth Estate, London’s International Times (IT), among other underground papers around the world. 429. An aquatic bus service. 430. comic opera.

1956–1968

able to be without you—and all the time little things set me off with an overwhelming longing for *YOU*. Your letters set me up—keep me very happy coming out of the little express room where the gentleman murmurs “Ah here comes La Guapa”427—grinning with joy—happy dog with its bone & “worrying” the letter-bone all day long. Incredible moment now—I’m in my new room, three floors over a canal which is three bridges away from The Grand Canal—I look out over the swishing boats, off to the great soft watery skyline. And music floats up—singing, accordions, guitars, whistles, voices, paddling gondolas, humming motor boats, squeaky horns, windows opening, cats calling. Out my window across the canal, masses of blowing vines and trees, lighted windows behind, small flashes of people moving in their own worlds. Most of all I’m trying to be a good animal & sleep a lot, lie in the sun & swim, to eat all fantastic variety of squid & shrimp & other fishes & beautiful vegetables & coffee & wine! And it’s so beautiful the people are gentle & warm—whole human relatedness like a gentle, vibrant bath. I like best to wander around a lot alone (and admitted delight of how the Italians all turn on—the mini, the long legs); I only speak French & Italian fragments & they can’t figure me out. Rotraut & I being grabbed yesterday in St. Marco by Italian Navy & saved by . . . John Wilcock!428 And on the vaporetto429 starting a generation-war, between kids surrounding us & old men berating them & by implication us & heated accusations much hand waving—of cultural degeneration, Communismo, etc. All ending in hilarity & amusement—Opera Buffo.430 I’m also very good & faithful! Just feel crazy for you & sort of shrouded— nobody interests me at all. And every day great surprises of friends long disappeared on the continent, unexpected arrivals; much delight & then the millings & meetings get too thick & dull & I wander off again. There is a set pattern of going to the Biennale: friends early in the morning, beach in the afternoon; San Marco at seven for meeting friends. Gal-

133

lery openings, parties at Consulates & the Principios,431 then out dancing—until three or four! I don’t do these impossible things, but some as they turn up are wonderful. I’m ignoring the whole arte business—it’s boring. If you were with me the best of it would be Paradise! Time to go off to dinner with some friendly mob. How long does it take my letters to reach you? The event-gap is strange isn’t it. And Kitch? I’m glad you were happy together! Did she sleep on your feet? Did she give you kisses like I told her? And Jim? [. . .] I just want to be in your arms. Hoping things are wonderful for you now—sweet Tom. CS to Tom Molholm 19 June 1968

1956–1968

My Dearest dream—hallucination—Tom! I’m in some suspended state—all my real life fading away into these days of shifting light, elaborate confections of architecture, faces, streets, objects, languages, gestures, events. I have a panicky, vague sense I’ll never leave here; don’t know how to find you or recognize you if I do! Does anything like this happen for you? I’m planning to leave at 8:45 Friday arrive Paris Sat. direct train to London at 10:45 doesn’t arrive until 7:30 that evening; planes leave every half hour & I could be in London by early afternoon. What would suit you? Today I got your Saturday letter from New York & I couldn’t find “you” in it which may mean I’m getting phantom-like too! Cripes! The “Daily News” from home increased my sense of unreality; at this moment I’v just left the Piazza & a nihilisti manifestazione in progress—all student demonstrators, artists, tourists, running from flying wedges of insane police; three bands: one sticks, one gas & sticks & one rifles.432 It’s insane & the same panic, confusion & ambiguities as chez nous . . . or Paris, Milano, Newark433 . . . I did forget what a nightmare of oppression the States are—&

134

431. Schneemann uses the Italian to refer to parties held at the homes of officials. 432. Such manifestations and riots erupted throughout Europe and the United States during this period, including protests against the state, anti-Vietnam protests, and civil rights protests. 433. The Newark Riot of 1967 began with the arrest of John Smith, a black cab driver who allegedly drove around a double-parked police car in Newark. Police stopped, interrogated, and arrested him and transported him to headquarters, where they severely beat him. Civil rights leaders demanded that Smith be taken to a hospital, and false rumors that he had died caused violence to erupt. Within forty-eight hours, National Guard troops entered Newark, exacerbating the violence ultimately that killed 23 people with another 725 people injured and some 1,500 arrested.

our best moments & actions & enchantments caught in it, which may be why I feel this calm floating endlessly quality. I’v not even gone to the Biennale, one cocktail or reception! I just wanted to get beautiful for you! Tan & strong & relaxed. Help! Send some hair, toe nails, underpants . . . ! I do remember I love you, what it felt like to be with you. Write quick—a letter from London takes two days. Darling! How is it with you? CS to Tom Molholm 7 July 1968

434. Leonard Cohen (Canada, 1934), poet, singer, and songwriter. 435. Judy Collins recorded Cohen’s “Dress Rehearsal Rag” in 1966. She wrote: “I often saw Leonard when he came to New York. He would check into the Chelsea Hotel on Twentythird Street, and we would have tea together and walk around Greenwich Village. I recorded ‘Suzanne’ and ‘Dress Rehearsal Rag’ on In My Life in 1966, and it went gold in 1967.” http:// www.leonardcohenfiles.com/cover0.html. 436. Joseph Berke.

1956–1968

Tom! My darling sweet fierce terrible love leopard I’m so unhappy without you—prowling about our space all dim—crushed now—bristly angry beast sense beyond cause & effect, that your shoes are missing, your ties, your shirts, your notes. Very HOLLOW here HOLLOW. I’m quite flattened dulled and a curious mental-nausea ebbing around all but the most simple life details (& putting them to question also). Perhaps it’s similar to what you were feeling that last night, saying you wondered why you came back. [. . .] Then a peculiar afternoon today in Leonard Cohen’s434 hotel room, communicating thru mystical, medieval, Hebraic, Canadian, Mohawk, knightly light years which he slowly spun out of his base & devotion of “Apathy.” He ordered up a huge cold crab salad in a giant shell & wine & celery. Tea party move star child-like. Then he collapsed back on the bed. And he played a group of songs—one of our favorite ones that Judy Collins does in your record (“Wasn’t it a long way down” refrain)435 which he wrote last year; really moved me to have sound from your loft in actual presence, origin. Described himself as a metaphysical “stud:” such strange things. We went to the rained-out, smoke-in I saw a lot of damp, scraggly hippies, no tension, paranoia, joy, wildness, confrontation; another pleasant, amiable, slightly mad Eng­lish pageant. And I’m just back from a few gloomy, warm hours with Joe436 & some of his friends—from flipppy & gentle

135

people. Budi437 must have come by yesterday (when I finally dragged myself out for groceries). When I returned the radio was off, & lamp shade had materialized on the hall floor. [. . .] I love you with all my heart. Write when you can. Tom Molholm to CS 7 July 1968

Why the difficulty in writing love letters? They either seem—in my hands—very corny or excessive. It’s an embarrassing matter for someone who at times has been a distinguished accomplished correspondent. Well so be it. You’ll have to wait until you see me to hear those tender words I’d like to write. The shock of New York I shan’t bother with: so obvious a matter and also very much mitigated by Sunday afternoon in the Park, steel bands and all, and glimpses of London I feel or see out on the streets. I’m really not quite sure where I am: could this be New York? The distance gives one a chance to look back and consider our 31/2 months together. To think that it all started with a glance and has become so much.438 It’s really wonderful the way we work on one another at times tenderness bringing more tenderness. Do you think we’ll melt? Yes, so much! Utterly inconceivable to think of life without you. I think you may have saved me from a rather grim fate. That is to say I was on number 8 (or was it 6?) when we met and I had yet to come upon anyone I respected—a worthy adversary shall we say. And one does start getting hard. I still at times explain the whole thing by saying . . . “well she must have some hidden flaw somewhere to put up with the likes of me.” I try not to indulge this tendency but it’s still pretty unbelievable— where do we go from here? Can we keep growing at this rate? Tom Molholm to CS 8 July 1968

1956–1968

It looks as though I’ve been bitten by a writing bug doesn’t it? Not really: it’s just that I had sealed the first letter when I remembered that

136

437. Budi Hagen (Germany, ca. 1930), film producer. Schneemann would film the London sections of her film Plumb Line (1971) in the Regents Park apartment Budi lent to her and Tom Molholm. CS in an email to the author, 8 January 2010. 438. Schneemann and Molholm met at an opening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1968.

there was something I wanted to say. And that is, that life just seems hateful without you. Flat & stale, a round of tasks. Perhaps that is overstating it, but in my acts and gestures I live with the knowledge that all these things would be so much more if you were present. See you soon my life my love XXXX bite yourself for me (on the right arm) Tom Molholm to CS 9 July 1968

My dearest Carolee, Nothing much to say except how much I miss you, how I long for you. It’s a bit like being in a vacuum being back in New York. Without my place and none of my friends around. I think I said that I had a bad throat. Well that’s developed into quite a strep throat painful and very worrying because no matter how much I gargle and how much vitamin C I take it hangs on like some deep mysterious wound. And New York is so unbelievably hot and here it is 7:30 in the morning and I’m sweating already. I went down to the Ginsberg loft yesterday but got very little work done, ended up spending most of my time there reading the Marquis de Sade. It’s really terrible of me to write you this sort of letter, you’re probably feeling bad enough as it is without hearing about my depression. [. . .] It’s good to be able to write to you a comfort. I am starting to count the days until your return. I have this image of you happy and gay in London. I love you so much. Tom Been to the doctor, says not strep throat to take it easy keep gargling and stop dieting. Hope I haven’t worried you too much things seem better now heat impossible! I pine for you XXX CS to Jan Van der Marck

Tom is “carpenter in residence” for a writer here who has given us a beautiful bright white house near the beach!439 I’m working on film, 439. Schneemann and Molholm stayed in a white hexagonal house owned by Joel Carmichael, author and editor of Midstream, a Zionist magazine. As Schneemann recalls, “[Molholm and I were] invited at times for dinners where we met Dwight Macdonald and other

1956–1968

29 July 1968

137

on the book and things are extraordinarily fine here, and for us. Seeing Patty and Claes,440 Rosenquist and a few other artists now and then here in the relaxed, easy privacy of summer life. My action-lecture at the ICA was a scandal; Michael Kustow was delighted but it made trouble with the old guard for him . . . and Jasia441 was never seen again! “Fuses” is being used at Royal Prince Albert Festival Hall to test Eng­lish Censorship laws (passed by Scotland Yard and the Lord High Censor) in a September film program! The man who has organized this is anxious to prepare defense in advance and has asked me to request that people in a position to make a difference write him their opinion of the film—their comments will be published in a booklet and distributed during the showing. Would you send a note for me on “Fuses.” [. . .] “Fuses” did receive a good viewing at the Arts Lab where it was shown every hour one evening. Eng­lish reticence is incredible. At ICA Fuses was shown at the conclusion of the “lecture” (which was a barrage of media, split second stops for questions and answers, an expanding environment finally inundating the audience and myself going through transformations—speaking naked at times, joined finally by two brave fellows from the audience who went into a spontaneous body-collage with me)—the discomfort of the audience was palpable! In London it’s not “Sock it to me Baby,” it is “sock me baby, I deserve it.”442 An irate red jowled General with a cane rose from his seat and proclaimed: “Only a demented frigid nymphomaniac could make such a thing!” James Tenney to CS 20 August 1968

1956–1968

at last I understand (again) that sense of total focus that leads one to choose a singular “fidelity”—essentially what you said to me about your relationship with Tom. In the last week, my mind has been greatly changed—about that and a number of other things that had come to

138

cultural figures implicated in CIA activities.” Conversation with the author, 29 June 2004. See Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The C.I.A. and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: New Press, 2000). 440. Patricia (Muschinski, Mucha) and Claes Oldenburg. 441. Jasia Reichardt. 442. “Sock it to me, baby!” was a frequently used phrase in the 1960s, originating in Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels’ song of the same name, released in 1967. The phrase was also the title of a pornographic film, made in 1968 by Lou Campa.

seem pretty clear to me. What? how? why?—I hardly know how to say it, but I want to tell you, if only to free you from any sense that you might still have, of a responsibility to my need. her name is Anne,443 she lives in Cambridge, works with the Om Theatre group444 (at Bennington this summer), (I think I mentioned her to you in another context), it was she who cut my hair, she’s 23, and I’m in love with her. changed my mind entirely . . . No, I am not going to be “essentially alone” (bachelor, “stud”). And no, I am not going to resign myself to an ongoing relationship of some kind with one of these nice women I’ve been with—who would have liked that to happen, even if nothing more—for convenience, or efficiency (. . . my needs . . .”I have work to do” . . .). I wonder, sometimes, that it happened this soon. But then I wonder that it took so long, because you evidently found this quite early with Tom. I suppose it has taken me longer because I had to change more— this change of a kind that I could only go through on my own. And I have changed—or I think I have, which amounts to about the same thing. that’s all. there are other things that might be said—other things that will have to be considered and resolved, but this is how it moves now. Give my best to Tom. He must be a very good man. with much love, Jim CS to James Tenney 445 23 August 1968

443. Christine Tenney (also known as Anne) (United States, ca. 1940), James Tenney’s second wife and mother of his first daughter, Mielle. Ann Holloway Tenney (United States 1945–86) was his third wife, and mother of his son Nathan and daughter Adrian. 444. Hermann Nitsch (Austria, 1938), artist and founder of the Orgies Mystery Theater (O.M. Theater), performed the O.M. Theater in the United States for the first time in New York in March 1968, followed by a performance in Cincinnati. It is unclear whether Tenney referred to this or another group when he writes “Om Theater.” Nitsch was also a co-founder of Viennese Action Art with the artists Otto Mühl (Austria, 1925), Günter Brus (Austria, 1938), and Rudolf Schwarzkoger (Austria, 1940–69). 445. This letter may have been unsent, as a handwritten note in Schneemann’s script at the top of the letters states “unsent.”

1956–1968

I would like to say to imagine I would always be responsible to your needs . . . to be “there” for you in some essential way. And just that I am happy for you; impossible as it may be to share the joys which our

139

32. Lil Picard, “Art,” East Village Other, 31 January 1969, 15. Photograph of Schneemann as the “Nude Bride” in Claes Oldenburg’s contribution to the “Fashion Show Poetry Event,” 14 January 1969, at the Poetry Center for International American Relations, New York City. Photograph by Peter Moore. © Estate of Peter Moore/VAGA, New York, N.Y.

[Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.]

1956–1968

“new lives” bring. Strange also that we need each other to be happy, to be free in our individual happiness. That I’v been in love with Tom . . . for many months not believing, understanding what was happening . . . incredulous, feeling that still you were my only love, that an ongoing love was only possible with you and I needed to believe that; for if your love could be subsumed, so transformed, so “past” . . . what faith could I have in any other future . . . and in the back of my mind, always some sense that you and I would be together again. All the precariousness, preciousness, fragility of two strange people realizing that they had to build a relationship, a life form out of falling in love . . . falling in love so long and hard an enchantment so light and intense so heavy and arduous, so overwhelming that we were learning its reality, its effect, beyond the insane hunger to never be apart, to always be able to lift our eyes to find one another by other people telling it, seeing our state, our joyful malaise, our beautific turmoil and naming it, making it into a word, an object. And we would be frightened, humbled, feel unworthy and in our own ways test each other, test reality, our friends, our worlds; sense of flying becoming more solid; having faith, trust, some confidence; to believe in each other, in ourselves together and a sweep of possibilities. To gather each other in. To go over to a vulnerability extreme in both in our natures. Giving in some ways more than we knew we should want . . . a different substance, what it is? . . . many rebirths . . . the shock of being “in step,” “met” . . . devoured, changed, discovered a-new . . . even recreated, you know? And Tom needs a “me” somewhat different from the me-with-you; perhaps the very coherence of tendencies you would have needed also. Very mysterious . . . and awesome. I can envy Anne the happiness you’ll bring her! I’ll always know something about that. That these weeks bring you both all joy . . . that my ghost be light, friendly—gently passing—and perhaps useful when needed, if needed . . . [figure 32]

141

1969–1975 Schneemann left the United States in May 1969 with a plane ticket and a small honorarium after being invited to screen her erotic film Fuses (1964–67) at the Cannes Film Festival. [figure 33] In a state of dismay and what she described as “sometimes flippy” behavior over the breakup of her marriage and failed love affair, Schneemann then spent penniless months traveling around Europe, attending art events and parties, and crashing in friends’ apartments. In 1970, she moved to London, rented a small basement flat at a corner of Belsize Park Gardens, and entered psychotherapy with the Danish psychiatrist Dr. Oscar Köllerström. Sustained by friends that she had met in 1967 while participating in the Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation, she gradually regained emotional stability and became part of the vibrant alternative art scene in London, a city then at the crossroads of the international avant-garde. In 1971, she met and later married the Eng­lish filmmaker Anthony McCall, but not before they had returned to the United States in 1973 at the height of the Watergate scandal. Throughout this transitional period, Schneemann wrote insightful letters about her state of mind and psychological character, observing to Tenney: “I saw that I was radiant, child-like, innocent, full of excessive demands and expectations, cowardly, an energizing, catalytic force, a crumb, a dot.”1 Always linking her work to cats, she would write on 17 July 1974 of her cat Kitch: “THE CAT IS MY MEDIUM. . . . her awareness of space and time influenced the development of my Kinetic Theater. . . . THE CAT IS TURPENTINE!”2 In other letters displaying comedic flair, she wrote about the differences between British and U.S. men and culture. By the mid-1970s, she would write about her feminist performances, which would become canonical in the histories of art. This introspective period closes with Schneemann and the poet Clayton Eshleman arguing over their varying interpretations of feminist principles and representations, and a poem that he wrote about her. 1. CS to James Tenney, 3 February 1970. 2. CS to Margaret Fisher, 17 July 1974.

33. Robert Hughes, “The Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Avant-Garde,” Esquire: The Magazine for Men, May 1969, 145. Polaroid photographs by Andy Warhol of artists Esquire identified as “The Dirty Half Dozen” of the “New Theatre: Radical and Intermedia.” Clockwise from top left: Yayoi Kusama; Carolee Schneemann, Charlotte Moorman, R. Cooper, Louie Abolafia; Louie Abolafia; and Julian Beck of the Living Theater. Research Library, the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (9500001). Reprinted by permission of Esquire. © The Hearst Corporation. Also, Esquire is a trademark of The Hearst Corporation. All Rights Reserved. © 2008 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York.

CS to Mitsou Naslednikov 3 5 June 1969

3. Mitsou Naslednikov (also known as Margot Anand) (France, 1944), pioneer in esoteric practices of Tantric sexuality and author of Le chemin de l’extase: Tantra, vers une nouvelle sexualité (Paris: A. Michel, 1981), reprinted as The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1989). 4. Victor Herbert (United States, 1926), rare book dealer. 5. Bob Dylan, “I Threw It All Away,” 1969.

1969–1975

Cannes was fantastic what I needed a world itself so involved in fantasy hunger for image and action been writing about it elsewhere still much pain moments of complete breakdown—being in Victor Herbert’s4 studio house, greeted by gentle boys when the sound of Dylan’s I Threw It All Away5 suddenly filled the room . . . learning to live without love, to manage with friendly sex. Most difficult to be without stability of place, time, intention—I don’t want to sleep on the floor in my clothes for days on end, to stuff myself on free hors d’oeuvres available bread scraps; tonight I inherited the

143

1969–1975

master’s room—his famous/infamous generosity housing artist transients—from broke and broken hearted homosexuals, to living theater people; friends unseen for five years appear at the door, have just moved on . . . all driven, driving, stoned or intellectually committed— and both—and I’m watching, hollow shell from the place of my great success, past, the present utterly open, my intentions vaguely closed. The girl says oh it’s hard to believe it’s you I’v heard so much about you you’re such a myth. I am OK. I don’t mind. So crazy to be me feeling completely anonymous certain fresh blankness to it and more and more people appear saying I have some dimension, history, causative effect for them. HARD TO BE ME . . . wondering how to approach Stockhausen6 tonight knowing what a sham of dislocations, relocations, vaguely familiar faces swarming out of visual context—my double take listen if you were surrounded by French chirps day and night you’d grovel for the true love of “double take,” “good gravy”—and “anyhow” he “hello, I’v seen so many photos of you of course I remember you.” I always want to ask “what photos,” “how a myth” . . . they all have their secrets. What Mary7 said I have always had to be careful to keep free of the rhythms of New York, very few people can survive a success there, knowing it is too fast a pace for me, radical change of environment within which she maintains concentration for her work. Explaining I cannot work at all right now, must find situations and earn some money . . . difficulties. She asked how I managed for money in New York: not very well. Well then she said it won’t be that different here! . . . stated from a position of Teutonic strength! Paris continues to unfold links . . . anything that does happen will evolve from these unpredictable conjunctions and au fond a warmth, other: more available here than anywhere else somehow even while the financial means, cultural dishing-up is almost nonexistent . . . please write me quick how you are . . . have you seen your Tom, my old Tom?8

144

6. Karlheinz Stockhausen (Germany, 1928–2007), composer. 7. Mary Hilde Ruth Baumeister (Germany, 1934), artist. 8. Tom Molholm.

CS to Clayton Eshleman9 14 June 1969

9. Clayton Eshleman (United States, 1935), poet and author who founded and edited the poetry magazines Caterpiller (1967–73) and Sulfur (1981–2000). 10. Ella Bogval Venet (France, 1941), artist. 11. Paris café. 12. Schneemann remembered: “Victor Herbert’s Arts Nouveaux glass and iron studio was a welcoming space for transient artists—everybody came through there including Hollywood actors, the Living Theater, the Once Group, anybody who was disaffiliated from the Vietnam war—they were just swirling around. I had Kitch with me and I had to leave her over a weekend with the occupying denizens. On my return, they had gotten the cat so stoned that she could only stand up at half mast.” CS in conversation with the author, 26 July 2008. 13. Harold Witt (United States, 1923–95), poetry publisher and banker. 14. Schneemann described her 1972 “Sexual Parameters Chart” as “a personal survey of expressive sexual thresholds, created after the end of my relationship with Tenney and because I was astonished by the various degrees of passion, tenderness, hostility, repression and fragmentation experienced with my subsequent lovers.” CS in conversation with the

1969–1975

Each day begins an event chained to continuities, rejoined in consistencies and then passing away . . . far away. [. . .] Clayton AAA Dear: Paris being central to passage, Proustian and banal; fortunately I’v a room to myself to go from, return to—dizzying hours of meeting say, Ella10 at Le Flore11 for a coffee, and discovering in course of an hour six or seven people I worked with, loved with, spoke with in past. This house12 itself turns up friends from New York under quilts, in the hammock, on a mattress . . . in passage to Rome or Germany or New York . . . curious. I have been writing a lot and it interferes with saying anything to you about what it is like here . . . this series of articles turning into a prolonged journal of journey. I’m o.k.k. sometimes flippy (films set off unpredictable collapses—have to keep out of the black and white dream palaces), still a panicky twisting where am I, why? Learning to live moment to moment; to cast out without feeling cast-off. Terrible anxiety dreams about Jim, lots of emotion surfacing there. Is he well? . . . Kitch on the blue quilt staring up at bird song from the courtyard. She’s great . . . utterly devoted, giving me a good concrete reality and a balanced awareness worth emulation. Have through June to find work, place to go . . . so far much possibility but nothing takes form . . . European style; meanwhile constant exercise in contact—people amazingly good to one another here; women to women especially. Thanks to Harold13—a good man—I’m eating; Fuses a bit of a scandal at Cannes, no prints sold. Organizing a showing here and then the Cinematheque showing next week may lead to . . . ? Everything is very expensive here. Working also on a statistical love-making chart;14

145

34. Carolee Schneemann’s design for the cover of the poetry magazine Caterpillar 7 (April 1969), edited by the poet Clayton Eshleman. The contact sheet is a work by Schneemann and the painter John Foreman, exploring the body. Courtesy of Clayton Eshleman and Carolee Schneemann.

1969–1975

had the great delight yesterday to discover—not by insight, intuition but by numerical occurrence—that mouth armored lovers do not use words in loving, muffled orgasm sound. (Mouth armored being not fully mobilized, active . . . you know what I mean.) Stayed with David and Wendy Kuhn between Cannes and Paris at Jailly15—where Tom and I spent Xmas and it was beautiful, great peace, sense of comfort where I anticipated more pain . . . among their six rooms Kitch went immediately to the room where Tom and I had been and claimed it for us, settled in. Incredulity that we are apart persists . . . don’t feel that I’ll ever want to go back to New York. If you’ve seen him, or know anything of him let me heart (meant hear) . . . it can work for weaning, certain

146

author, 18 January 2004. See also Schneemann’s Imaging Her Erotics: Essays, Interviews, Projects (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002), 106–7. 15. Jailly, France, where Schneemann visited Wendy and David Kuhn, expatriates living in this village in central France.

release. Need copies of Caterpillar badly here; [figure 34; plates 8–11] Paris revolutionary journal wants to publish Parts Of A Body House, stills from Fuses likely for London.16 Could you get them to me? Clayton Eshleman to CS 17 June 1969

Hey baby, howd you like to have a ROOMMATE for a spell? Idea just bonked me reading your letter & card both in at the same time. I cld help out on the $$$ and if there was room to not eat up all each others space it cld17 work out swell for a while. NYC is exactly what you say, dank dirty dour hard-edged, my last image as of last nite a girl flipping out on acid me walking her two hours around the block around the St. Adirenne Co., that big sad Company of Rembrandt Soldiers staring off into the eternally sad dark of Bar. So you give me telegram word and over I will fly. NO KIDDIN. And bring you Caterpillar and good buddy charms. JIM: is fine, ok, don’t worry abt him, and Ann is ok too. Seen her and him a lot recently and things are working out very good. Saw Tom walking down McDougal yesterday (strange presage of your letter today). Looked very gaunt, lost weight, tight cramped mouth and anxiety but sat down and we chatted for a bit, warm. [. . .] Has stuck with the therapy, is seeing Pierrakos18 every 2 wks for the summer. [. . .] I will do yr errands in the next day or so. Keep writing; say nothing. We’ll print yr PARIS MUMBLES in Cat.19 Shd20 I eat a French language record for lunch? What shd I bring? LOVE LOVE LOVE to you from you udder-half. Clayton Eshleman to CS 23 June 1969

16. Sections of Schneemann’s writings from Parts of a Body House were included in Wolf Vostell and Dick Higgins, eds., Fantastic Architecture (New York: Something Else Press, 1969. Parts of a Body House Book was published by the artists Felipe Ehrenberg and Martha Hellion in their Beau Geste Press, Devon, Eng­land, 1972. 17. “could.” 18. John Pierrakos (Greece, b. 1921; United States, d. 2001), psychiatrist who co-founded Bio Energetics and later developed Core Energetics. 19. Caterpiller. 20. “should.”

1969–1975

Tom I saw again, ate raw onions and tuna belly with him and drank strong Eng­lish tea in his new loft. He is in better shape than before, in

147

actually good spirits. Hopeful, and much much warmer. I think being with me without you and without seeing you now helped. I was queerly a threat to him when we were together, it turns out. Took mescalin the other day but I don’t think it was. Abt 5 hour trip with Caryl Breslaw,21 here in the loft. Inner and nice at times but not the outside fantastically metaphorical world I hv read mescalin is. A problem in knowing what one is getting, always. This is short, pardon it, but I am banked to the hilt in things to do today. Clayton Eshleman to CS

1969–1975

30 June 1969

148

Your letter initially a disappointment to me, then understood, accepted, now again writing to you disappointment. This: that you won’t put yourself out for me, even to the extent of digging something up, like a friend’s place, or even a cheap hotel! I mean it reverberates with my despair call last summer to you at Long Island asking for a week or something with someone I felt close to, and no. I donwanna BUG you with this, but it is important to say: I feel a selfishness, an unconsciousness of another while at the same time you expect (rightfully) a full response TO YOU. I don’t know how deep that goes, but I suspect it has its roots, maybe in some silly fear equation of if another needs me that is a threat to me, or something like that. As it is, I am in FINE shape now, nothing like last summer, and wld hv been no problem, no interference, probably wld ve found a girl etc., in a week or so and been out, in touch, but not physically in your ant-sized room. Tom sd not much abt you. Didnt seem to want to talk TO ME abt you so I didnt press it. I think he is glad to be alone, perhaps in the same way you too are “glad”—not the right word for yr letter, but feeling an I-amness that is lost often necessarily in love. As I sd he felt, looking at him, being with him, ok. NOT CLEAR by all means, but more relaxed, warm and fraily genuine. Less control. If I was you, I wldnt count on anything with him and rather, be surprised if you are with him again. Main point is he is not burying himself in fucking or drinking, but spending lots of time working on the loft across the street and being alone. Do you understand what I am saying re. the above? It may hv some21. Caryl Breslaw Eshleman (United States, 1942), writer and editor.

thing to do with certain pain in your life that has little to do with me, tho that manifests itself to a man, a friend, or a lover. Will visit Orgonon22 in Maine, and Reich’s tomb. Something may very well come of that. CS to Tom Molholm

Hesitant to write you, but I do—all the changes your letter brought to me—for each singularly, my effort to spare you emotion from me. O.K. After prolonged struggle still still to understand [. . .] finally you were careful with me not be cruel as intention no being “sorry” yes impossible love after all trying not to loath myself as illusions duo dupe since the reality I felt viable was not that for you after all still still and getting away from my love for you made me appreciate your letter—generalized and matter of fact and we were both saying the truth truth to each other—what was contradictory in each of us was always in our unity. I have found out something curious c/o Champs Elysee Astroflash computer: I’m Libra/Sun, Jupiter, Venus all Cancer rising, Cancer governed . . . : triple Libra, Cancer dominated . . . and then Leo follows strong. Don’t yet really know what it means but you know how I like these little re-occurrences details that may give a tantalizing promise of practical mysticisms. I can envy you the stability of place now . . . all the children in me for you are also passing away; afloat sea is enormous as we know it but feeling it infinite not of immediacy, comfort in any way still ongoing and as always susceptible to searing clear intermingled memories pain also more impersonalized, comic cosmic: breakdown in London last week (also breakthrough) . . . woke up . . . saying enough bullshit no more longing, sense of losses decided not to come back to sullen n.y. being more calm, passive about what I need learning to do with scraps of anything once full and replete—very new for me—first time since I was fourteen to be without real love loved one interesting changes I can’t estimate or project yet into any actual life style moment by moment suffices and the compactness of europe the shift of things in passage through Paris helps keep possibilities where n.y. would suffocate them 22. The Wilhelm Reich Museum, “Orgonon,” is in Rangeley, Maine.

1969–1975

5 July 1969

149

couldn’t decide to send this or not which is to say make communication or not—feeling it a waste perhaps not to have any expression at all if it is possible even as poor clanking links rattling in space once embrace unity echo hollow rings on the other hand! CS to Clayton Eshleman 3, 15–30 July 1969

1969–1975

Your disappointment letter arrived this morning, just returned from London. One defense and protestation for sure: last summer I very much wanted you to stay with us in Long Island—Tom said no, too much pressure for him of the sort you understand now. More at the center of things is my own frailty—full sway lately . . . sick, sick of myself, guilt over bad things I did to men I loved, bitter confusion over why I’m so whacked out still, dependent, wanting to be taken care of, 1/2 taken away from all the energies which defined my life before and which are no longer of interest or immediacy. Without my deepest needs of love and privacy, anxieties over money, how to get four stoned cats off my bed, where to reach to sell film prints—any of that ongoing day after day, keeps me caught in self-protective, defensive, vulnerable self doubts which probably hook right into the selfishness you describe. But you did say “room-mate” . . . real question must have been if I have a room-mate, what would I do with my other room-mates? (lovers) Lose them? Needing guides so badly I couldn’t feel flexible enough to be guide here, even for you, whom I love and trust so much. (And everything is in French . . . French . . .) Jack Perlman23 died a few weeks ago—my lawyer, protector, bridge between work and distribution of it; also handling all my mail, films . . . in his office there, and I got this hideous form letter 5 days ago from a six armed office asking how to dispose of my mail and film . . . flipped again, believing they were taking everything away. [. . .] I’ve decided NOT TO COME BACK—past weeks only this clarity out of animal awareness of where pain is, that New York is IMPOSSIBLE. Dr. Bellis24 should be here but had already said I could only continue with him by having fee in advance . . . same

150

23. Schneemann described Jack Perlman as “a wonderful attorney who did everything to help artists. I met Jack through Charlotte Moorman. He was the saving grace on many of her outrageous contracts, litigations, and tangles with the NYC police. He wrote a legal letter on behalf of [my cat] Kitch’s international travel. He was droll, delightful. Instead of a legal fee, he requested that I simply refrain from recommending other artists to him for travel papers for their cats and dogs. He died too young.” CS email to the author, 10 April 2004. 24. Robert H. De Bellis (United States, 1930), neo-Reichian therapist.

dilemmas here as there but a more humane, warm environment—Paris or London—to try to get together in. Get together; some sense of new possibilities and my past tracts are so rutted with sense of loss and pain. London was difficult but cathartic—encountering one slug after another of places and people Tom has given us. ON return first letter from him, he IS o.k. and making it with Wendy which is perfect now Brett25 gone to Fiji. “Compelling” he said and rest of it really planned to give a lot of hurt to me—flat-footed, unmitigated news of how much better off he is without me. Write me from wherever you are; glad to imagine you in Maine’s clear sea air and sun. CS to Clayton Eshleman

WHAT ELSE DID TOM SAY??????? I don’t know what you would do in Europe cause I don’t know what I’m doing—exactly, going into. [. . .] But I have good moments—tonight one of them because Paris is undulating with passages, meetings, pleasures of talk—masteries, mysteries of language, tongue—walking freely, eating with lust, even being broke and afloat with insane sense of hopefulness that would never muster in old dirty. Amazingly (perhaps) all the people who participated in Meat Joy in ’64 have turned up and are doing finer things themselves and involving me, now in certain projects and events (no money to any of it). My one problem is having about eight to ten “room-mates” in this mad house26 (still, I have the only room with a door to close and this typewriter and gorgeous illuminations of sun, tree tops, infinite image gestures, sounds from bordering windows opposite) and sadly . . . we all—like hippie rats running water-logged home sweet home sweet home—have to get up and ouch out by July 1st when the architects of our benefactor tear the studio apart—modernization (all it needs is a cleaning lady once a month!). MY plans are hooked into nebulosity, the freedoms of suspension and certain possibilities to work in Antwerp— sort of arts lab, film and events possible, perhaps Amsterdam. If I could sell a damn print of Fuses I could be free to go anywhere but I’v very much determined I’v got to make a new life. [. . .] Europe as a whole is unbelievably fluid and generous in the momentum and movement one finds. That is all I can really advise you about. It is important for me to 25. Brett Whiteley (Australia, 1939–92), painter. 26. Victor Herbert’s house.

1969–1975

19 July 1969

151

35. “Moralni Izazov Amerikanke Kerol Sniman,” Stvarnost (Zagreb), (1969). Review of the screening of Schneemann’s film Fuses, 1964–67, and her lecture in Zagreb in the former Yugoslavia. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Stvarnost.

be alone because so many communications flow from that, the very vulnerability of it . . . a close friend like you now would be a closing! Please write more what you consider doing—you should come to Europe! . . . I embrace the “udder-half ” send LOVE LOVE over the paper. Rushing off to sleep now, four in the a.m. ferocious Paris birds begin concert all too soon . . . sweet dreams. [figure 35] CS to James Tenney

1969–1975

4 August 1969

152

Often wanting to be in communication with you, regretting the stasis of silence, rumor; thinking it perhaps necessary for you and finally trying to be able to wait until I had some degree of emotional balance, which after all these terrible months has evolved. It’s been clear for several months that I cannot come back to New York, which maintains

its presence as a ruin, even as I become more strong and able to live in myself, moment to moment. Two trips to London have had strong, almost miraculous qualities—feeling great energy and that I’m somehow needed there even through I would prefer to settle in the physical environment of Paris—but work and life structures are all possibilities from which nothing concrete comes. I’m going south tomorrow to the Festival of Avignon27—Fuses showing again (beautiful screenings at Cannes, the Musée d’Art Modern here) and then by the end of August to London to find a flat: the next theatrical crisis in view is simply smuggling Kitch in—they have a mad six month quarantine. I have a small job decorating and redesigning Kustow’s28 flat and he and the ICA are mobilized to find me some teaching work. Basically I hope to stay quiet, find backing to finish my next film—portrait of Tom cut with breakdown tapes (I did manage to kick on the tape recorder Philip29 had left in the loft this Spring). Perhaps I had some intuition I would not come back—leaving in a daze and taking the cat and the pile of unedited film. [. . . .] I’d be glad for news from you after this floating sea of change and insecurities. I’v been surviving with the help of friends—amazed at the cycles of reaching, contact, care we do extend to each other beyond the focus of love; and the art world is a community of religious proportions—if I wanted to escape it as the pride of some business man, to have babies and gardens the effects of all I have already done and been would not allow it! The alienation I went through—sort of staring out at the world from a fog of pain and loss gives anything I may now really want to do a new scope . . . (here comes Kitch across the floor, to oversee the typing). How it will go—this sense of making a new life—I don’t worry over, it is enough to have chosen. She’s purring which I mention here as some far-reaching communication from her to you. [. . .] HAPPY DAY BIRTHDAY LEO. Tom Molholm to CS 5 August 1969

27. Festival of Avignon, founded in 1946, features French and foreign contemporary avant-garde drama, dance, stage performances, and film. 28. Michael Kustow. 29. Phillip Corner.

1969–1975

Thank you for the letter it was good to hear from you—even about your time in Eng­land—anything better than the rumors I’ve been coming

153

1969–1975 154

across. Hard to understand much of your letter maybe you could stop by some time and translate it . . . And as for answering it that’s very hard to do. I feel whatever I may say to you whatever tone I take will be something less that what you’d like and everything I say may be misread or just very personalized in the reception you give it. Hence my last letter was full of warm feelings for you and I gather from Clayton and others it was considered distant and self absorbed. A situation in which most anything I say can go wrong and yet I still want to try. I’ve had time to think about many things recently the whole nature of love and relationships and connections between the two. And I feel the need to get to the bottom of what happened to us. It really does haunt me. Not to be too savage on you; isn’t your time of grief about drawing to an end? What do you want from me and just how is it that this—our separation—my leaving—has struck you down in such an overwhelming total way? Should one suspect the utter violence of the reactions? Pardon me for being sharp: I find it awkward having my widow going around Europe like this . . . Last summer did us in—at least as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know how nor can I really explain it but it’s as though I failed you and/or myself last summer and conversely you did the same for me. Looking back on it I remember how down and out & haunted I would sometimes feel. A case of overexposure? or feeling diminished and not in control. The Hamptons did after all follow close on that brilliant time we had had in London; did I find it a comedown having all of a sudden to cope? Or did I sense an ego or will in you that really threatened me—or if not that, then seemed to have little or nothing to do with me. That for me was really the crisis or Turning point for us. I can’t define it any more clearly than that but I know I returned to New York for the first time alienated from you and with some sense of grudge or wrong. Everything that happened since then was really just a matter of time. Also at some point I stopped believing in us, in the reality and the true honesty of our relationship. I began to see some of the imagery that we used to create for it. There is no point in going on, is there? Essentially I lost faith. I wonder how you will survive in Europe it seems utterly precarious. Some sense of outrage at anyone’s leaving, being able to escape this city . . . When will you be coming back to pack and settle things?

CS to Tom Molholm 17 August 1969

30. “I was living with Kitch in the office of the Avignon Film Festival, sleeping under a desk, and using the typewriter there with French keys while waiting for the screening of ‘Fuses’ during the festival.” CS in conversation with the author, 19 August 2006.

1969–1975

This will be one of those French typewriter specials—crucial letters in places my fingers don’t know about; I’v just crawled over a window sill with a cascade of plants to leap into the film office30 . . . Sunday . . . nobody in here and I’m soon on the road again. Wanted to get some word to you, response to your good letter which came here after I had sent the postcard. I can assure yes, the “time of mourning” is over—you won’t have to have pangs of guilt and awkward rumors flying about now. I respect your trying to share some insight into what broke us, it is still so tangled and my thoughts now are only scrawls between immediate changes of place; I suppose my being so wiped out was in proportion to how much I loved you, felt love from you and that I believed in the on-going reality of that love—the feeling between us had so much power, force; being so totally involved with you I took all the dire signs of your “loss of faith” as fearful reflexes, self-doubts tearing at what I believed to be solid—consciously I didn’t anticipate their winning over; I am aware now of patterns we had of over-reacting to one another. I used to feel if I could find a certain turn, variation in my natural response I would hit on a saving grace—turn us out of torments and hurts that reoccurred; now I feel changed (but it’s easy to say because the good relationships I have now are pic-nic style—barely echoes of the intensity and fullness I felt with you . . . ; wouldn’t want more, couldn’t manage it at this time). I can regret having been jealous, possessive and dependent yet that was also somehow integral to some precariousness we both experienced. Thinking how divided you could be between humility (which was suspect, along with my star pedestal), awe (real), restlessness, devotion, feeling trapped, being dependent and demanding . . . And I could never really accept your sense of failure; . . . you didn’t fail me! I thought we should both be free to express irritations, disappointments—that the reality of this which occurs in any relationship would be clearing—bring older fears out of their net in our present; yet any complaint I would make to you hooked into some precast absolute, out of proportion! You weren’t failing me, I didn’t comprehend how you might you might be failing yourself—which made me feel helpless, “wrong”—and perhaps further implicated—as some ancient sense of failure was re-activated. I

155

don’t have it clear at all; it’s a tangle we weren’t able to live out—among all the others—and won’t get through in letters either I’m afraid. I remember the night dancing on the terrace at de Cuevas party;31 we had just been through some ring of tensions the evening set off; you said “I’m not going to feel guilty,” I said “I’m not going to feel crushed, put down” / something liberated between us, essential, joyful, [. . .] as if my joy in you put you “out of control” and by provoking pain or hurt to me you cleared your sense of self . . . (Isn’t it about time you stopped nourishing your achievements with doses of defeat and doom?) Perhaps now you have. This strange implication in your letter that I was in love with some “image” of you infuriates me! [. . .] Bastille Day, July 14th note in the daybook: “all the easy hours on the grass among friends who sat like stones. Repressing restlessness, desire for real communication, closeness. Become like all those deadened, becalmed women; depersonalized in nature, in their own natures. I wanted to go into the trees, into the water (as Tom and I would have done/how much I loved that in him: he would beat down contactlessness, move that strong psyche into fields, paths, water, rooms and how totally he could move to me, full expression, quickening, fearless connection to impulse).” [. . .] Mistral blowing trees shaking; Moody blues out the window . . . “and I love you” . . . Kitch taking a shit under the pine tree. Learned to share be open best without commitment—light & free, everyone generous to one another, uncomplicated, passage. “Love makes time pass, and time makes love pass” is a French expression, and little meals of melons, couscous, coffees, wines, cats & dogs, guitars, funny cars, strange stone houses, beds stuffed with straw, linen sheets, privileges of being American in “exile.” CS to Tom Molholm 25 October 1969

1969–1975

Are you still coming to Europe? I’m writing you out of some regret at not seeing you again before I left, also some haze of confusion around the fragments of meeting, phone conversations we had.

156

31. Schneemann: “In East Hampton in 1969, artists, writers, ex-CIA operatives, socialites, collectors, carpenters, farmers, were all part of a dazzling social mix whose gatherings ranged from midnight sailings, to cooking clams, lobsters, potatoes in sand pits, to drunken dance parties in redneck bars, to elegant wild dancing parties at the home of the Marquise de Cuevas. . . . and so on.” CS email to the author, 5 June 2004.

[. . .] It’s strange living in London; very calm and domestic quality to it. I’m quite solitary now, burrowed into the little flat which is pretty. Some times of simple content riding on the buses, pub lunch, walking in the Heath, making cucumber pickles, slow plans about work, jobs. Spent a few days in a country house in Wiltshire which I anticipated as fresh and liberating but unexpectedly was driven back to emotions centered on my life with you; sadness and sorrow out of the rolling hills, nets of self-doubts, bad or ecstatic dreaming, catatonic hours looking out the window. After all I miss Dr. Bellis—looking now for someone here to work with. Further simple realization, that if my life lacks an essential relationship I have no imagery, no care to work. If I sometimes feel like a suspended adolescence has returned, Kitch has absolutely regressed to some splendid kitten-hood. Tearing in and out the window to the grass, spinning under the hydrangea bush: full of energy, love and invention. As usual trying to learn from her to live in the immediate present—which is not without memory. [. . .] Write when you have a moment. New York seems light years away. Tom Molholm to CS 9 December 1969

1969–1975

I have been thinking this letter over as I started the turkey soup but can’t quite figure out what to say. How to tell you about New York? It’s not easy and I don’t really see that much of it at least of the city you used to see. [. . .] I had wanted to get to London/Europe all fall but there was always work and I talked about it so much that I really stopped believing in it. Now it’s too late in the year. I see no point in leaving New York just to go somewhere else for rain and cold. But I wonder what it will be like to see you again. Not really too successful here in New York I guess we were still too broken and unhappy. I do hope it will be better next time. Though difficulties will remain. I don’t know any other way to relate to you than as a lover. What a note to end on! Let me hear from you.

157

36. Carolee Schneemann, untitled (Collage Series London), 1970, (11″ × 14″). Original lost. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

CS to Clayton Eshleman January 1970

1969–1975

Dear Sex Fiend: You and Brakhage myth in the same directions in this endless gloomy spring they call winter. I “left Jim:” he actually left where we lived together for temporary separation. He still wanted to see A.;32 I was very upset by an affair in Chicago which did not pass off and away as the strange and impossible fragment it clearly was. I needed time to shake it? Come to terms? Insight? On all the emotional levels it set off

158

32. “A. had a brief affair with James Tenney when I was in Chicago to set up a performance installation and Tenney was working in New Haven. We had an agreement that when we were separated from each other we could form temporary erotic bonds with others, and we would explain to the temporary partners that we would return to our primary relationship.” CS in conversation with the author, 19 August 2006.

33. Simone de Beauvoir. 34. Russell Baker (United States, 1925), Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and host of the television program “Masterpiece Theatre.”

1969–1975

which were not re-absorbed into my love with Jim; I was worried by not being jealous or hurt for Jim to spend time with A. [. . .] I think we really believed we were “forever” and could assimilate what ever took us apart as experience which finally united. That confidence. Audacity. But I didn’t go back to him. I didn’t “mean” to fall in love with Tom! [. . .] As De B33 suggests . . . I’m reading more than talking. (Always De B the same De B “beautiful to see of beauty vision handsome sight fine fair to see”) (the good mother, allowing inspiring who does not betray, set up conflicts, betray faith). Most days ordering Turkish coffee. Read the International Herald Tribune (day old from the little paper shop . . . everything made of, covered in/by paper) news of home . . . Russell Baker,34 columnist trying to go sane . . . an heroic exercise, Kafkaesque so you may go to language—how long will they leave him at it?[. . .] [figure 36] Self-perpetuating destruction—the gargantuan jerk-off in Vietnam splattering global fall out falls in caving me in to remember even missing that fiber in me for say, N.Y. State Police high black boots, black leather gun and belt over grey pussy cat jodhpurs, jacket, wide brimmed hats; blizzards—privacy in dwelling motion forward suspended in particles slowly moving in suffusion intimate interior a metal shell no one knows where anyone else can be across the dematerialized landscape. The clicks tap on New York phones, voice to voice link over heard separate spaces the Empire State building turret red sky star blinks brakes screeching 6th avenue; deserted streets night; hovering in my own space. [. . .] In London there ain’t no police ambling fat hip gun loaded, club balanced; nobody gives me “evil” looks; I see police who look like D. H. Lawrence with long hair, beards, sober blue eyes. The social abuse here is soft, veiled; they bust whomever threatens the hierarchy and the shrewd political journalist says “They were looking for the guy who used to live here . . . I just had the joint in my hand . . . ;” mail is intercepted (read, checked for money, information); all London telephones installed in past six years have a third line which can be remotely activated for taping . . . the same oppressive ingredients but the texture is palatable! (So far?) (Which it ain’t in Germany! Alas, cause that’s where there is money and concern (in that order?) for contemp. art). The Americans start out nervy and restless; there is no way to exercise the paranoia, the energy alert which guided them in u.s. jungles . . . and Zen what happens?

159

1969–1975

They’re beating up on Blacks, Indians out of class structures which are rigidified hundreds of years. It amazes me, homogeneous as this Island is, how they were anciently divided into a functional class system. It perpetuates itself almost internally lacking the myth of immigrant break-through. Everything has already been belonging to the people it belongs to and has belonged to. No sweep of land, space, invention, audacity. The working class is remote and where it has always been; occasionally articulate highly cultured letter from a miner. The hippies, the heads35 aside from my own friends used to oppress me with their fanaticism; another divisiveness—if anybody ain’t like them they don’t deserve to live etc . . . here we don’t have fanatics— that sort of anger—eccentrics instead; tolerance is real. “Let it be, let it be”36 . . . the fanatics who unnerve are Trotskyites who come to underground film showings . . . heavy claim to jurisdiction of value of a work for the people! What people? Not our audience! The people who ain’t our people because we ain’t talking to them . . . and we’re shit if we’re not out trying . . . [. . .] But Most Of All I long for tall, striding American men; sometimes I see them here; recognize them by the spaciousness of their walk, their solid shoulders, open faces. Why is it Eng­lish men are generally shorter than American men? Just as they have no cushy middle class floating, ramming its lusts, dreams, gluts they have no average sized men; they run small and narrow shouldered or from the upper classes and working classes a strain of extremely tall, narrow ones, quite skinny! elegant line. They dig to fuck the way starved men like to eat; they tend to think women are some weird sort of man; they know there is a “hold” for them—the rest of it inexplicable. Romantic—the least . . . I’v once been given a bunch of flowers picked from neighboring gardens on the way up the road; I’v rarely been told I was pretty (or beautiful) although I’v been told by one man that another man thought so. They say you look well—as if before you looked ghastly. The men who really dig pussy act like some sort of evangelical sexual avant-garde. And it’s not a phallic culture! Thirty years of Lawrence re-enforcing solitary, masturbatory cock starvation (or buggering fantasies . . . anal jokes dominate where we’d have phallic jokes . . . O! Calcutta37 the American skits center on getting it up and in and some

160

35. “Heads,” short for “potheads,” or regular users of marijuana. 36. A reference to the Beatles song, “Let It Be,” 1970. 37. The off-Broadway play O! Calcutta! An Entertainment with Music, written by Kenneth Peacock Tynan (Eng­land, b. 1927, United States, d. 1980) (who is also noted for being the

first person to say “fuck” on the BBC), premiered at the Eden Theatre, June 17, 1969 in New York. Opening the same year as the musical Hair and infamous for its nudity, O! Calcutta celebrated hippy rebellion, race relations, and protests against the Vietnam War with revolutionary proclamations, profanity, and hard rock music. O! Calcutta! was produced in London at the Roundhouse in 1970, with John Lennon (Eng­land, b. 1940, United States, d. 1980) and the playwright Sam Shepard (United States, 1943) in the cast. Schneemann remembered: “Over drinks in New York City, Tynan asked me to work as a contributing director of O! Calcutta!. I was tempted, but declined because I would not have enough control over the erotic content.” CS in conversation with the author, 19 August 2006. 38. Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation.

1969–1975

ridiculous interference or impossibility; the Eng­lish skits bring on the whips and leather, school boy anal-eroticism.) If you do it yourself Mama cuts into it; if you do it to Mama Daddy cuts it off or does it to you/or mama cuts if off by taking it all away cause daddy didn’t give her enough. Eng­lish man defends a double terror of being alone and of being really touched. Outbreaks of passion, tenderness (which seems rare compared to home where it gets into the texture of sexual communication, almost as sibling protectiveness—“we’re on the road together even for this one night”) will disappear in a drain of unconscious fears, an endless slow march to the release of old age changing partners, trying to be good to each other without possessiveness, to make life a little better . . . “easy does it, take it easy, make it easy.” Practical, functional within these boundaries. If things too difficult, too exposed or bewildering, too intense . . . one moves on . . . and on . . . Older men have expressed a melancholy relief to be biologically eased off . . . I imagine American men stay greedy, tormented as they get older; will there be more, even better? . . . erotic optimism merged with image of success. And I’m told that many upper class couples after they have children rarely have sex; erotic expression needn’t be integral and on-going. You can brawl and howl in yr local pub but even in “liberal” Hampstead a friend of mine was asked to leave the pub he has frequented for ten years, for kissing his girl with perceptible feeling. All of this works into a curious London syndrome of “expression delay.” The performance in London ’64 of “Meat Joy”—which in Paris induced an audience delirium—seemed to stun and paralyze the London spectators. When they screamed in Paris, the Eng­lish made “humph” sounds; when they took off their clothes and crawled in with us in Paris, the Eng­lish turned to stone. In ’67 in London to do my “Round House” Kinetic Theater for the D.L.38 conference people said the ’64 event was “electrifying tho at the time we weren’t sure we cared for it” . . . Naked Action Lecture at the I.C.A. in ’68 they said “we deserved that” (sock me baby) and “I’m not sure you should have done that;” now that I’v

161

moved here I keep meeting people “who were there” and thought it a wonderful event etc . . . Utter silence except for a red faced colonel yelling “only a deranged frigid nymphomaniac could do such things” dragging his wife away . . . A year ago lovely, spontaneous love making with Q. He never came by again. I was pleased to see him months later at an event and he ignored me. Many times in the same place and he blanked me out. Ten months later drunk and high at a party he whirled me into his arms saying “what a lovely time that night together was, it made me very happy how shy I am . . . perhaps I will change” . . . And anger can be delayed. Clayton Eshleman to CS

1969–1975

13 January 1970

162

I have been totally involved with Caryl since you left and last week she moved in and we are living together. It is very very good, beautiful in fact, and I know that if I were alone I would hv written more often. But my life has been very full. [. . .] News: not all of it good, so hold on. Charles Olson died last Friday of cancer of the liver. He had been sick for abt a month. Was buried this Tuesday in Gloucester. I didn’t see him at the hospital or go to the funeral, but I did keep in close touch with those in touch with him. I had never met the man so it didn’t seem right to visit him on his deathbed. Jim and Anne had a baby girl, abt the second week in December and called her Mielle.39 She is very solid and cute, and both of them are in good shape—except: two days ago Jim’s father shot himself, and suddenly the three of them were off for Tucson (I think). They will be back tomorrow and we will see them at a concert Jim is in Friday. Talked only briefly to Jim but of course he was very shook up and sad. He has been writing a lot of ragtime music recently and it feels very nice. The marriage and the baby definitely have been good for them both—they hv stuck with the therapy. As I think Tom has but I hv not talked to him for abt two months. Caryl and I saw him soon after you left and took him out to dinner. Everything was fine til he got a little drunk and then the old hostility started leaking out. I told him I wasn’t going to deal with it. And didn’t call him after. He called, a month or so before Xmas and was kind of curious, distant and asked me why I had not called him. I 39. Christine (Anne) Tenney, James Tenney’s second wife.

told him (re. the above) and that sort of ended it. No real tie there for me and it’s just as well. I hv no news of him other than that. Caryl and I go to St. Adrian’s40 pretty often to share a roast beef. It is very pleasant. I mean, for that scene, it is the most pleasant place around. Hardly ever go to Max’s.41 [. . .] I hv a feeling this letter sounds sad and I guess that is because of the two deaths and too that I really don’t have any NEWS about Tom etc., or others you might be wondering abt. Caryl fills my life so much that much tangential drops off and rather than going out in the evenings we stay in, I work, she reads, and sometimes we walk up to St. A’s for a drink [. . .] Or just smoke a bit and pop into bed. [. . .] (abt the only thing I cld reasonably ask of you is that if there is any occasion ever for a reading or something that wld net a plane ticket for me over there for a week or so that you grab hold of it for me. Wldnt need to make anything—but wld love to drop in and wld at the drop of the hat). CS to Clayton Eshleman 18 January 1970

40. An artist bar on Lower Broadway near the old Broadway Central Hotel. 41. Max’s Kansas City, an artist bar that opened on Park Avenue South between 17th and 18th streets in 1966. 42. Jean Shrimpton (Eng­land, 1942), one of the first supermodels and an icon of 1960s “Swinging London.” 43. The Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences, opened in 1871, was dedicated to Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, and was the site of many avant-garde events in the 1960s.

1969–1975

raining raining usually normally raining not heavy raining lightly raining . . . no tornadoes, no blizzards, ice storms, hurricanes . . . genteel umbrellas canes no explosions attacks eruptions disasters. [. . . .] Jean Shrimpton42 is shy, delicate. Like a boxer her face can be punch-drunk from reflexes for proper camera angles; the way a dancer flexes her toes, the way an intellectual takes another’s face as a page. At the party many grown-up little girls cowering under the weight of illusions they realized and can not live by, or illusions they live by without form and realization. In the gold plushy box at Prince Albert Hall43 for the rock concert; each box has an anteroom where one can set a table with cakes, sandwiches, drinks. Lord M. seemed so delighted with me; when I threw a candy bar to a friend three boxes away they all froze.

163

But it was acceptable for N. to lean out of the box and shriek to Lord Harlech44 and Pamela “Hello, Hello! We’ll see you later!” [. . . .] After hunger pitch at Christmas—living with help of friends, bits of dole, I’v a grant from the Cassandra Foundation45—simply a check for $2,000 arrived (unsolicited) and I can freely drop shillings in the gas meter at last. I wish it were $10,000—what it is sustains my accustomed subliminal standard; I realize it takes money to make money and am churning ideas for all sorts of things . . . I don’t want twenty more years scraping cleverly. (Oscar, my therapist, says my temperament requires a lot of money. This thin, fragile old Danish man . . . hearth fire, stuffed chairs, a silky chaise, eagle claws Victoriana, patterned carpets; his black suit, vest, grey spats, Velásquez beard. Dreaming for him. Slow and intricate process; miss the physicality of Reichian work but no one into it well here.)46 19 January [. . .] Discovering all internal associative re-search led to Jim and no actual contact whatsoever . . . grotesque. It wouldn’t be like that out of this society; London people are frank, disillusioned, anti-romantic—it’s not practical . . . everyone cheats so there is always sex to go around, no one can afford to be possessive . . . devoted couples expect to reach “an understanding” . . . stiff upper lip . . . generalized eroticism out in the open, civility, the women suffer; they are both more forthright and more passive than the Americans; couples don’t “go for broke” as we do.

1969–1975

20 January [. . .] Everyone is close to poor here—even the rich, due to taxes, terrible economic crisis. [. . .] It is so lovely and strange. I want to see you so badly! I can’t conceive of coming back . . . my own sense of N.Y. as a ruin does not diminish; situation at my country house is a real nightmare-endless anxiety, correspondence, eviction proceedings— great worry over works stored there but I couldn’t financially or emo-

164

44. David Ormsby-Gore (Lord Harlech) (Eng­land, 1918–85), British ambassador to Washington, 1961–65. 45. The William and Noma Copley Foundation was a nonprofit, founded in 1954 to aid and encourage creative individuals in the fields of painting, sculpture, and music composition. The foundation’s advisers included Jean Arp, Alfred Barr Jr., Roberto Matta Echaurren, Max Ernst, Julien Levy, William Lieberman, Man Ray, Sir Roland Penrose, and Sir Herbert Read. In 1961 the foundation changed its name to the William and Noma (Cassandra) Foundation. 46. Oscar Köllerström (Denmark, b. ca. 1897, Eng­land, d. 1977), psychiatrist and a pupil of Georg Groddeck (Germany, 1866–1934), physician, who influenced Freud in the concept of the “id.” Köllerström was also involved in the Theosophical Society in London and concerned with psychic phenomena, an interest Schneemann shared.

tionally meet it head on. Stretch of green grass (still), browned hydrangea bush, white balustrades, curve of village shops and sky through the lace curtains here now, once in Springtown windows. Hearth light, lamp light (it is of course that grey a day!), tendrils . . . I won’t move. (Except to Cologne in October where I’v just been invited for full blast presentation in any and all forms of all my Happening works—past to present. That good news). CS to James Tenney 3 February 1970

47. The Rolling Stones. 48. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), known as “acid,” is a hallucinogenic drug discovered in 1938.

1969–1975

Jim Dearest: I don’t quite know how to get into a communication with you—it seems my mind is piled with contrary impulses: simplicities, complexities, the distance, all the time past without contact and the underlying sense (presumptuous, true, false, illusory, actual???) that I can—as in the past—say whatever I feel to you. [. . .] I’m so grateful for your call two weeks ago—it was generous, feeling of you. I was in midst of organizing a huge Chicago Festival of Life Conspiracy Celebration for the Round House—which event erupted the 26th; an ecstatic obliteration of the political content many of us worked so hard to program for the Eng­lish: tapes, transcripts, Chicago pig riot films, rock groups, theater groups I had worked with on movement, sensitization, lights, sound (tapes, synthesizer, noise makers) all structured towards an organic impact I could relate to Snows. Great resistance from many of the Eng­lish who didn’t want anything “heavy,” who believe if “you get your head in the right place, everything will come right” . . . (tip toe stoned innocent heads raised dancing while nets of revolution and disaster blow at their feet). Back in the dressing rooms, Sam Cutler—manager of The Stones47—with a crew of girls making “wine punch” which passed first through the directors, technicians, performers . . . finally 1,000 cups out into the crowd. As the first rock group went on, the first set of media began its revolution, people coming to me with wide crazy smiles, dizzy eyes, asking “WHAT’S HAPPENING?” . . . my arms light and strong as wings, my neck and jaw vibrating, darting particles, nerve flashing . . . “I don’t know . . . but it feels like acid!”48 the Eng­lish have won! The sub-revolutionary sublime.

165

1969–1975

Everybody tripped! The Round House staff, the guys on the door, the CIA, the press, the cook, the barmen. My image of heaven and hell, of contrary forms existing in juxtaposition an eruption of infinite, timeless energy and motion; 1,000 people snaking under plastic phalluses, the theater people touching, guiding, whirling, crawling, abandoned, and total breakdown through/of audience-spectator, of intentionspontaneity. Technicians melted away. Carrying a cue sheet to the lighting man “Oh no oh no!” we said with awe for marks of time, intention, some ancient hieroglyphs of a people who had serious needs to describe moments of time, to regulate events, to instruct and guide “OH NO” we went jumping about holding the impossible form of night—neither of us could hold its white flat blistering shape and finally, with great chortles and hot-potato passing gestures we got it hung on a hanger among the free clothes booth. I had never tripped so alone with so many people, I had never experienced such an intensive cosmic vision, given over so much so totally . . . saying “everyone is doing exactly what they can do” . . . “what is happening is exactly what has to happen” . . . streaming in white dress49 off the free clothes racks between the bar, the dancers, up to the media gallery. Finding my stage manager descending from the light booth: “tell the guys up there they are working the whole thing, everyone else has faded away.” “There is no one up there” he giggled and disappeared. I saw you and all the goodness of our life together. I could look down on 1,000 pulsating bodies and see each individual suffused with a terrible energy to lead, to be torn open, to express: I saw that I had no idea what to do with all the rest of the years of my life. Those of us who had felt resentment and difficulty in working together embraced joyfully. I loved everyone and had passion for no one. I went through the bar and had a lucid vision of “gangsters,” of danger: who would, in the future, be handing out the acid? Who would be setting off “trips” because they needed us to be winged, wigged out? I saw that I was radiant, childlike, innocent, full of excessive demands and expectations, cowardly, an energizing, catalytic force, a crumb, a dot. I stood exactly on the balcony where I had stood and spit on the dancing sheep after “Round House” in ’67, spitting in fury, out of essences they couldn’t respond to: this night throwing my underpants which were torn, fluttering out to

166

49. Schneemann recalls the dress as “a tiny rayon angel costume” that she embellished with a dunce cap.

50. Mielle Tenney, James Tenney’s daughter by his second wife, Anne (also known as Christine). 51. Dr. Oscar Köllerström. 52. Schneemann recalled that during 1970 and 1971, “The reputation of Fuses followed me from Cannes to London and was brought to the attention of Lord Longford. I was amazed that this cultural figure wanted to present Fuses on panels addressing censorship issues, and for which I was invited to speak. He was immensely cordial and thoughtful and committed to the values in Fuses.” CS in conversation with the author, 30 July 2008. Lord Longford (Eng­land, 1905–2001) was Francis Aungier Pakenham, Seventh Earl of Longford, Order of the Garter, Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, Labor minister, author, and social reformer. 53. Jonathan Park (Eng­land, 1941), architect.

1969–1975

be trampled under jumping feet. Thought how funny in New York those pants would mean . . . something? [. . .] I’m glad your life is full and warm—that you have the happiness you deserve and can so well sustain, develop. I’d love to see a photo of Mielle.50 Do you feel very changed being a father? Your new life seems inevitable, right. I’m working hard over my bewilderment, fears of the recent past, their action in the present. Finding with Dr. Oscar51 that all dream movement, identity definitions return to you. It’s an amazing process. Perhaps that will be my real work here . . . Miss the physicality, immediacy of bio-energetics. How has it gone for you? [. . .] I’m still most content when I’m working; I can’t keep track of what I’v actually done except for some new collages. I seem to be involved in constant preparation: finding a lab to edit my film, showing Fuses to interest people in lending me the lab, new agent for my book, some writing on-going, layouts of my work (past) for a magazine.52 I’m very much back to quiet, self-contained processes—exception being the Round House Event and that old audience activated technological/sensory environment which my special guy Jonathan53 is also working on. A structural engineer with a poetic, whimsical, wry mind who has quit his job; a father of daughters seven and nine who live in Yorkshire with his “estranged” wife over two years; a child-like, intense ladies-man who sent his devoted, artistic, domestic girlfriend away after he met me (in November); who keeps me happy, says he loves me, but I’m mistrustful because he really is so much like Tom or I’m still so saddled, I think he’s like Tom! He is sensitive, warm and delightful. I’m relieved to be out of the sexual casserole carousel. And of course monogamous old Kitch thinks he’s super; flies all about his two story apartment, sleeps on his feet and bites all other gentlemen—who might simply be round for tea. I think she actually did keep me alive times this summer; always

167

feeling what is essential in human life, finding ways to remind me . . . well, flowers and cats and changing seasons. CS to Jan Van der Marck 12 February 1970

Harald Szeemann54 has been to discuss the Happenings and Fluxus exhibit for Cologne this October—he’s all for the artist as you are, inspiring and provoking and I’m happily at work on my section of the catalogue which can have Everything in it, in the way I want. You could help me very much if you know of a catalogue by a mixed-media bug which is really extensive. I need a model for the description, listing of such various forms. Either tell me if you think of one or send it if possible . . . I’m following the monstrous politics in the Eng­lish papers and Tribune.55 Is there any detailed documentation on the Conspiracy Trial you could get to me? I’m working on another Festival of Information about it. James Tenney to CS 12–13 February 1970

1969–1975

I was very glad to get your letter, and want to answer right here, now, if I can (how long has it been since I could write a letter?). And not just “answer,” but respond, in kind, saying some of what I feel, too. Feel too—feel—brain sticks. Unstick it. Loosen it. Feel . . . The mass acid trip sounds to have been fantastic—à la Ken Kesey56 (was it?) a few years ago. I’ve been reading some Leary57 (“Politics of Ecstasy,” “High Priest”). His whole guru/saint life-trip is beautiful— very “together”—but I’m waiting. Partly out of some fear—sense of (indefinable) risk—partly out of deference to Lowen58 and respect for my own total commitment to the bio-energetic therapy59 process as long as I’m in it (only about another month, now—unless I find someone else

168

54. Harald Szeemann (Switzerland, 1933–2005), curator and museum director. 55. International Herald Tribune. 56. Ken Kesey (United States, 1935–2001), novelist and playwright. 57. Timothy Leary (United States, 1920–96), psychologist, writer, and advocate for psychedelic drugs, especially LSD. 58. Alexander Lowen (United States, 1910–2008), psychiatrist. 59. Lowen founded Bioenergetic Analysis and the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis (IIBA) in 1953, institutions that stem from Wilhelm Reich’s theories and practices of physical and psychological techniques designed to release blockages in the flow of energy through the body.

60. Parts of a Body House. 61. Carlos Castañeda (Peru, b. 1925, United States, d. 1998), writer.

1969–1975

to work with in Calif.) (and Lowen is against any dope)—and partly just waiting—for the “right time” to travel again into that time/place/ condition I know of from my last trip (at the house, a couple (three?) years ago) during which you wrote “Body-House”60 (“bawdy-house”!— I never noticed that before). There’s another book, partly very great—perhaps essential—“The Teachings of Don Juan . . .” by Castañeda.61 Have you read it? The “essential” is some four pages near the middle (pp. 70–80?) about the four “enemies of a man of knowledge.” They are (1) fear which, when conquered, leads to (2) clarity (the second enemy), which, when conquered, leads to (3) power (the third enemy), which, when conquered, is followed by the last enemy—old age (never to be “conquered” really, though it can be resisted for a while.—somehow essential— Especially because, and/or to begin with, there are so many fears that we (I) have and don’t even know about. One begins to discover them in the therapy. Crippling fears, because—as Reich knew—they lodge themselves (i.e. live) and become manifest (though secretly) in the body. I am almost to the point where I can say, for myself (I wouldn’t presume to extrapolate to others, though I believe it of them) that the answers to all questions (psychological, social, existential, metaphysical, cosmic)—and certainly all self-doubts—the answers to all such questions are to be found in the body, and this because the questions are in and of the body. The very questions! The god-damned questions: (“who am I; why am I here; what to do with all the rest of the years of my life,” etc . . .). Is it so? Or can it be so? I can only know (or think I “know”) for myself, now. What do you think? Is it useful/useable to you? Mielle is beautiful—healthy, happy, very easy to be with—mostly because, I think, we have tried to give her whatever she needs when she needs it (not on some “schedule”)—what others would perhaps call “spoiling her” absolutely and completely. It’s a hassle sometimes—even a sort of tyranny, but I see it as the natural tyranny of the life-process itself over any one individual. And besides, it’s only temporary. I intend to spell out my own “rights” just as soon as she is able to understand such things, which should be in a year or two. (From there on, I take Stan and Jane as model; right now it’s Reich.) Yes, I do feel changed being a father, though not as much as I might have expected, and this, it

169

1969–1975 170

seems, precisely because it “seems inevitable,” as you say. It’s as though I was psychically prepared for it for a long time, so that when it happened (oh yes, I was right there in the delivery room, helping Anne to push) it was almost anti-climatic. “Yeah, sure, it’s just like I expected it to be . . .” No giddy elation like you see on Stan’s face in “WWBM.”62 Just a kind of exhausted calm, and the sense of responsibility beginning there and then and on into the future, but somehow very natural to me. It is my kind of trip. [. . .] As for New York City—your questions about coming back, etc. let me just try to say how I feel about it—what the move to California means to me, for example. First of all it’s really, originally, a move away from NYC. I have really had it—as much as I want or can take, and more. Right now California just means a way to get out of this city. OK, it does mean a little more—a shift of job away from research, technology, etc. and to musicmusicmusic again (? I never really had it that way before). That’s the impulse. With it comes a sense of NYC (culture, scene, making history, achieving something?) as not essential. NYC is the externalizing agent (“animus” ?) of America, just as USA is the externalizing agent (“anima”?) for the rest of the world. It is all brain and muscle and harsh voice, and not heart/lungs/soul. Of course Eng­land is “in parentheses”—it (and most of the rest of the world) is parenthesized between American-cultural steel brackets, just as the warm-friendlystupid-unfriendly-fertile-barren-unconscious rest of USA is parenthesized/bracketed by NYC. What I want now is that soul thing—something internalized and internalizing. And here’s my advice: go after that, too—I think it is what you need also. To put it more strongly (I presume more and more): wanting the other (external) can only obscure this need (for the internal) . . . //// . . . . . . . end of advice—can’t do it any more—or believe in it. Each of us is the only one who knows what he/she must/will do, just as (very probably) “everyone is doing exactly what they can do . . . what is happening is exactly what has to happen . . .” (for some reason that’s a little obscure to me, I’m reminded of another insight from the therapy: when the body work is most effective—i.e. when there’s some release or partial break through of blocked feelings, my most frequent sensation/perception is one of a kind of mild nausea—a soft, warm, sickly feeling in the stomach and abdomen. OK? Right. But try reversing the 62. Stan Brakhage’s film Window Water Baby Moving (1959).

63. “Chicago conspiracy” refers to the trial, presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman in 1969–70, of eight radicals accused of conspiring to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale, whose defense attorneys included William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass. In 1966, Kunstler co-founded the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit legal advocacy organization in New York City. 64. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (originally the “Black Panther Party for Self-Defense”) in Oakland, California, in 1966 to promote civil rights and self-defense for African Americans. The leadership of the eastern region of the Black Panther Party, known as the “Panther 21,” was arrested in 1969 and charged with conspiracy to blow up the New York Botanical Gardens, department stores, and other buildings. All twenty-one were acquitted in May 1971 after the longest political trial in New York’s history. 65. CalArts was the first institution of higher education in the United States to offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in both visual and performing arts. Established in 1961 by Walt and Roy Disney, it merged the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music (founded in 1883) and the Chouinard Art Institute (founded in 1921). CalArts moved to its permanent home in Valencia in 1971 and added degree programs in dance, film, and theater to those in art and music. A graduate writing program was created in 1994.

1969–1975

“equation”: i.e. take a “seltzer” for it, its exactly as it should be, but yer not used to it, or—more important—ya can’t accept it. Etc . . . Do you see the connection? Is there a connection?). Actually, I can’t really answer your questions about NY because I have not been involved with large parts of it for quite a while now. But for myself and most of my friends there is no real interest in things political—it has all come to seem such an unreal farce. And I don’t know whether this is more generally true of more people here, or my (some of our) own withdrawal from that particular “game.” Instance: one is aware that Chicago-conspiracy63 and Panther-21,64 etc. exist—that some terrible things are indeed taking place, but it’s as if there’s some sense that—again—it’s “exactly what has to happen”—that not only the judges/cops/politicians, but also the defendants/protesters/sympathizers/etc. are “doing exactly what they can do” . . . (best). In any case, I know that I do not want to sacrifice my own time and energy to a historical process that has its own internal mass-dynamic and will probably turn out the same way with or without me. I want my life, a private (and, yes! peaceful) life, becoming “public” only when and where that will nourish the private. That includes, of course, a few close friends, and a few more not-so-close friends, and perhaps even a few enemies. But it doesn’t include an “audience” (except, again, as this may nourish . . .). Finally, about California, the school65 may very well fall apart in a year or two, but that’s alright. This move is just a first step toward a kind of spatial freedom—greater mobility, new places, etc.—all of which has

171

1969–1975

seemed impossible when all roads led back to NYC—or as long as the umbilical cord was still attached to this filthy-rotten-hard-cold-bitchmother-womb of a city. We live “on the bowerie,” you’ll remember. Everyday the bums, destroying themselves as fast as they can because that’s better than letting the city do it to them. And it does destroy people—certainly the weak ones. And how can it not be also destroying the strong ones, though ever so subtly. End of diatribe. I still don’t know what you should do. Perhaps you don’t either. But I hope you find your way, because that will be the right way. The piano is still in the house, but I’m planning to have it stored in Poughkeepsie until we’re settled in California, then shipped out there. I didn’t do anything about it for so long because I couldn’t decide what to do with it. Tried at one point to get Scott to sell it for me, but no buyers appeared. Finally decided to keep it, get the action fixed, etc. because it does have a very beautiful tone. Also, found out when it was made— 1895—which makes it just right for ragtime (Joplin, Tenney).66 Kohut called me (looking for you) at one point just before going to court.67 He was all stoned-hippy-love-peace-innocence and surprise, thinking/saying that if he could just talk to you it all might be OK—the problems would vanish like some down acid-trip demon. I don’t know the outcome of the legal proc’s, but I presume you’ve heard from Scott68 (who, by the way, doesn’t sound untrustworthy to my gullible ear on the phone). I can’t think of any friends to stay in the house before summer—though then there should certainly be some (for what rent?). There are a few more things I would like to take from the house. The rocking chair, and a couple of pictures (snapshots, I mean—though what of the drawings/paintings?) of Ruggles (for my wall-pantheon, with Varese and Ives). All OK?

172

66. Scott Joplin (United States, ca. 1867–1917), musician and composer of ragtime music. 67. Joel Kohut was the tenant living in Schneemann’s home during the period when she lived in London. Schneemann remembers that “his wife left him when he turned the house into a commune [and she] . . . arrived in London to tell me that the house was full of drugged hippies running a radical press. When they left, every window in the house had been shot out, the hand carved banister was in the stream, the Brakhage letters were gone, the remains of many of my glass constructions were ground into the floor, my name was written in shit on the walls and the storage room with antiques handed down from Jim’s family and mine had been stripped bare. Kathleen Scott, the local real estate agent being paid to oversee the house, denied any responsibility and offered to buy the ruined house for an exploitative price. No attorney was willing to help me; the police described me as a divorced hippy artist who let these pinkos into my home.” CS email to the author, 8 August 2008. 68. Kathleen Scott.

69. Bioenergetics exercises. 70. The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is an ancient Chinese text, a Taoist book of metaphors dating from the mid-fourth to early third century BCE. Based on a system of divination and oracular statements, represented in sixty-four sets of six lines, or hexagrams, the I Ching attends to the balance of opposites and the centrality of change in all forms of life. Joachim Bouvet, a French Jesuit and Sinologist who worked in China, introduced the I Ching to Europe in the early eighteenth century. The book was an influence on European philosophers from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Martin Heidegger, as well as on European artists such as Hans Arp. The American composer John Cage popularized the use of the I Ching as a tool for creating compositions ordered by chance, beginning in the 1940s.

1969–1975

I see I haven’t mentioned my father—find it too difficult—and it seems I’ve already been through so much since it happened that I’m wrung dry. But I think you’ll understand. He was really a great man, and I loved him very much, as I think you did. Helen should be OK— there was a good deal of insurance that will provide for her. He didn’t do it carelessly. Perhaps I can say a little more about that. A deep, heavy sadness enveloped me for about a month. Even my body began to contract—as though some part of me was dying, or wanted to die, too. Then the “big” questions began to haunt me. Everything in doubt for awhile. Moments of clarity, but an overall atmosphere of grief. Or something like an ocean—head above water for awhile, then sinking back into it. RE: the body, stopped doing the daily bio-en. exercises69 during this period, which compounded the problem—accelerated the contraction-process. What finally broke the cycle was two things. First, the I Ching—the hexagram “Enthusiasm,” with changing lines leading to “Duration.”70 I haven’t got the book with me now, so can’t quote it, but it was uncanny. In “Enthusiasm,” something about “. . . the kings made music . . . inviting their ancestors to be present.” And “duration” is about permanence—especially the idea of permanence in marriage. So there it all was. I still didn’t feel “enthusiasm,” but I felt like I knew where it was to be found, and began to see a way to assimilate my grief, perhaps transform it. Then Lowen reminding me (tho it had never been quite clear to me before) that the exercises have to be done daily, regularly, constantly, perhaps forever. In about two days then my body was revived again, contraction cycle broke, strength returned. Do you have the I Ching there? Maybe it would help you, too. I don’t know why it works, but it works—it really is magical. Congratulations on the Cologne thing, and lets sustain this contact, with all the old understanding, the old and the still-present love, and all the new life there is to live.

173

CS to James Tenney

1969–1975

8 March 1970

174

If the seams have been pulled apart there are unpredictable lumps of fat, fur, tears, raw emotion, viscera, giggles—god knows what. Anyway I am not the reasonable being I may have thought I was, that you may imagine I am or that you are not fooled into believing is now (reasonable); major efforts to get the ole humpty dumpty back on the wall (vertigo and near-sighted you know) (funny I mean a high stone wall, a three dimensional wall, with two sides but it could be taken as hung on a flat wall couldn’t it?). Anyway I kept saying “yes” to you about selling the house because I wanted to say yes to you yes to love trust respect comprehension tenderness years of warmth springs summers winters falls containment roots creativity . . . all that among the ALL there ain’t here and now in any flourishing form. “Yes” because your advise was echo to Dr. Oscar’s, Clayton’s and some “good child” in me who has been “punished” and wants to do the right thing now, to cooperate, to feel malleable, flexible, brave etc. And “yes, get rid of the house” because I dreamt, felt, knew through all the distance exactly how it was being wrecked, broken up, torn into—dreams of objects broken, displaced, stolen; the turmoil was clear. But I awoke this morning to a “NO.” Let’s see. The stillness in this small room, darkness. The softness, as if it had snowed! But it doesn’t snow here! It had, it is still snowing. (The constant upright dry brown hydrangea bush is ripped open from its center, weighted with fluffs of snow, fused arches onto the white ground.) Snow is warm; this room is no longer damp, chilled. It is so beautiful. I wish for nothing more. It links to the north rooms in the house where this same peace, harmony is always found—like a system, a structure, a sea, a cake . . . It is always there, uniquely as the house itself is—no matter what has torn through it. It is stronger than anything that happened to it. (A synergy of ancient stone, plaster, wood, trees, grass?) If I sell it, with all that is owed on it—I might clear about $10,000 which I could live on for about three years. If I don’t sell it, it becomes more valuable year by year—even if it deteriorates—because it is a rare unique old thing, because the world is increasingly crowded, land (landscape) increasingly expensive. It is the one place where I recognize myself, a containment, achievement. In some sense it is easier to pack it up, pack it off, let it go and imagine an increment of “freedom.” Perhaps I’m not brave enough to bring that off right now. An impulse to get rid of it—that heavy house—

71. Schneemann refers to the exhibition “Happening & Fluxus,” which took place in Cologne, Germany, from 16 November 1970 to 6 January 1971. See Hans Sohm, ed., Happening & Fluxus (Cologne: Könischer Kunstverein, 1970). 72. Jonathan Park was Schneemann’s neighbor in London in the 1970s. 73. Cornelius Cardew (Eng­land, 1936–81), composer. 74. Michael Nyman (Eng­land, 1944), composer. 75. Hugh Davies (Eng­land, 1943), composer.

1969–1975

as I have to get rid of the weight of the past—what is past—in this present. I don’t actually see the house as past or present because it is so staunch, so solid in itself. I don’t know if I could ever go back there, but I equally don’t know if I can stay here! I do know I’m in terror of feeling more torn apart. I am trying to find the energy, centering I can work from but it is very vague and remote, slow. Now I simply wonder at those years of creativity, need to see, shape, form . . . how did I do all of that? It seems bewildering. (Grumpy: “it is all very well for you who have love, are loved, are grounded in work, rooted in geography, a culture in which you are visible, appreciable to say “give things up.”) What do you think about all of that? Admittedly toughened, hardened, shaken too-sudden return to “sexual casserole,” can’t welcome that and living nunnishly as much as I can, seeing a few friends, trying to get work done on photo-article of my Theater pieces and a catalogue for Cologne.71 (Mr. Jonathan72 pulling a Puritan compulsion; making love to a girl “who came to tea” while I waited for him upstairs in a bed unrecognizable since I’d been in it few days past. Thinking, “is this really going on?” It was, Kitch watching them wide eyes, ears flattened. I just went home, up the road, become very very long cold road. “That’s how he is” said Oskar. Dr. Schneemann not running in from the wings for the old healing role.) Could you send me a copy of “Blue Suede” tape? There is a really beautiful film being done here and in LA (for the color optics) on Presley—it’s a vibrant sort of exploding collage and the film-maker had heard of “Blue Suede.” I think it might work wonderfully and you’d get some dinero eventually if it were used. I’d love to have some tapes of your more recent work; several composers here anxious to hear them—Cardew,73 Michael Nyman,74 Hugh Davies.75 Is there anything you would like from London?

175

CS to James Tenney 10 August 1970

blessings  cherishing hands bright light  this birthday year yeh *** * * ****** * *  * I need three Meta*Hodos!76 If you have them with you (that carton full). [. . .] Specific: with electronics wizard John Lifton77 constructing magic dome; for Happenings & Fluxus documentation room October, Cologne: slides of happenings thru prisms; images vibrating from coils which each respond variously to sound frequencies; sounds; your tape collages, my notes, eight microphones to record dove song, snoring, water dripping. These sounds activated by motions, actions, noises of the spectators. (“Change of lighting intensity related to fugue depth gives cue to construction of gestalt on mirrored image . . .”.) And a plant in an environment system wired for it to express its responses. Finding: it likes what affects it most . . . which leads to your bottle dream! (. . . if a bottle likes you, it likes you as well as any other bottle; if it doesn’t, it won’t change you much . . .) Was that it? The film of Tom going beautifully now;78 only lack of funds slowing processing. Pierrakos speaking in London tomorrow—I plan to hear him. [figure 37; plate 12] Clayton Eshleman to CS 4 January 1971

1969–1975

Cal Arts is a fuckin mess. Artsyfartsy rich kids who dont have to study now cause there aint no grades so they tell you to go fuck yrself if you ask anything of them. Sad, because it makes for no respect for art, and everyone ends up “doin their thing” wch79 is ok when you dont have to sit next to it. The Dean of the School I am in was fired and that has split the School between doperockheads and more critically/historically traditional people, and I find myself most with the latter since I can

176

76. James Tenney, META (+) HODO : A Phenomenology of Twentieth-Century Musical Materials and An Approach to the Study of Form (New Orleans: Inter-American Institute for Musical Research, Tulane University, 1964). 77. John Lifton (Eng­land, 1935), media artist who collaborated in 1970 with Schneemann on Meat Systems, a computer-generated, 360-degree multi-slide projection for the exhibition “Happening & Fluxus.” 78. Schneemann refers to her film Plumb Line (1971). 79. “which.”

37. Leo Jacobs, “Wet Dream Film Festival: Onderdrukking erotiek is niet los te denken van politieke dictatuur,” Het Vrije Volk (Amsterdam), 27 November 1970. Courtesy of Het Vrije Volk. Photographer unknown.

1969–1975

TALK to them. Institute is in 1927 built Catholic el-rancho-looking girl’s school in Burbank where the smog is so thick you cant see the mountains a halfmile away sometimes. The place is to move to its permanent site next fall but they may not get it built in time. So, if somebody offers me the same salary plus underwriting Caterpillar someplace else next year we will take it. The rent on our house is 275 a month (it is the cheapest place we cld find we wanted to live in) and we are as broke here as I was in NYC. Very isolated too, wch is a condition of LA. No one on sidewalks, just cars and gas stations and endless shopping centers with neighborhoods tucked behind them. Turns out there is really no one at Cal Arts I wanna talk to. I mean, Alison80 and some others are ok, but really, no, they are not ok they are bores, as is Emmett Williams and just about everyone in my School, except a spinster Beckett scholar named Ruby Cohn81 who has flashing eyes and lots of energy so we are having her over to supper next week. But the isolation has been ok because that means I have to mutter to myself i.e., work, and what is important or has to be said in chitchat gets done with Caryl. She is the best listener I hv ever known. A great listener in fact because she is always listening and can respond and nail down a point, or go to the jugular vein of an argument faster than I can. She reads nearly all of my stuff now and makes suggestions, some of wch I use. Tragic that some angel did not descend on her at 18 (I wrote the essay I think to the ghost of Caryl at 18) and give her creative-blessing. Instead she wallowed in bad guys and crap . . . so long she lost much endurance and power. So it is hard for her to have confidence in any personal workings of her own. She is drawing and in Ron Kitaj’s82 class at UCLA and that is good as he IS a painter (and lives often in London—will be back there this spring. His wife killed herself last yr and he has the two children. You may know him. If you dont, you should, but be careful as he is powerfully angry and a Scorpio. He sort of sits and balls up his shoulder/neck muscles and speaks tensely but kindly, and distantly he is a nice man. I think he has a terrible time relating to women and is closer to men). Mailing you the Caterpillars you don’t have. 10, 11, 12, and 13. 14 is now at press AND WHERE IS MY BANANA HANDS??? or some other bloodcurdling goody from the belpark sex maniac—I am sitting here laughing now, as Caryl called me a sex maniac to Dane Rudhyar a few weeks

178

80. Alison Knowles (United States, 1933), artist. 81. See Ruby Cohn’s Samuel Beckett: The Comic Gamut (New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1962). 82. Ronald B. Kitaj (United States, 1932–2007), artist.

ago. He, with Jim, visited us (you know, he is the famous astrologer), and he was a PILL. Tho I guess at 70 one can be a little pilly—but he was, and I got bugged and decided not to idolize him as Jim was doing, and started to find out why he dismissed Reich in one sentence. I never could, tho I tracked him down to the point he said there was no such thing as perversity in the universe, and there I gave up and went to piss (we were in the little candlelit restaurant). Jim started madly apologizing for me and then Caryl smiled and said, well, he’s just a sex maniac. [. . .] Gene Youngblood83 is at Cal Arts and he is very funny to me: he looks like a Walt Disney car-toon of TOM!! And we saw Nureyev84 dance last Saturday and he looks like a super-Tom to me so youd better slip in his dressing room and lock into him when the Australian Ballet comes to London, wch I just assume they will. He walks the most nobly of any person I have ever seen walk. And he did the walk I will always remember with the woman he was dancing with on his shoulder. But I wasnt excited so much about his DANCING. Just his walkin. Good American film called 5 Easy Pieces see if it comes to London. You sound calmer than I remember your last letter and you being in NYC when we were last together, in fact, now I remember you really seemed very nervous and shaky in NYC. So its a pleasure to hear “appreciation for any strong temperament.” That tho is also a matter of age ma dear. Life eases up on us biologically and we can appreciate more. Or that is how I feel. CS to Friends 85

Prick of the Week, In my native land there is a growing cult called “The Genital Reverencers,” also known as “Fuck Cherishers.” [figure 38] These primitive and animalistic people believe fucking is their most rapturous, expressive and integral act. They believe genitals are mysterious energy sources and are dedicated to respect and even worship them; they find genitals so compelling or beautiful in all their variations that they are known to make images of them, sing about the genitals of a beloved in secret language, and have dreams laden with sexual references! In fact they imagine the genital function of man and woman embodies some electrical cosmic ecstasy pulse of all organic nature. Perhaps you have heard of this cult? 83. Eugene (Gene) Youngblood (United States, 1942), scholar and media theorist. 84. Rudolf Nureyev (Russia, b. 1938, France, d. 1993), dancer. 85. Friends, a radical London journal published in the 1970s.

1969–1975

23 February 1971

179

38. Ken Burton, “Bust-up over Festival Nude,” Camden Journal, 6 April 1971, 1. Review of the scandal in which Schneemann and the artists David Medalla and John Dugger appeared nude on the poster for the Camden Festival. The London transport system refused to display the poster in the London Underground. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Camden Journal.

(below) 39. Carolee Schneemann and the filmmaker Anthony McCall (with their cats Kitch and Bathsheba), Merry Christmas, postcard, 1971. Courtesy of Anthony McCall and Carolee Schneemann.

Due to the pervasive influence of “the Genital Reverencers” I am unable to understand certain of your Eng­lish customs. Can Friends clarify the following: Gentle Ghost heads a column “Cunt of the Week”—a politician who accepts the starvation of 5,000 people with equanimity. A couple signal to a cab. It does not stop for them. The man screams after the cab “You cunt!” Men and women are watching a sport on television. A player drops a ball. The men yell, “Cunt! Stupid cunt!” Some men are discussing another man who has betrayed them; they detest him and sum up his character as “An utter cunt.” My questions: is a “cunt” something that makes men angry? or afraid? Does it stand for what they hate? or what betrays them? Do Eng­lish women call each other “You cunt?” Or do Eng­lish women scream “You Prick!” when the taxi won’t stop. Do Eng­lish men who say “You cunt,” carress, stroke, kiss, put their fingers on and in a real cunt? Sincerely yours, Cuntalee Snowball Anonymous to CS86 23 April 1971

Clear out of this country you dirty stinking bastard Miss Schneemann if that is what you like doing for a living you are no beauty exposing yourself in public it’s a pity someone does not throw a fire bomb at you the London Transport ought to be ashamed of itself for allowing you to do it go on the streets that’s the place for you somebody would soon find you dead in the road on Hampstead heath. CS to Clayton Eshleman 21 September 1971

86. Schneemann received this inarticulate piece of anonymous hate mail, care of the Camden Arts Centre, after the publication of Ken Burton’s article “Bust-Up over Festival Nude,” Camden Journal, Friday, 6 April 1971, 1. See figure 38. 87. Anthony McCall (Eng­land, 1946), filmmaker, graphic designer, and Schneemann’s second husband.

1969–1975

About Anthony:87 what we were going through in April was the death of Sue, 21 yrs old, cancer of the lymph, with whom he lived for two years. (We were together since February.) She was often hospitalized. The doc-

181

1969–1975

tors told him she could live for ten years. I knew she couldn’t but found no way to tell him that. At home she sat in bed, made pencil lists of the guests to come to their wedding. Heartbreaking. She couldn’t make love for over a year. I didn’t know that; believed everything she could want he should provide for her. Kept calm, to help. When she’d suddenly be sent from hospital, I couldn’t know when we’d see each other again . . . Anthony and I were falling in love. He took care of her; wrote me, phoned each day. Flying up to visit me, brown case full of books, articles, poems to share; instead dizzying falls onto the blue carpet. Never enough time, then for us. Trying to make it clear to yr asking. She didn’t know about me. He was with her when she died. I was with him. Anthony is twenty-five but has been lying recently—unless we are quite confused—and is twenty-six? Joy, delight, health, tenderness, generosity; so very tall windmill stork flight down stairs elegant or clumsy grace (how objects tip over or he stands on my toe tapping a long finger on my breast to remind me not to forget . . .). Image maker, tactile. (Oh yes, and I’v been lying in the other direction) but the spaces have to do with energy, culture—the two utterly different worlds posited between dream (theirs) and action (ours), between restraint and violence, charm and intensity, stability (theirs/Eng­lish) and tearing apart (ours/ American) . . . mine his . . . and how I do advance into present as reality with incredible overload that past was essential reality, essential self in life with Jim. The amazing extent of nourishment between us, to be shared, interchanged. The crux of anxiety and energy/image making is that simple: I can’t work without love/the primacy of work destroys love. Stability, coherence in relationship gives me freedom, spirit to work but makes it impossible to give a man the compliment of my serving-maternal role. So Anthony can be optimistic and more flexible than I with my inbred guilt—what you call not taking care of my art, the other edge which might be Brakhage incredulously, accusingly calling my “imperiousness.” Sometimes Anthony doesn’t know why I over-react but fortunately for me (and him) he has a calm, graceful spirit, does not feel personally threatened and quite directly and feelingly finds what might restore proportion, makes the difference. (This much harmony and tenderness.) [figure 39]

182

James Tenney to CS 16 November 1971

I feel it, warm, your reaching out to me, and it pleases me. Sometimes fantasize a trip to London, but don’t know how, and still carry on this life I’m committed to. Which (life) is partly very good, partly bad. Christine88 was all September in a psychiatric hospital—result of a breakdown that was—at best—the inevitable reaction to three years bioenergetic therapy. Or—at worst—I don’t know, and nobody else seems to know either—so I/we wait, hope, keep trying to “work it out.” [. . .] The job is a very good thing—I feel lucky in having it, and to be free of the old technology/research thing I was bound to for so long. The school is constantly in turmoil—financial and political—but my own work there is not affected by this yet. My work has been developing in a way that I’m very happy about. Hard to describe, except to say that continuity and perhaps Singularity are very important characteristics of it. Also Simplicity. Since For Anne (Rising), (electronic early 1969), and the three piano rags (have you heard any of these?), there has been Quiet Fan for Eric Satie (spring, 1970), a revised version of 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird for bass voice (I hope to have Marvin do it this year),89 and a set of pieces I’ll soon be mailing called Postal Pieces—one-page scores in various kinds of notation and for various instruments. The key word is Continuity—as though the whole piece were one single sound, and it often is just that. Much less interested now in a “sequence of events.” They tend to be more static—or approximate a kind of static equilibrium. Stemming, perhaps, from aspects of the Noise Study and Fabric for Che.90 CS to INK 91

3 December 1971

88. Christine (Anne) Tenney. 89. Marvin Hayes. 90. Che Guevara (Argentina, b. 1928, Cuba d. 1967), physician, writer, politician, and Marxist revolutionary. 91. INK , an alternative London journal published in the 1970s.

1969–1975

Dear INK: Intrigued to see that the Anti-University has a course on “Poetry as his Masters Voice.” Whose master? Who is de master? Does this course

183

exclude female voices? Is it ironical, detailing the facts of men addressing themselves to other men, that our language itself maintains this?— feminine gender is subsumed, occurs by dispensation, is the exception. Would I benefit from this course? Who am I? I AM HE WHO I AM EVERYONE WILL DEVELOP HIS POTENTIAL I AM ONLY MAN CAN TURN THE TIDE I AM THE DREAMER AND HIS DREAMS I AM THE GRAND OLD MEN OF LITERATURE I AM EACH CHILD WILL HANG UP HIS HAT I AM THE CHOICE IS IN MEN HANDS I AM ALL MEN UNDER GOD I AM THE INDIVIDUAL THROWN ON HIS OWN I AM ANY PERSON MAY MANIFEST HIMSELF yup! We need a course on “Missing Gender!” Stan Brakhage to CS 6 January 1972

1969–1975

It is very late at night, midnight to be exact, and the fingers fumble; but I just must get off some response to you—it was that good to hear from you again. [. . .] And I?—ah well . . . more gray hairs. I am musty at the fringes of bothersome details but honed sharp where my attention centers. I have at last achieved 20/20 vision on the driver’s test, principally (I think) because I am involved in a new direction of film-making which centers on The Document. Focus is a critically involved structural matter. Most especially I wish you could see three films I’ve made in Pittsburgh, one in a police car (called “eyes”), the second in a hospital (“Deus Ex”) and the third in the morgue (“The Act of Seeing with one’s own eyes,” literal translation of the word Autopsis).92 There are also new films made in the home here and elsewhere. I fly every other week to Chicago to deliver lectures to a huge class of 360 students and about 100 sit-ins; thus I make my living. Since I last saw you I resigned angrily from Anthology Film Archives, P. Adams93 and I stopped speaking to each other

184

92. The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (1971) is the third film in Brakhage’s Pittsburgh trilogy (including Eyes and Deus Ex, both also of 1971), and is composed entirely of autopsy footage shot in a Pittsburgh morgue. 93. P. Adams Sitney.

altogether, and my new work became rejected by many, all tending to make me a “young film-maker” again. P. Adams pulled the same stunt as Parker Tyler did with “Anticipation of the Night,” remember? CS to Clayton Eshleman 8 March 1972

94. Anthony McCall. 95. Also known as a “step printer,” a technology for splitting frames that Schneemann used in making her film Plumb Line (1971). 96. Twelve years later, a reviewer would write: “Primarily known as a performance artist, Schneeman [sic] has been underrated as a filmmaker. Her 1965, ‘Fuses’ was among the erotic breakthroughs of the 1960s underground, while the 1976 ‘Kitch’s Last Meal’ was overlooked during the spate of 1970s diary films. Both inaugurate a month long series at the Queens Museum, along with her 1969, ‘Plumbline’ [sic].” Village Voice, 4–10 July 1984.

1969–1975

I do less and it takes more time; “running” around in London spreads over huge distances, on a lumbering red double decker bus. More time inside. Slower time outside. We all stay in a lot in winter . . . one grey day rains into the next. Sweet concentrations, not dramatic; human events shape emotional direction interpersonally/in contrast to buffeting u.s. issues, outrages, thundering spaces cutting into daily life. Dull, thoughtful, very lovely. The city is beautiful; full of landscape. The mania for trivia and grandeur. All over now absurd & endearing patches of crocus & daffodils . . . armies of anonymous royal gardeners labor fruitfully without ever being seen. No matter how the pound is devalued, that one million are unemployed, that 158 people are wounded today in Belfast explosion, that we were rationed miserable of electricity for two months (groping by candle light rich & poor every house splatter marked carpets, table tops, stairways; adding machines cranked by hand, shops dark, streets totally black grope each step no electric typewriters, hair dryers, heaters, tea pots, elevators, coffee grinders sausage grinders milking machines lathes saws turbines . . .) No complaints, no great rise in robberies, rapes, assaults. But fires, yes, more houses caught fire. [. . .] With spring almost established I’m longing for the little plot of grass & trees tho. A.’s94 flat is more grand, elegant; there are trees & gardens all around us but we don’t face any. I get furious longings for American space, landscape, weather SOMETHING STRONG but the limits here so nicely defined. I’v had a good day printing “Plumb Line” by hand . . . on a huge black iron printer.95 That’s how we get anything done—like the book—by hand, cooperatively.96 Blackmailed into

185

(facing pages) 40.1–4: Carolee Schneemann, Aggression for Couples, 1972. Action performed by Schneemann and the filmmaker Anthony McCall in their London flat. Photographs by Felipe Ehrenberg. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg and Carolee Schneemann.

(facing pages) 40.5–8: Carolee Schneemann, Aggression for Couples, 1972. Action performed by Schneemann and the filmmaker Anthony McCall in their London flat. Photographs by Felipe Ehrenberg. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg and Carolee Schneemann.

it suddenly by Peter Gidal97 who runs the Film Coop programs; he sent Time Out98 to interview me on it . . . announced it would be shown next week as work in progress and when I protested I didn’t have money for lab work he said they owed me money for Fuses at the Coop, I should do the lab work there by hand & he’d pay for it from what they owed. It’s good to clear it at last. Hard but good. After 3 (!) years . . . and next Wednesday Tom comes to London to marry Sarah99 . . . three days before I’ll have to show the film of him. We’re all excited what to wear to the CAVALRY CLUB on Piccadilly? And we’re all invited; every old wife, lover, cousin, in-law of old wives, lovers, their children, friends . . . I’m glad—on we go linking past to future change . . .[. . .] [figure 40.1–4] Have you seen/heard the record in source by Anna Lockwood,100 called “Tiger Balm” . . . it’s Kitch purring & a tiger (or did I tell you) . . . addled & sleepy . . . much love to you both . . . mad idea/chance to get on a plane to California with Harvey101 & Anna Lockwood who have found some airline with empties flying over to help them organize the Isis music festival here this summer . . . that would be the magic carpet trick. CS to James Tenney 11 March 1972

1969–1975

I had a lovely letter from Alison102 recently; she hears you are playing the Concord103 which gave a precious continuity to where you are physically and the sounds which live in my ears . . . going on. I’v asked her to creep into the hallway with a cassette & record. But perhaps you might do that yourself? (Your mother was always writing to ask for tapes of your playing, composing . . .) Funny, the more sense I have

190

97. Peter Gidal (Switzerland, 1946), filmmaker. 98. In the 1970s, Time Out, a city guide to events and activities in London, was the key source for avant-garde activities. 99. Sarah remains unidentified. 100. Anna (Annea) Lockwood (New Zealand, 1939), composer. 101. Harvey Matusow (United States, 1926–2002), informer for the U.S. government during the 1950s witch hunts for communists and radicals. Matusow became involved in the avant-garde during the 1960s, attended the Destruction in Art Symposium in London in 1966, and organized the Isis Festival on a London-Edinburgh train, a trip during which Schneemann performed Isis Strip (1972). See Albert Eugene Kahn, The Matusow Affair: Memoir of a National Scandal (Mt. Kisco, N.Y.: Moyer Bell, 1987). 102. Alison Knowles. 103. Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata (1910–15) is a musical portrait of four authors who lived in Concord, Massachusetts: first movement depicts Ralph Waldo Emerson, the second Nathaniel Hawthorne, the third Louisa May Alcott and the Alcott family, and the fourth Henry David Thoreau.

of present, the more the past carries, flows in. Last night Leopoldo Mahler104 (Marta Minujin’s cousin & my neighbor here) snuck me into one of the infinite BBC sound studios. Facing four tape decks . . . there was nothing he could teach me—just read over the huge control panel— you had already taught me. It seems lately, more incredible, the range of experience which I assimilated—which were common fabric in our life. Musical malnutrition is a rare disease. Making tapes last night put me in touch with the past fullness. The composing scenes here are lively & sad; musicians having to discover processes which Tone Roads105 unfurled . . . before. Those of us here—who were There—feel we’re watching the scraps of a great banquet being gathered, reconstructed . . . little mice. [figure 41] Rzewski106 played the Concord in Amsterdam two years ago; saw the poster in the street; don’t recall how I came to be there. Went to the concert; found some people there who had been with Living Theater. Frederic’s performance . . . painful for me, distortion of the inner rhythms, the “rubato” in my nerve cells of your playing. Steve Reich107 did Phases here year ago autumn. Kind of explosion in time. Clayton Eshleman to CS 13 March 1972

104. Leopoldo Mahler (Maler) (Argentina, 1939), media artist. 105. James Tenney co-founded Tone Roads Ensemble in 1963 (with the composers Malcolm Goldstein and Philip Corner); it was named after two compositions by Charles Ives, Tone Roads, No.1 (1911) and No. 3 (1915). 106. Frederic Rzewski (United States, 1938), composer and pianist. 107. Steve Reich (United States, 1936), composer. 108. Robert Kelly (United States, 1933), poet. Kelly’s wife Helen was known as “Button.” 109. David Antin (United States, 1932), poet and critic; Eleanor Antin (United States, 1935), artist.

1969–1975

Let me give you a little advice about handling/selling your lovely book: there are only 60 copies so they will get out of your hands faster than you wld believe. [figure 42] If in any way you cld print up 10 or 20 more, by all means do so while you have the place/energy etc. Then letter them and store them away. If I were you I would charge $50 and not let anyone get one for less, other than those few I assume you want to go as gifts. Friends turn out to be kind of disappointing when it comes to book publications: they expect a copy free. I am sure Kellys108 and Antins109 could manage $20 easily, but they both wld probably feel a little insulted if you asked them for that (tho I understand it wld be

191

41. Carolee Schneemann, flyer for “Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble Presents Concert of 20th Century American Music,” 4 June 1963, at the New School for Social Research, New York City. Collage by Carolee Schneemann. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

42. Carolee Schneemann, cover for Parts of a Body House Book, 1972, artist book, edition of seventy-five with text and illustrations, published by Beau Geste Press, founded by the artists Felipe Ehrenberg and Martha Hellion in Devon, Eng­land. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg and Carolee Schneemann.

perfectly understandable for you to ask them for that!). If I were you, I would simply send a flyer to everyone you want to know about the existence of the book. Friends will write and ask how much it is, or if you still have copies etc. Then you can give them a price. If they do not bother to write, assume they lack that basic interest and don’t waste a copy on them. Paden110 and I sold over a hundred copies of BROTHER STONES at $15, and we were crazy to do that, as BS, as is PARTS OF BODY HOUSE BOOK, are works of art, i.e., objects as well as texts. If you are not stingy you will suddenly find yourself down to 3 copies of the thing, and many copies in the hands of people you also suddenly realize do not care much about having it. I would like a new plastic case, so enclosed also is check for $10. Wld you pack one real well and mail it on? Clayton Eshleman to CS 1 May 1972

110. William Paden (United States, 1930–2004), artist. 111. Eshleman refers to Dick Higgins’ Something Else Press as a possible venue for the publication of Schneemann’s Parts of a Body House Book. 112. Dick Higgins. 113. William Blake.

1969–1975

I dont see why you hold off on Higgins; for Christ’s sake, ask him if he will do a big Body Book.111 The other places who are interested sound like small fry in comparison to the kind of a book Dick112 cld do. No matter who does it, be sure you get a contract and 10% royalties; if anything is being made on book you shd get 10% of it. You were not at Jim’s concert; it WAS boring—for me. True, I find most of that area of music so turned off, so withered of passion & outreaching—but I have liked things of Jim’s before, especially the music he did for VIET-FLAKES. [. . .] I do not understand why you do not go over to the Tate and see what there is available of Blake113 there for me. You seem at times utterly incapable of doing anything for me that would put you out a little. And it is embarrassing me to have to mention it again but every time I write you I think Why hasn’t Carolee gone over to the Tate? There is a painter in London who you might enjoy meeting, name is Ron Kitaj. He is very intelligent, an American, around 42, knows lots of the poets, and he is doing very well in the art world with his work— making a living from painting. (I think he is very poisonous sexually

193

speaking; a Scorpio with Scorpio hauntings.) But if you are concerned about showing work and if he saw some of your work and dug it he could probably help you out. And he also has book connections—so if you meet him show him your book. Gabor Attalai to CS114 14 July 1972

This letter appears as figure 43. Gabor Attalai to CS 20 September 1972

Oh, Dear Carole Schneemann, To day I received your phenomenally photos about your breasts. I enjoyed those moments, when I opened your letter. I thank you for your great contribution in my action. I should like to ask to make agitations for it in London. I was also very happy by your dance process too. I shall keep it in my head. Cordially, Gabor Attalai I touched by my breast the signed paper field below, please touch also and give it touch other people too, over their hearts. James Tenney to CS

1969–1975

5 January 1973

194

Wow! I hardly know what to say—or, there are so many things to be said, my feelings being so varied—some conflicting/confusing . . . Congratulations, of course. I wish you much happiness, as always. I’m surprised, too—there must have been some heavy changes in your feelings and ideas in these last few years. (Perhaps I do “travel lightly” as you say—more on that later, maybe—but you hadn’t given me much sense of such changes in your letters to me. So, it was a surprise.) Anyway, I’d be interested to hear more about those changes. [. . .] These three years in California have done some very good things 114. Gabor Attalai (Hungary, 1934), artist. Attalai compares Schneemann to Helen, the legendary beauty for whom the Trojan War was, in part, fought.

43. Gabor Attalai letter to Carolee Schneemann, 14 July 1972. Photograph by Gabor Attalai. Courtesy of Gabor Attalai.

1969–1975 196

for me, even though some of the things that have happened have been extremely difficult. I have realized my capacities as a teacher here at Cal Arts, and find that I enjoy it a lot, and am very good at it. More important, though, I’ve been writing quite a lot of really fine music, and my work has changed in many ways—some radically (in other ways, of course, nothing has changed, it was all there in Seeds). I haven’t done any electronic music since early 1969, and since being out here I’ve become more and more aware of a kind of reaction (against that technology trip) occurring in me. I can almost think that I’d be happy never to see a computer again, though I’m sure it’s not all as final and absolute as that. But in these last three years I’ve written over ten new pieces (all instrumental), so it turns out that this period has been nearly as prolific as those years at Bell Labs. And so—I was feeling good about all this about a month ago (though wondering, in the back of my mind, if there wasn’t some “catch” to it, like the dangers of academic security, etc.) when I was informed along with several others at Cal Arts, that my contract would not be renewed next year—in effect they couldn’t afford me any longer, given the financial troubles of the school. I was stunned, because, though I knew they were going to have to drop some people, I really didn’t think it would be me. But there it was. Period. Whack! Well, I’m over the shock of it now, and can easily see it now not only as inevitable but as the right thing to happen now. It means looking for another job—I’m starting with San Diego as a possibility (Pauline Oliveros,115 Ken Gaburo116—remember— the Antins, etc., make it seem an attractive place, besides the sun and southern California geist, which I like very much—I have no impulse to return to New York or the east). [. . .] It’s difficult for me to conceive of any reason why two people who’ve been living together already should go beyond that and “get married” except through some notion about the welfare of children they might have. Is this in the offing? If so, fantastic! If your man is anywhere nearly as beautiful as you are they’ve got to be beautiful children. I wish you had had some with me. In fact, I’m still hurt and angry and bitter about the fact that you didn’t. But those are feelings on a level that no understanding can change, and I do understand, and I want you to be happy, and I love you very much, and I think I could even love your Anthony, and I think we could, indeed, all be friends! Jim. 115. Pauline Oliveros (United States, 1932), composer. 116. Kenneth Gaburo (United States, 1926–93), composer.

P.S. Just came across an excellent biography of Varèse by Louise Varèse.117 You’d really dig it. Have you run into Cornelius Cardew and his Maoist minions. Very good people here think he’s the best—or at least very good. What’s happening with the house in N.P.?118 CS to Yvonne Rainer 17 March 1973

117. Louise Varèse, Varèse: A Looking-Glass Diary (New York: Norton, 1972). 118. New Paltz. 119. This letter comments on a bad review of Rainer’s performance Inner Appearances (1973).

1969–1975

the cat had my/our tongues119 what divided us was key the unities as well which changes so that I am in touch with you as your work  to keep my isolation bridged  the sisters  my women  the work of saving ourselves a company      not be silent bereft behind the image but let that image stream which is which yes is why I was so furiously saying “Perils of Pauline?” you can’t drop it off out there how the fuck are we supposed to live and keep feeding you your damned art? Our damned art which drives life into a frenzy or leaves us bereft washed up gasping perils of pauline is how we’v lived and why? hubris against the woman image-maker and if we get that clear and that is the truth we’v tried to tame, win over, seduce (yr idea) and now we’ll kick the shit out of  together  very slowly realizing what that the cover umbrella swell cock heat head of the pin we dance on nobody ever said (among ourselves) we confirm our men our men must equally confirm us  because part of their spines splintered that rib of “no” to our creativity outside cunt and their longings and needs of cunt—that was precedence! Theirs and assuage such greed and lust of course they loved us to swirl like feathers even stomp and yowl imagining it—the free creative force was adjunct, auxiliary to theirs and we broke our hearts stupidly unwittingly  we couldn’t believe the huge weighted NO NO which they laid back in all the yes yes they gave to us  their gifts to us  and they were very sorry sorry to shoot us down we had to ease their guilt you say you asked too much of him

197

in the piece written “all toward seduction . . . oh and ‘they cared about the my shit was more important than me’ hahhhaaaha well that’s the work-out-shit gift they care about the work more than they care about you  you give us the work to care into and you stand timeless severe stalwart before us  a frieze  an ancient force timeless breathless minute of now we share you in the work saying something like  “it was worth it for him to look at me” . . . (?) (and how did you frame it: “in his sleep she caressed his cock  in the morning his was hugely depressed” . . . so funny so diseased the huge defense the tenderness initiation as mask to phallic aggression the gun made tears bitterly squeeze right back the frame said who is the victim here? Horror comics. With love & admiration. CS to Ann Lauterbach120 26 March 1973

1969–1975

In the city we scramble for jobs—I take any lecture film/discussion I can find and bit by bit they turn up. Ant’s121 work almost suspended while he looks for graphics freelance and now armed with his cover on Art & Artists he’ll begin going to galleries. I had a film retrospective at the Whitney in which a dream of dying and finding all the friends come together unraveled and then coiled up again.122 And they all say what are you doing now and I can’t tell them scraping dog shit, scrubbing three years of filth, neglect, abuse and each exhausting day is full of joy for both of us, making it all good again (and very beautiful); scraping, polishing, washing, rubbing, soaking, unpacking, hauling, burning, chopping, painting, plastering, rewiring, building . . . endlessly between the loft and the house. For the first six weeks we barely raised up from hands and knees. Red knees, strained backs, broken nails, fattened hands and we’re delighted. The centering together, harmonious, equable. The damage to the house was relentless; we returned to be told the couple (and their 10 friends) had split; the electricity turned off, junkies were creeping in every night shooting up by their kerosene lanterns. It

198

120. Ann Lauterbach (United States, 1942), poet. 121. Anthony McCall. 122. The Whitney Museum of American Art presented an evening of Schneemann’s films on 16 March 1973.

123. Robert Kelly and Helen (Button) Kelly. 124. Norman Weinstein (United States 1927), poet, critic. 125. Gertrude Stein. 126. Clayton Eshleman, Coils (Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1973).

1969–1975

took two weeks with shovels just to dig up the garbage in all the rooms; finally it filled the south room from floor to ceiling; we hired a truck to be piled high—five loads . . . the rented industrial “vacuum cleaner” sucked bloody rags from between the stones, syringes, needles, turds . . . but in the world of objects I find solvents, glues, lacquers, sandings, stains, patches . . . painstaking . . . and as satisfying as any work of imagination can be. Giving it back to itself: the house reeked of dog shit, piss, garbage, vomit, stale sweat, burnt hair and now we open the door and it plays back it seasonal depths of aromas—ancient wood, lemon, rosemary, raw grasses, even the panes of glass seem to echo some pervasive scent of fresh ironing and cedar wood; later the lilac is inside and rose. [. . .] A surprise visit from Clayton in from Calif. And he did a reading at New Paltz and so was able to stay with us (with Caryl) and Kelly came with Button123 and Norman Weinstein124 (poet here, fine book on Stein)125 and there we were again, regained under the beams, on the broken couch, eating cheeses Clayton brought, drinking wine & coffee and tea and gobbling each other excited as puppies—all come together here after five years! Clayton’s new work Coils126 is a major achievement—language, sensibility, sexual realities—the old mythifications broken to bits with a stubborn courage to face americano masochism, phallic default—finding all dis-ease within his own experience, what was treasured chest blown open love and despair which cannot be set anywhere I might try to hold it—so full & complex a voyage of life/ work. Aint nobody gonna call him sexist ever again . . . no maam! Fierce new work by Yvonne; despair, life asunder and still “who me?” dancing on the head (cock) of a pin . . . (“it was worth it just to have him looking at me” . . . a dance) using language—paragraphs from diaries projected as slides over the sections of reoccurring or dispersing movements. And a clamorous (the audience) birthday (all year) concert for/ of Cage by polite Juilliard sorts . . . we were up in the balcony . . . nope I said I always sit down front . . . funny because even when it was no longer Jim conducting . . . that was right, dems my folks and we all reunioned joyfully . . . even friends from Tone Road’s day and Anthony quite bewildered asking “do you and your friends always burst into tears and hug and kiss each other?”

199

Of course I was crazy to leave . . . I was crazy. Being with Ant makes it all good, or me good for it all—or needing not so much of all there is to need/want. Being content on the inward center more than in the past. So I couldn’t say get yr ass over here . . . I am so relieved to be back. We are better best here together and Anthony is so very wonderful—dauntless, clear hearted, a natural Zen archer. CS to Jill Johnston127 2 April 1973

1969–1975

crystal balls clear  no  man  can ever confirm any woman ever HE (they) has denied deflected repressed distorted destroyed devalued FOR SO LONG our SELVES renewed with OUR selves just standing in that room among yr friends woman energy full acts of perception communion can only be discovered among ourselves and yes  separate from men  (being kicked out with my man friend—that did make perfect sense to me) they have mutilated mangled our seeing ourselves and any means by which we could be perceptible to one another meaning/exactly as you have written—most complete female nature cut spliced apart within stolen from me all those women who I am! trivialization of our love of one another  which is of course love of self and reality lucidity of a fluid will ego tenderness movement (who tears everything to bits and denies us our integrity! whose amusement is genocides and call us angel of death . . . dark L A D Y!). I will not grant to any man what they have denied me.128

200

127. Jill Johnston (Eng­land, 1929), critic and author. 128. “Jill Johnston would not grant that any of my work had structure or form,” Schneemann commented. “She had a very strict formalist aesthetic that supported Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs, and Yvonne Rainer.” CS in conversation with the author, 5 June 1994. Johnston’s words confirm Schneemann’s perception: “There are jazz ensemble trucks. Behind my poets truck is the inimitable Carolee Schneemann happily in the middle of a lot of junk, including two plywood constructions, some plastic tubing, much paper, and pails of plastic confetti or sawdust, and of course her boyfriend.” See Jill Johnston, “The Avant Garde Has A Float-In,” Village Voice, 19 September 1968, 38. For this book, Johnston declined to allow the inclusion of a letter she wrote to Schneemann.

Yvonne Rainer to CS

Finally sitting down to try to answer your rich and provocative letter. Don’t quite know how to do it. It involves defining my interpretation of your words to get at your interpretations of my show. I could say right off “I don’t agree with you” but don’t agree with what? Your rage? How can I dispute that and how can I deny you your experience with my show and say, “No, my art should not have touched that mainspring in her?” Maybe it is simply a difference in style: My woman is enraged when “he doesn’t take her seriously,” when she gets squeezed into the corner of the car, enraged at herself for being trapped in her repetitions, in her jealousies and deficiencies. But I cannot maintain a rage about “the whole damn thing” or “those goddamn males.” And I would do it and will do it over again. And when the time comes I will be enraged again, but only about particular things and as often as not about things that I have contributed. I too find myself rankling at your quote from whatisname: “perils of Pauline.” Indeed! I envy him in a way: He must lead a very orderly and pastoral life, be one of the happy few to have escaped the “perils” I speak about. But there is also—(I think we should therefore make allowances for Van der Marck, Carolee) the factor of the technique of the show—the flatness of the printed word, the understatement of the actions, the ambiguities of the photos—all of which puts the show slightly into the realm of photo-romanza and soap opera. And of course the part with the props—the letter, the gun, the book, the suitcase. The gun especially puts the whole thing into another gear. I had to do that: make melodrama out of drama, risk bathos to cover pathos. My entry into the arena of the emotional life is via other people’s artifacts. But only in part, and not for long. Maybe it’s equivalent to that early solo of mine (remember “Ordinary Dance”?) where I spoke an inventory of all the place names in my history with poetic veiled references to what may have happened there. Now I want to tell what happened there, but must go at it very gradually to avoid all these pitfalls of self-pity and plot and characterization and identification. Yet I do want it to be about YOU out there in the best possible way, and not only about women, and I want to tell it like it is—and not only about pain and rage. If the only real pleasure in my life that will be left to me is the one that comes from the transformation of pain into ART, then I want to tell about that because that is certainly better than nothing, which is what a lot of people

1969–1975

1 May 1973

201

are left with. Maybe my stiff upper lip will turn to ashes in my mouth and then I will be left with rising up out of that to make more art. So it seems to go. I insist on it. How else would you have it, Carolee? Who promised you a rose garden? I started out expecting the thorny side of the bush to be my lot . . . oh christ now I can’t stand my metaphors anymore. I’m just trying to say rage is ok, we just mustn’t succumb to it by starting to look to it for energy. It is my uneasy companion. I keep my eye on it. I must tap other resources. Let’s make more art. CS to James Tenney 2 June 1973

1969–1975

Your letter to me in London came just before we went onto the S.S. Canberra129 (Kitch smuggled under my arm thru the departure customs—any animal forbidden on British Ships), trunks in the hold, unpredictable new/old life worlds ahead . . . six days suspended in the sea. Many funny ship-of-fools tales in the daily containment of 900 people—a good way to make the crossing over. And I wrote a letter to you & couldn’t mail it (although might now type it out), all involved with Strindberg130 & “man’s nature,” Amazons and my being caught on your projection that marriage would be for “some notion about the welfare of children,” finally your clearest statement of “hurt & angry & bitter about the fact” that we didn’t have children. But, no, I haven’t changed that much—marriage still a private emotional act—not biologically reproductive but a productive centering of love & work. That absolutely I could not have married Anthony with the possibility of frustrating his need of Fatherhood; for many reasons I am convinced (as much as possible after our—yours & mine—life together) that he does not want children, but did very much want the commitment of love and futurity between us and marriage is still the ritual to celebrate this. Also A. had never “married” before . . . also I’m no longer wild, more detached from the world and pursuit of it . . . about “unbearable” freedoms . . . (And found back in the u.s. of a. a new pattern of relationship—the mutually nurturing couple; younger men who seem clear & easy apart from conventional roles/fulfillments, with older women who choose spheres exclusive of becoming mothers. It’s curious. (Patty Olden-

202

129. Schneemann and McCall “left London with Kitch on a special fare, along with many draft resisters who returned to the US on the SS Canberra [a renowned ocean line].” CS in conversation with the author, August 2005. 130. August Strindberg (Sweden 1849–1912), playwright and novelist.

131. Patricia Muschinski (Oldenburg, Mucha); Trisha Brown; Cynthia Weil (United States, 1937), filmmaker and singer-songwriter; Carolyn Brown (United States, 1930), dancer.

1969–1975

burg, Maria Alvares, Trish Brown, Cynthia Weil—a filmmaker, Carolyn Brown . . .))131 [. . .] I’m typing under the North upstairs window at the house, on your old library table which took six hours to scrub away lashes of printers ink the monsters left; sitting in lyre back chair which has been slowly glued back together, one of the few rugs they didn’t steal or sell on the floor. The ivy is thick around the windows (no screens—they all went too), the black locust trees covered with white blossoms, a full wind off the mountain. Anthony is directing patterns of burning on photographs with a lens using heat of the sun. Kitch is curled up asleep on the porch. She’s funny, delightful, bossy, wise, loving, full of spirit: pretending to take on the dangers of the woods & fields as if all her faculties were intact, but only if I’m not more than 10 feet away. Her “faculties” are almost the same but she is fragile since she had pneumonia at Christmas (I had it in October) and nearly died—for two weeks she didn’t eat, drink water, crap. We had to feed her four times a day with vitamin potions I mashed into broth & shot down her throat by a tiny syringe; putting her in a basket with steaming balsam resin to keep her lungs open . . . it was awful. On our wedding day she crept over to her dish and ate a scrap of liver! Feeble and limp as she was she struggled through with loving, devoted awareness. Effort characterizes or sums up the months back; Anthony had a small grant from London which quickly ran out; I’v been our support these past months—running like crazy from one lecture/film showing to the next. But now the schools are closed and I’v no more; huge bills left on the house from past tenants, roof leaking, everything needs work; about to try to sub-let the loft; waiting on tender-hooks to sell the Oldenburg bird cage which would bail us out; Anthony looking constantly for graphic design work—which should come thru and his alien registration papers, carrying on his creative work. No car, we hitch-hike up & back (Kitch in a basket of course or sitting on a shoulder). I get depressed, anxious as to how to keep it all going and then I’v not even had money for 8 mm film to work with but it is all worth these ploddings— to be back and the substantiality, consequence of my culture after the sleepy, Edwardian float which London is. And essentially, that what we may create, what I’v done has sense, resonance here as nowhere else. I’m really thrilled to still have the house, peace of it after all . . . sort of

203

1969–1975

a rebirth after being crazy, lost and never imagining it could all come together again—relationship, root, building on. Yes, I’ve read Louise’s biography of Varèse with delight—poignant, all the memories of him & Carl set vividly there. She is working on the second volume now, in the country house of a friend; her voice as fragile as leaves but strong. As for Cardew, I consider him a sort of Mao-Monster, present in London at a grand house, dinner to celebrate Cage concert and John immobilized in the huge leather couch as Cornelius & bird piping-voice wife Stella attacked him mercilessly for loss of contact with “the people,” capitalist capitulation, obscurantism! Christ they were rigid, fierce tempered hawks hacking away . . . we fought with them and John looked nonplused. I had worked or had his groups work with me in performance situations I directed early on in London. Seemed unprepossessing (is that the word I want?); then last spring they did a concert which had the vitality of Pitt Street (!)—at least lively, “concerted”—which concert they abruptly stopped to ask the audience for questions, reactions . . . all the music drained into fuzzy, complicated dialectics . . . “well, uh, I think you’re sitting there playing a violin cause yr father had the money to give you lessons din’ e? An I’m sittin here cause I never had lessons din’ I? So I feel alienated an ostile don I” . . . the Eng­lish class struggle would take many paragraphs to explain—it is real, alive and smothering . . . this you see by the next concert, after appreciating the audience political alienation (privilege of creativity), they’d all be beating on tin cans and tooting whistles . . . yes, Cardew is “the best” at all that. Saw Stan at Art Institute in Chicago—where being both battered by lectures/film showing (although he stayed in the Palmer House Hotel & I was put up in a babies bedroom; the Institute paid him very well, the Woman’s Art Coalition paid me paltry) and collapsed delightedly at a table in the cafeteria, after all these years first shared preoccupation being, Stan asking “when does one get time to shit?” [. . .] Max132 says you may do carpentry for a living unless a concert series works out—or both. Which might be alright (your carpentry here is wonderful and strong—intact); no question the country is roiling under Watergate133 into depression—had begun far as I can tell al-

204

132. Max Neuhaus. 133. “Watergate” refers to the break-in at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., in 1972, an event that led to the resignation on 8 August 1974 of President Richard Nixon for his involvement in the scandal.

ready; moratoriums on hiring teachers all over, frozen budgets & everywhere I’v seen services in decay (public services) . . . seems like a rough time turning for us all. Allan Kaprow to CS 22 June 1973

I’m glad you’re back in NY. We saw “Fuses” here a few weeks ago when Martie Edelheit134 brought it out with some other women’s films. Brought back memories . . . Are you planning to come out to California? If so maybe (funds are almost at extinction) we can arrange a performance . . . I don’t understand that question about the library hiding or losing your “Parts of A Body” . . . Which library bought it? Ours? Best wishes and welcome home. CS to James Tenney

DEAR JIM A QUICK HAPPY **** BIRTHDAY ******* before the post (person) drives up [. . .] We are both invited to Fylkingen135 in two weeks for a symposium of experimental choreography—expenses paid and they give no information at all, except that “many crazy people will see you will not be bored.” Anthony will do his fire pieces in landscape; I have no clear idea what I might make . . . something by water? I’ll take all the films and a new section in 8 mm of recurring train rolling behind the house season to season which is the linear roll against which a biography of Kitch evolves (enclosing or unraveling my autobiography); “Kitch’s Last Meal,” title for now. Trying to get a film grant and then print in 16 mm. Frame after frame of K. eating—all the funny, unlikely things she eats on crystal dishes, cutting boards, table top . . . glimmering oatmeal, shining cucumbers, her head burrowed into half a cantaloupe and my voice will be weaving through roll of the train describing her life adventures. [figure 44] I avoid the city. Spend a lot of time watching birds, spiders, locusts. Listening with glee to Watergate & sanded all the peace signs, hexes, initials and cigarette burns made by the monsters, out of 134. Martha Nillson Edelheit (United States, 1931), artist. 135. Sten Hansen (Sweden, 1936), poet and composer, hosted the symposium in Fylkingen, Sweden.

1969–1975

9 August 1973

205

44. Carolee Schneemann, Kitch’s Last Meal, 1973–78, Super 8 film, sound, 5 double reels, 20 minutes each. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

1969–1975

kitchen table you built—it is beautifully made, strong. A composition! Are you supporting yourself by carpentry now? Charge them a lot. Kaprow nicely (after all these years) wrote a welcome back & come out to Cal Arts note . . . they have no money. I told him to rob the pinball machine and I’d be delighted to do a film/lecture program. Trying to arrange a tour for late Oct. around L.A. Any ideas? Very hard to come by jobs lately. Only one thing for fall (Nov.) workshop & film retrospective at Carnegie Tech—which is great—no, Brakhage had nothing to do with it! Program run by a woman which means delight, curiosity, emotional generosity in all the dealings/arrangings.136

206

136. Sally Foy Dixon (United States, 1932), director of the Carnegie Institute Visiting Filmmakers Program, Pittsburgh.

CS to Clayton Eshleman 15 October 1973

137. Creative Artist Program. 138. Cézanne, She Was a Great Painter. 139. Luc Ferrari (France, b. 1929, Italy, d. 2005), composer. 140. Iannis Xenakis. 141. Robert Cordier (France, ca. 1930), director, producer, actor, and filmmaker. 142. Wade Stevenson (United States, 1924), filmmaker. 143. Michael Fineberg (Eng­land, ca. 1942), translated Michaux’s L’Infini turbulent, Mercure (1957), which was published in London by Calder and Boyars as Infinite Turbulence (1975). 144. Henri Michaux (Belgium, 1899–1984), painter, poet. 145. Robert Nurenberg (United States, 1923), Beckett scholar. 146. Edouard Roditi (France, 1910–92), poet. Roditi was an important muse for Schneemann, who by chance in 1960 purchased his army trunk at a flea market and has since stored her diaries in the “Roditi trunk.”

1969–1975

The film of Kitch life goes well—in January a year cycle of it. I’v done all the grant applications you advised. Heartened at CAPS 137 turning in stuff to find the halls lined with barefoot creatures, rucksacks, lead pencils bitten down over the final mad paragraph explaining the necessity to cure deerskins with astrological messages, or dry mushrooms in cosmic survival patterns . . . god knows what 15,000 “artists” beg for in the winner pile of 125 grants! Working on a visual book138—text comes out of imagery; preprinting each page in effect. The friends from Paris have shifted greatly from my close time in ’64, ’69 but a few will emerge without any effort on your part. [. . .] Meant to advise you about elegant orgy-dinners which frank Americans tend to mis-take. Have you been invited to any yet? Try to see the erotic theater performances of Rita Renoir if she is doing any. Electronic music of François Bernard Mâche, Luc Ferrari,139 Xenakis (all old friends);140 if any of their work becomes of special interest & you want to meet them, let me know. I don’t simply suggest you contact them . . . why? . . . the work link makes the sense now. But do contact Maria Alvares if you liked her here (you did know her a bit I think? was with Cordier)141 now with young film-maker, particularly nice, Wade Stevenson142 & they are a center for bringing people together. See if you can meet Victor Herbert before he leaves for India; say I suggested you call; a good friend to artists, generous spirit, exquisite & curious huge studio. Michael Fineberg,143 translator of Michaux,144 quiet Eng­lish poet. If you have any special interest in Beckett (Sam) look out for Robert Nurenberg;145 a sad-eyed person, middle age now, strong links to the surrealists . . . Roditi146 must know him. Finally if you need

207

help with language, places, events, extra woman at dinner, my friend Claudia Hutchins147—American, in Paris for ten years, teacher, translator, warm & solid, open & in touch with the good works in Paris. CS to Pamela Lee148 17 November 1973

1969–1975

I am trying to understand . . . these lessons we did not need to learn. But we must use ourselves to “spread your disease” as another crazy said. [. . .] Very complicated something I want to link together; what we have suffered and lost as an ancient enactment . . . that our individual psyches have a death-in-life to spark historic crimes against our natures; it has to do with your/my fear of success, our romanticism and the fragile but persistent truth of our feelings. And the powerful goddess forces which have been manifesting themselves to me (to us). The sun just opened laying purple shadows over the ridge. When I left here and was “crazy” (before the house was ravaged) and finally wandered to London living in a tiny room, wounded, curled up, glazed I also went to find some help and did, after many tries, with an old, elegant, thin, bearded, cosmic spirit—an analyst149 whom I trusted humanly even though his disciplines were not Reichian or those which I knew about (neither were they traditionally Freudian . . . thank goddess). Gradually he helped me through, back to a healing . . . [. . .] At some moment during the second year of seeing Oscar,150 he described the history of a man in terms which were to help me see my own situation. He said “the man did this . . . then he realized that . . . so he, and he . . .” I was immediately, and I thought—naturally—alienated from the relevance of this example by the Gender-masculine. I said, yes this a story of a man, but what can it have most deeply to do with my experience, if you a man tell a story of another man to me? I see it, but I cannot take it for myself. It is, again, a man talking about a man, as if to another man. He said this is how you cause troubles for yourself: the gender is a convention, everyone understands and accepts this; you struggle against what the culture agrees on and of course you meet resistances and disturbance. I said but to tell me a personal history with which I would completely identify you should tell it in feminine gen-

208

147. Claudia (Holly) Hutchins-Puéchavy (France, 1934), painter. 148. Pamela Jane (formerly Lee) (United States, 1947), author of children’s books. 149. Oscar Köllerström. 150. Oscar Köllerström.

151. Schneemann alludes to women writers who either committed suicide or were neglected, such as Jane Bowles (United States, 1917–73), novelist and playwright; Colette (also known as Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette; France, 1873–1954), novelist; Isadora Duncan (United States, 1878–1927), dancer; Zelda Fitzgerald (United States, 1900–1948), painter, writer; Margaret Fuller (United States, 1810–50), journalist and women’s rights activist; Mary Wollstonecraft (Eng­land, 1759–97), philosopher and feminist; and Virginia Woolf (Eng­land, 1882–1941), novelist. 152. The Band recorded “Whispering Pines” in 1970.

1969–1975

der. We argued. I saw a HUGE rainbow rise up above his head of “my suicided sisters”151 a grand multi-colored arc, in which they floated. I belonged to them. I would not suicide. The analysis, at that moment, was ended for me. He had taken me through. I had emerged as a living particle surging between historic rhythms and future acts. I am just remembering that one day, confronting some persistent anxiety or dream, Oscar suggested I go to an astrologer/medium. “It never hurts to have another overview when things jam up.” She said among many insights: “I don’t like your past seven years; they have been very difficult and damaging.” I was shocked, because in my present skinned-off life, I longed for the richness, wholeness and completions of the recent past. [. . .] Were we too fragile in passionate devoted nature? Did we love more than love can be lived? In Belsize Park I used to play (when someone lent me a phonograph) over & over, The Band . . . was it called “Whispering Pines?”152 Everyday is the joy of that time being passed. It seemed without end . . . it was and then it changed. Of course Anthony has everything to do with this goodness. We are as close, devoted as Jim and I were. And though I was sure I could never love that much/that well again this may really be . . . yes, better in certain ways. We are dense together but also light; there was a vast weight grew between Jim and me, I felt weighted, as if we were too equal and I had always to feel more, take responsibility, attention and pass it to him or lift it from him . . . to make the balance in daily life. Anthony is just that much stronger, clearer, at ease in his own nature, (confident and generous) than I am. Our differences aid & release one another. He is not tormented. If I am, he never takes it as a personal threat, a force against him or us. It is hard to describe the tender equanimity, steadiness of the Eng­lish. [. . .] It was a beautiful time. It is all quite amazing. And what I am working on now—which has flowed from strange visions, hallucinations, signs all come together from fragments over the years: a book which explores the systematic, concerted

209

destruction, re-attribution and falsification of art created BY WOMEN from pre-recorded history to the present! It is an amazing, horrific mystery tale. “Missing Precedents;” I began the research, as a secret study for my own sanity, when I was in college. So I also confront and utilize this incredible work I began and put aside. The evidence is thick, convoluted and persistent. Don’t mention the idea for now—the publisher is deciding if it must be kept quiet or not, and if they will do it or not. My mind is a jumble of strands twisting through eras of lies, fabrications. In some way—not clear yet—all that happened to us is joined in this ancient cutting away of our root system, our strengths and free assertions. It is terribly hard work. Victor Herbert to CS 23 December 1973

1969–1975

PARIS—Late July 1973—I am reading one of Alan Watts’153 many helpful books and thinking about my upcoming trip to NY next week. The telephone r-r-r-rings. It’s my sister: “I’m visiting my friend M. in Los Angeles and I note that Alan Watts is holding a seminar in a couple of days, so why don’t you fly out here, take a dip in the pool and then have a dance with Alan . . .” Don’t argue with the Tao,154 sez I, slapping my bags together and hopping the next plane out for L.A. And sure enough, there I was at the feet of the Sausalito Guru, in Esalen:155 “I keep writing the same book 25 times, but you keep on buying them. Now you insist on paying lots of money to hear me say the same thing once again. Well, I suppose I am amusing so if you want to dance again, let’s dance . . .” Watts is 58, amusing in his tight control of the Eng­lish language, and is the only human alive who can explain Eastern thought without using the very Eastern words that are so difficult to understand in the first place. He brought along a marvelous T’ai Chi Ch’uan master named Huang.156 As soon as Watts’ words began to pall, Huang came

210

153. Alan Watts (Eng­land, b. 1915, United States, d. 1973), philosopher, writer, interpreter of Zen Buddhism, and popularizer of Asian philosophy in the West. 154. Tao Te Ching by the philosopher Lao Tzu (China, 570–490 BCE). 155. Founded in Big Sur, California, in 1962, the Esalen Institute was an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley (Eng­land, 1894–1963) called the “human potential.” Esalen attracted philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers (such as the architect Buckminster Fuller and the musicians George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Judy Collins, and Joan Baez). 156. Wen-shan Huang (China, b. ca. 1900, United States, d. ca. 1990), tai chi master, sociologist, anthropologist, and author of Fundamentals of Tai Chi Ch’uan: An Exposition of Its History, Philosophy, Technique, Practice and Application (Hong Kong: South Sky, 1973).

157. Roy Walford (United States, 1924–2004), gerontologist, worked as a medical officer in Biosphere 2, 1987–89. 158. Thelma Moss (United States, 1918–97), parapsychologist. 159. John C. Lilly (United States, 1915–2001), physician and psychoanalyst specializing in biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics, computer theory, and neuroanatomy. 160. John C. Lilly. The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space (New York: Julian Press, 1972).

1969–1975

on and got us moving with the Tao, out there on the bluff overlooking the Pacific. Paris isn’t quite like that at all. If Huang comes your way, go with him. He is very scrutable. And if you haven’t been reading Alan Watts, how did you ever get on my mailing list . . . ? Alan came to Geneva in October to do his number, came to my Paris pad, drank all the booze, screwed all the girls and took the next plane to California. He died one week later, but WITH A SMILE ON HIS FACE. Back in LA, where I stayed with Roy Walford, UCLA Professor friend157 who is an expert in aging (aren’t we all?). He says you will live longer if you eat lots of proteins when growing up, and then go on a low-calorie diet thereafter. His low-calorie mice have lived longer than any in the world. You die because your cells get confused and start destroying themselves thinking that their neighbor is an alien intruder. He puts fish in cold water and they live twice as long, but this is irrelevant for us people. We went over to see Thelma Moss158 at UCLA—she’s the gal that brought back the plans from Russia to photograph the aura around people and plants and stones. There it is, for all to see. Everyone has one, and by now maybe you have seen thumb-auras; they’re handiest to photograph. Photo story: a “healer” has very strong aura, a sick person a ragged aura; as soon as the healer has “laid on the hands” his own aura photographs were weakly—the other person now has a superstrong aura. Or: a leaf will lose its aura 3 days after plucking . . . but in a Reichian Orgone box it keeps the aura for 2 weeks. The big surprise of the trip was my 2 weeks back at Esalen with a group of 30 people in mass water-tank experiment with John Lilly.159 He wrote the CENTRE OF THE CYCLONE, and if you haven’t read this book you are in trouble.160 Lilly is the man who discovered Dolphins were smarter than people and he also discovered that if you spend time in an isolation tank (no sound, sight or feeling . . . just float on warm salt water) your mind will lose its daily chatter and soon you will be traveling through space . . . many spaces. He is trying to find a non-drug equivalent to LSD tripping, because he has decided that man is going to blow himself up if he stays in “consensus reality.” (e.g. the everyday world.) He wrote a book on the mind as a Human Biocomputer and

211

1969–1975

says we would all do well to challenge the programs that were put in our heads as a child by society.161 He wrote a report after five years of gov’t funding to say that the best way to clean out the old program and have space for new programs is to take LSD but the gov’t didn’t want to hear that in 1968 and canceled his research program. So Lilly went to Esalen and heard about Ichazo in Chile and went to see him and took the first “Arica”162 conditioning given to gringos. This is where he was at when he wrote CENTRE of the CYCLONE, but he has since realized that the Arica people are on an over-organizational power trip (“psychic fascism”) so he has gone back to his isolation water tank which he invented in 1954. Night and day we took turns in the tank for 2 weeks: I (water-) logged 8 hours. Conclusion: if you are a “tripper” you probably don’t need the tank . . . many people I know can leave their body frequently, and can wander around other universes more-or-less at will. The tank is just a ready built launching platform. But for those who have trouble getting “away” (I am now talking about myself ) the tank isn’t of too much help. Any quiet room, dark, lots of pillows will do the same thing if you can keep from falling asleep. But the problem is still there: (1) how to get everybody to trip on acid so they know what the voyage is like and then (2) how to be able to take that same trip without the LSD and without sitting on a Himalayan mountain peak for 20 years. Lilly is doing his best to help . . . are you doing yours . . . ? I learned also how to do Esalen body massage, and when Nixon163 finds out about this, it’ll be busted right away. Unbelievable trippy. I also did a Biofeedback Machinery weekend at Esalen. Conclusion: Alpha Wave feedbackmachines probably won’t help you. But muscletension machines EMG recorders will definitely relieve headaches, migraines and tension in many cases.164 Stay tuned. Lastly, in NY I spent an evening with Uri Geller’s good friend. It appears he really bends metal by looking at it.165 Has done it thousands

212

161. John C. Lilly. Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments (Miami: Communication Research Institute, 1968). 162. Oscar Ichazo (Bolivia, 1931), founder of the Arica School for the teaching of what Ichazo called “protoanalytical” theory, a system and method for achieving higher states of consciousness. 163. President Richard M. Nixon. 164. An electromyogram (EMG) is an electrical recording of muscle activity that aids in the diagnosis of neuromuscular disease. 165. From 1972 to the early 1990s, the U.S. military conducted a secret program of telepathic spying described as “remote viewing,” which it developed in competition with the psychical research undertaken in the USSR throughout the cold war. The term “remote viewing” was coined by the artist and psychic Ingo Swann, and it replaced the more common nomen-

of times. 8000 miles away, a guru smiles. I hope to be back in India by end of December. Thank you for your continued psychic support. Om—m—m Clayton Eshleman to CS 25 March 1974

dear Pregnant Shorthaired Sexfiend, goodness what are we going to do with you? I suppose you will be unpregnant by the time this arrives; a question came up in my and Caryl’s mind reading your ripe letter, were you disappointed A.166 did not want “fatherHood, that responsibility?”—I remember yr telling me once how JT167 wanted just that, which angered you (curious, writing this I remember JT telling me one evening a couple years ago about an Abortion Party you had, how humiliated he was by it—telling that story at sea lost with Christine and the baby)—but I think you are doing the rational thing, for whatever that means; if you feel it would hang you and Ant’s168 life up, especially making one of you do double shit work to feed 3 mouths, then by all means best to abort. CS to Clayton Eshleman 31 March 1974

ah yes yes about the abortion party it comes back to me in a frame I barely recognize– mine/his through you where you recall: and I must fill out this fragment—to leave it raw, outside that paren-

clature of telepathy and clairvoyance. Among other sites, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency sponsored research at Stanford Research Institute under the direction of Harold E. Puthoff with the assistance of Russell Targ. Jack Houck, a systems engineer for Boeing and an independent researcher in paranormal phenomena, conducted Psychokinesis (PK) Parties, or “spoon-bending” parties, for high-ranking military at the Pentagon. See Joseph McMoneagle, Mind Trek: Exploring Consciousness, Time, and Space through Remote Viewing (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 1997). Remote viewing was a continuation of the CIA’s mind control research begun in the late 1940s. Most notorious among its numerous covert projects was MK-ULTRA, the code name for such mind control experiments as those conducted at Harvard from 1959 to 1962. These included experiments with LSD and stress tests to which the “Unabomber,” Theodore Kaczynski, was subjected as a sixteen-year-old student at Harvard. See Alson Chase, Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003). 166. Anthony McCall. 167. James Tenney. 168. Anthony McCall.

1969–1975



213

1969–1975 214

thesis is to assume you remember, that I had made it clear to you or if not, my pleasure to encounter you now over that remembering the anger that he did not protest to me, which is not to denigrate his confidence to you, man to man; but that with those weights of personal objection to what we made and felt together that he didn’t allow those feelings to be shared with me that they all existed at once yet I am/was left with the guilt of a decision we made together as young as I was then I was as well more frail more audacious fighting for my life—that battle was waged over & over in my body; that I could not be to Jim all he needed by being for myself what I must be; that his vacillations, help, understanding was over-balanced but this I didn’t clearly understand until recently since we were making a unique relationship—we had no precedent, no example to guide us—in this it was itself frail and audacious, and I thought, of an exemplary determination; because we loved each other so fully, caringly, openly. But what in his nature was suppressed grew to part us—unclear, obscured by his tender nature—and those angers, protests he did not allow himself for so many years. Perhaps only now is he convinced of how much my creative needs turned him from his paternal desire . . . my fault I couldn’t be it all. My anger; that he let me believe it was right for us both; that his deepest feelings stayed tied in him. Burdens: he had to continually reassure me that he loved me because I was not a conventional wife. When I had my first job to go to in Chicago we sat under a tree on a Champaign Urbana road while I wept uncontrollably; I just “felt” I would never see him again. I was only traveling 2 hours north for one day to work I had fought for and won. No one else told me/showed me it was well for a young woman to put her creative work before domestic service I could never stop feeling the thank you in my love to him thank you for being able to love such a bright high monster as I am didn’t my father say so my teachers my lovers before didn’t they constantly twist their heads staring saying can you be this? So I was angry in sorrow /// after all so much of him didn’t want what we had made . . . I thought I was at fault again . . . why did I feel such weight, gloom, despondency from him? That was all that I knew took us apart: weight, gloom, despondency between us . . . no issue, indeed no “issue” as contention, difficulty, trouble. Only that as we held to one another the passion was saddened, our delight and energies to build and sustain flew another way; flocks of birds flying out of us,

some center was emptied, our skins were hot, fervid, exhausted from within. He did want a baby after all. Allan Kaprow to CS 14 June 1974

I think your book was lost or ripped-off (in which case consider it an honor!). I’ve asked several times but place is in shambles—gone broke, gone to seed, kaput! Result is I’ve taken a new job at Univ. of Cal. San Diego for the next few years and then we’ll see. I quit last fall and have been on leave doing my things for relief— what a pleasure, for a change! I’m sorry, tho, that there was no bucks for you to come for my class and other good students. Nothing this last year except a few $100 gigs for those within a 100 miles. Well, let’s see about San Diego; maybe you’ll be performing someday again and if the whole country doesn’t collapse there might be a visit in it for you. (I’ve had only one job in the states all year—rest was in Europe (where I’m going in two days) and there it’s bottoming out pretty fast, too!). Well good luck to all of us! Did you ever try professoring? It keeps me and others alive. . . . Best! Allan P.S. Try contacting Judy Chicago at the Women’s Bldg. 743 S. Grandview, Cal. 90057 (for gigs) CS to Margaret Fisher 169

thinking a lot about/in your letter tangents which move close in (and out)/aspects of your considerations which demand answers (by their nature) and to which I find questions over again and grateful for your perceptions about “Up To & Including Her Limits” since I had so left my own precious structures yes just left them lying . . . and as I must have told you—the first time I’v performed alone—the rope trance changed things totally—will take another few months before I “see” what it was/is “is” because I’v continued variations on this work in London last 169. Margaret Fisher (United States, 1948), choreographer and videographer.

1969–1975

17 July 1974

215

1969–1975 216

month and further positionings of it in NY I hope  (after 4 years OUT of NY which was my wild pet once) (when I used to be more aggressively certain about some historical/cultural arrow spark running me, necessity, span of my work  while now more simply & less confident in that broad reaching shape, just that I do or need to) of course yes “performance” became insupportable and of course the significance of several hundred (or dozen) of us whose senses cells nerves drive hold to imagination concentration in form formings  that those of us still defined there in creative process can no longer sit still or stay thru films  concerts take a seat hold a place direct the perceptions discretely fixed duration conventions agreed even a few years ago it seemed “good forever”  but ain’t did rock & dope change our religious energy that much  this way? Or? But your dilemmas are all of our dilemmas   and pervasive   queer we always had some fierce answers  now we are all brooding  it is everywhere where one looks with respect & intensity  this brooding (as brood mare or brood hen) in itself our keyed action but I don’t very much think of the/my “audience” (even though during the Judson performance days out of three nights three hundred people a night I could somehow “know” and rightly, that some one person I hoped would come had not been there or really the change—and worth noting—may be, no actually is: 1. the situation is for myself, the involvements develop with or without spectators 2. but once they do arrive their presence, impulses influence the work 3. I do not perform/consider the effect of what I’m doing on those present; but their presence effects everything I do; they have changed the nature of the space. I feel spectators as energy receivers and transmitters, as units of density, warmth, solids dispersed, specifically situated and moving (since in my work they move at will) 4. THE AUDIENCE IS MY TRIBE. The culture we make is our religion and geography. It is never spoken clearly; it is deflected in the evasions, greed and isolations of the civilization surrounding the culture we share. (The ART World is an Audience and a Tribe as well. A cold hearted,

170. Schneemann’s reference to “trance” is a comment on her working state in Up To And Including Her Limits, performed at the University Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, 11 April 1974.

1969–1975

stiff blooded tribe—conflagrations of energies—human contact embedded in some frenzy of self-conscious shame, pride & ambition. Go into the crowd around the bar at a Museum of Modern Art opening which is “important.” The people are very excited, noisy. They embrace and smile but over all they seem tense, hostile. They seem to all know one another. Since they do not “know” you (yet), you can watch undisturbed. No one will speak to you. You will not understand that each person is judged as if they were their work—no more, no less. If this year your work is respected, you will be treated respectfully. If your work is not innovative in this moment you will stand and speak with people of a conservative bent. Or is it all business? Hustling a new idea, connection, possibility to push work? Or even hustling a presence, an attitude? yep or hustling a fuck or a meeting with someone else. Please don’t get a nosebleed or vomit or fall over—illness, sadness, difficulties are only for “losers” and we do not afford them—emotionally or financially! Yes, you may freak out in some dramatic, outrageous, inventive way; we treasure our suicides—particularly young, erotic persons of creative promise and we tolerate violent drunks and delicate, weary, precarious spirits O.D.ing on costly drugs.) Often my friends have come out of an unknown audience; my work linking us and their concern, perception of it . . . which means I will be centered with them. Work can create a vast number of bridges. I used to work for a small number of friends—in mind’s eye the work directed towards their regard. Particularly a group of poets. Now that I am working in the trance state170 I may not realize that people are close by. To de-objectify, de-mythicize myself I request the spectators to break the action cycles if they have any wish to do so. I am always interested to see who is there, what they think. If the situation becomes diversionary or slight or wearying I go back to work! (Or off to lunch . . .) But actual—direct contact, personal. The audience as tribe—known and unknown—is often a source of crucial insight; offering perceptions which I need. CRITICS! Those few who saw and could say confirming resolving— solidity of language when the insights were firm, intensive, loosening, opening . . . I could advance freely—not hanging on to my own doubts

217

1969–1975

or insistences because it had been grasped, taken from me at the necessary time. Then I’v had such a deep, inward hunger to speak with women artists—left as an ache from formative years—when if the women artists I cared about were near, I couldn’t find the courage or way to speak with them. I especially want to make it possible for any woman who wants to speak with me to manage! (but it is quite different now! . . . all the beans are spilling in a rainbow.) Were you in the audience during my film retrospective at the Pacific Archives?171 I asked the audience what they thought the constant presence of Kitch was? (that it wasn’t simply eighteen years together.) There was a tiny flurry in a high back row: a young woman clasping her hands, man at her side giving her the elbow which means “go ahead, go on” and she said “the cat is your medium.” THE CAT IS MY MEDIUM. Absolutely true in so far as her awareness of space and time influenced the development of my Kinetic Theater . . . constantly, precisely. But further than that and the obvious spirit link she represents (or releases) is the fact that I consider myself a painter still and forever (no matter what “medium”)—so THE CAT IS TURPENTINE! If a big Museum opening can be a sort of Hell, there are many other times of coming together when I have had the overwhelming sense that all of us present have died and gone to some future-heaven-droppedin-the-present. At these times Tribe, Friend, Beloved, Audience are one. For instance the performance in London’s Round House of Cage’s Harpsichord—in the darkness John172 circling, David173 playing above, friends from New York, Paris, lost remembered strayed revolving hour by hour within the body of sound. At Ken Dewey’s funeral (the same summer 1972) where the mutuality, recognition of the tribal unit was at last in the face of his death, felt, expressed, shared, celebrated. (And in his lifetime it was certainly one key to his work, as to Charlotte Moorman’s ebullient, exasperating Avant-Garde Festivals and the sensitive priorities of Jon Hendricks and Geoff Hendricks.)174

218

171. In conjunction with her performance, Schneemann’s films were screened at Pacific Film Archives located in the University Art Museum. 172. John Cage. 173. David Tudor (United States, 1926–96), pianist and composer. 174. Jon Hendricks (United States, 1939), artist; Geoffrey Hendricks (United States, 1931), artist.

175. Schneemann starred this note to her letter: “MUSEUM AS MUSE HOME (a place devoted to works of nature, art, curiosities etc.; also the collection itself). Muse N.1. The inspiring power of poetry. 2. Myth. One of the nine goddesses presiding over poetry, art, science. Muse 1. to meditate upon; ponder, II 1. to cogitate. 2. to indulge in reverie (OF muser, perhaps lit. ‘sniff about’–muse, muzzle.) Syn.: brood cogitate consider contemplate deliberate dream meditate ponder reflect ruminate stew study.”

1969–1975

And I’v felt this strange dissolution of present and future, sensation & fact, what defines life apart from death—felt this wave form in midst of most of my performance pieces, on acid, during para-normal manifestations and as well in the high energy of some loft dancing parties, other people’s concerts, performances. It is communal in spirit—a connective tissue, a cherishing materialization heightened to let the visible be visible to us. So this network fine webbery how concentratedly inwardly can I be pulling in following tug filaments of what or who arrives from without? That is one interior set of adjustments lapse transparencies subtle now (In the past my relation to spectators was overt, determined, aimed at immediacies of interchange and effect. Still I always felt something like emerging from the deep lagoon, rising up from coral reefs to grab them, catch hands . . . tipping them over out of safety, assurance that we were separate—plummeting together, the ego entities fragmented, the definitions of actioners perceivers jumbled, male female, intentions, loss of intentions. Dream deep dives. Beyond the “self ” which we each cart around like the doctor’s black kit bag.) So durations and the cycles of “Up To And Including Her Limits” were determined by the spectators: which meant they became overt, active and also personal—by personal wish or necessity they choose to interrupt my activity; and the nature of the situation was that this could, would occur. And it was personalized because having rung the bell which broke into my concentration I was committed to “emerge,” to see exactly who had rung the bell and for what reason. (Of course if no one arrived, or someone arrived and wouldn’t consider breaking into a cycle I would shift it myself, or simply continue for hours.) 5. That I am living here (the museum) those moments A HOME AMONG OTHER HOMES coming into my home into minds-rooms the image dwelling ancient place.*175 To meet the lost women who give me form it is their works I carry

219

(always been my hidden audience and my secret directors!). I see them as a fan a rainbow a splatter disappeared forgotten unknown ancient women bright as fireflies. Clayton Eshleman to CS 23 July 1974

1969–1975

Turns out there are footprints of every kind in the caves, huge size 13 men prints, as well as women and children.176 Who did the paintings engravings sculpture is still a mystery and probably will remain so. They are now studying the handprints on cave walls to see if gender can be determined there; even if it can, that will still not disclose who did a painting next to a handprint. One thing seems increasingly sure, that the paintings were retouched time after time, and probably were revisited, retouched, redrawn, over long periods of time, so that what we see does not belong to one person or even one civilization. The meaning of meander, as a statement, more and more presses in on me (often kindling a sense of you), the web of meander e.g., that meets one’s eyes in Les Combarelles,177 over 300 engravings in overlapping tangle. The post-J.C.178 eye wants to order them, look for a center, a lost spinal cord?—by the time of Aristotle with his beginning middle and end the meander as waggling life current lost in the mystery of itself is utterly done in. Granted a people living without roads watches alphabet and possibly without incest sodomy and homosexual “laws” nature might have been seen pretty much as it seems to me now, a tunnel of a tangle out of wch a tree rises or flower burgeons, but without CENTER. The explosion in the cathedral may be the action in the bounding line, where the war between now and then is fought. For it is the bounding line that seems the major statement in cave “art”—what puts “them” on record as of our image of manwomankind. All of this churns in my male belly strangely.

220

176. Eshleman would eventually publish on this subject. See his Juniper Fuse: Upper Paleolithic Imagination & the Construction of the Underworld (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2003). 177. A cave located near Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France, famous for thousands of superimposed drawings of Paleolithic art from the mid-Magdalenian Period, 12,000 to 10,000 BCE. 178. Jesus Christ.

45. Flyer for screening of Carolee Schneemann’s films at Collective for Living Cinema, 24 November 1974, New York City. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

CS to Jane and Stan Brakhage 29 July 1974

179. Parker Tyler. 180. Joseph Cornell. 181. Willard Maas (United States, 1911–71), poet, actor, and filmmaker. 182. Marie Menken (United States, 1910–70), filmmaker and writer. 183. Maya Deren (also known as Eleanora Derenkovskaya; Ukraine, b. 1917, United States, d. 1961), filmmaker, writer.

1969–1975

Parker’s179 obituary felt like a dull heavy clout on my head. And I had never thought of him as that much older than ourselves. Now without Joseph,180 Willard,181 Marie,182 Maya,183 Parker, isn’t the full shape of our earliest years in New York shredded apart? Do you feel that dip, that rent, the tearing . . . which from now pauses . . . shorter intervals. Unreasonable feelings . . . : nasty, gratuitous . . . inevitable as death & taxes eh? nasty tipping the table where we all eat, our companions sliding away! Death IS. We continue. But the harassment, diversion of your true energies brings on my deepest rage and just-outrage. We are SURROUNDED BY CROOKS drained, sucked, poisoned, eaten at; apart from

221

the Co-op184 I know of NO film distributor who would not steal lie distort rob and injure financially to the best of their abilities any independent filmmaker who entered into a legal binding distribution contract with them. THAT IS THEIR BUSINESS ISN’T IT?? TO ROB US BLIND? The peak of death over the collapsing houses. The second peak was/is robbery, injury to artists by the corp-se-orations. Corp-se-orations created to carry the work into the world and to return a common nearly sub-standard wage with which we can continue to create works which they can profit by . . . [figure 45] CS to Daryl Chin185 17 October 1974

1969–1975

There is a pile of “important” papers needing answering & here I am choosing to write to Daryl . . . and isn’t that symptomatic of my pride in following my feelings and my detestation, mistrust of myself—not doing the things necessary for the grown-up hustle . . . so I despair of giving myself the cold-blooded confidence to control what I should control, to use what and whom I deserve by now . . . which drags me right back in the middle of the Gotham Book room . . . where first of all I was not invited . . . as if I were still the hick kid on nobody’s mailing list; I was told to meet Richard Lorber186 there. The shock of realizing it was to celebrate the books of Yvonne, Simone, Claes and the detested Kirby187 (who has assiduously ignored, avoided—in effect wiped out of his dominate critical and historical span which has become extensive hasn’t it? ALL MY WORK). That dear Walter Gutman188 reached to me for a hug and was eager to introduce a thoughtful, handsome man at his side . . . who is the head of Nova Scotia189 . . . and Walter having the energy of “this is important” and being of help, I totally panicked, shook

222

184. New York Filmmakers Cooperative. 185. Daryl Chin (United States, ca. 1950), multimedia artist, critic, curator. Chin wrote profuse, long, and fascinating letters to Schneemann in the mid-1970s. He was one of only two correspondents to refuse to have his letters published in this volume. Chin’s refusal is particularly regrettable for the richness of his dialogue with Schneemann. I have, therefore, included only Schneemann’s part in their engaging and informative epistolary conversations about art and the art world. Chin’s letters may be read in the Carolee Schneemann Papers, 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 186. Richard Lorber (United States, 1946), art critic, editor of Dance Scope (1965–81). 187. Michael Kirby (United States, 1931–97), playwright, actor, critic. Schneemann describes Kirby as the “detested Kirby” for not including her and her work in his book Happenings (New York: Dutton, 1965). 188. Walter Gutman (United States, 1903–86), investment banker and filmmaker. 189. Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

190. Alexis Ingram, alias of the artist Martha Wilson. Kasper König (Germany, 1943), founder of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design’s influential publishing program, dean of the Frankfurt Stadelschule, director of Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany. 191. Simone Forti (Italy, 1935), choreographer. 192. Cézanne, She Was a Great Painter. 193. Robert Morris (United States, 1931), artist. 194. Artforum magazine (1962–present). 195. Annette Michelson.

1969–1975

hands, smiled, said “Emmett Williams speaks of you with devotion,” and pushed off, kicking hard in another direction. Being ignored—not recognized by Alexis Ingram, head of Eng­lish dept. (a young woman, blonde) and avoiding Kasper König190 (head of Design there) to whom, at Simone’s191 suggestion, I had sent my book a year ago. Meeting Alexis in meantime—she had never heard of me, said she’d look at my book,192 keep her informed etc . . . Finally Kasper returned the book, including a blunt & awful note from that (thoughtful) head, to him which said “at this time this is not something for us” . . . period! That’s what Kasper sent with my book. Bob Morris193 had suggested I write to see about teaching there . . . (don’t think I’d ask him for a recommendation do you? Why not? Not. But we had a delightful time at dinner here in the country. His house is over the mountain. Gutted Colonial). He wouldn’t hesitate to “use” me—as if that could be possible! Not false modesty— the current disproportion. We love our letters. We do not guess where they lead us; how much they grab from the boooblivion bins, the suffering-drawers; and how funny we are! Or, certainly parts of your letters—droll & suddenly side splitting. I suppose we trust each other’s tempers to give the wallow a roll. But it is impossible to simply live in the present; to have broken such a concentrated creative bulk and all the projections from without which I could then handle as furtive fixes, being that strong & steadfast to the interior streams & to crawl back from a nether world . . . broken clawed, too injured to sustain any of the old illusions (which belong as well to a biological time-age)—to emerge once more in the middle of the Gotham Book Mart or Artists Space discussion panel of Art Forum!194 Help! Wait! It is STILL WORSE. Should I continue to Michelson195 or Lorber? Lorber edits Dance Scope. You know it? Not Art Forum, not Newsweek. He had asked to read my writing on performance. I sent a big, vital batch, notes, essays, marvelous drawings. Now in my imagination I saw one of these splendid drawings on the cover, followed by a selection of unpublished writings . . . a little motor purred as I send off

223

1969–1975

the envelope: “go! fly fly into the world little words little images go & never return live with others & never return.” So I met him at the book party; he was ready to leave just as I was finally talking with Yvonne but it was late . . . he did not invite me to dinner; we stood in the street sputtering a bit about where to go . . . greasy Greeks on the near corner solved the question while I flashed Claes,196 Hannah,197 Emmett,198 Anne,199 Yvonne,200 Frances,201 Kasper, Kiki,202 George,203 Simone204 & my friends & theirs of Nova Scotia celebrating at a long white table . . . over sticky lamb-under-spinach he somehow came to talk about his teeth. I begged him to stop, but he had had a hideous bicycle accident and wanted me to understand . . . I have a horror phobia terror aversion to only one thing—TEETH; the source of absolute torture and agony for me—nothing else makes me squeamish. I grew up in the country where I opened the door to farmers with half-amputated arms, legs, highway victims all bleeding and oozing on the rug until my father got to them. But teeth mean unbearable pain. He insisted on finishing his history . . . I resisted throttling his neck across the table or heaving the dinner dishes onto the floor and I figured it would cost me dear in stomach aches. AT LAST he said how he enjoyed my notes—Lucinda Childs would review Yvonne’s book for them.205 He had thought for a way to use my writing . . . but had not found it . . . “they are so intuitive, so fragmented . . . as if part of something larger” . . . Right . . . and who was he after all to have the ability to leave me at Broadway & 47th reeling into a wash of fetid desolate sinking city streets. Three hours before I had rushed along this street certain that something fine would transpire (fly away and don’t come back little words). At one point he asked me to describe my typical country day to him . . . which I suddenly found difficult. I did tell him about our correspondence & suggested something quite interesting for the magazine could be letters between artists; that he consider this as source of insight, suc-

224

196. Claes Oldenburg. 197. Hannah Wilke (United States, 1940–93), artist. 198. Emmett Williams (United States, 1925–2007), poet and artist. 199. Anne Williams, wife of Emmett Williams. 200. Yvonne Rainer. 201. Frances Alenikoff (United States, 1920), choreographer, dancer, writer, and artist. 202. Kiki Kogelnick (Austria, 1935–97), artist. 203. George Maciunas (Lithuania, 1931–78), artist. 204. Simone Forti. 205. Yvonne Rainer, Work, 1961–73 (Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; New York: New York University Press, 1974).

cinct and holding to issues of “real” life in the art world (if he found my writing so “fragmented”). But when he asked what does Chin do . . . it all slipped away. I said he is a young playwright . . . you’ll hear of him in the future. The only RIGHT answer could have been no, not Chin, I said Foreman—Richard Daryl Chinforeman206 . . . haven’t you heard of his letters! (OR STICK IN ANY NAME NAME NAMED) Which takes us right up to Annette207 don’t it! [. . . .] Annette has never never ever ever seen any any film of mine never never ever and so of course has never never never written about them and then guess what when we are at buffalo women in film conference I said this is good Annette now at least you get to see Fuses, but . . . Annette slept in her motel room. [. . .] Cage is the only artist I know who moves with clear grace through our messes and success helped him do it even better—the grace & clarity. CS to Ms Magazine 6 December 1974

206. Contraction of the names of Richard Foreman (United States, 1937), playwright and director of Ontological-Hysteric Theater, and Daryl Chin. 207. Annette Michelson (United States, 1922), film critic. 208. Katherine (Kate) Murray Millett (United States, 1934), artist and feminist theorist whose first book Sexual Politics (1970) was an early example of feminist literary and political criticism. 209. Kate Millett, Flying (New York: Knopf, 1974). 210. Elinor Langer (United States, 1939), critic and novelist.

1969–1975

I must also confess: the recent tone and range of articles in MS, and the particularly disgruntled conservative examination of Kate Millett’s208 FLYING 209 by Elinor Langer,210 convinces me that MS currently has a policy of selecting writings directed to the most modest intelligence of its readers. In Langer’s piece, readers open to the changing boundaries of creative force are directed back to academic (old masculinist) standards; an innovative and difficult work is subject to a moralistic, condescending attack. Langer insists, “A book is a work of language, nothing else. It is not flesh and it is not time. It is not life.” I read and admired FLYING as language, as life, as flesh and as time. And as the accomplished work of an artist whose disciplines include a range, variety and depth of intention which deserves our most receptive attention.

225

CS to Kate Millett 211 17 December 1974

1969–1975

I didn’t want to set polemic with Ms., critical issues. Pleased you like the “modest intelligence” phrase—I was patting myself generously over crafty pleasure & cat paw touch of it. I couldn’t write them how I love the book—many ways but started with its amplitude, full, the weight a thrill/Remembrance of Things Past first vol;212 so I said to “Flying” . . . o.k. you want a week, three solid days, plunge & saturation. What a joy to leap in! And having finished yesterday, fell into an awful depression—bereft! I wanted, needed MORE . . . for it to still lie ahead of me, unknown, unraveling as kite string, celluloid reels—the mass of it unreeled, piled by our feet (Kate string)—companion to the personal strands intermeshed, (or so hidden, difficult that memories do not surface without my scalp “creeping,” chilled) . . . And finished the reading just after retreat home here; finished the hard cycles of film & performance—first really since return to u.s. . . . how that “world” devoured, scoured, lapped & now without a glance blows dust over my imagery, without a word saying “you left, we have taken your place.” And wondering if I were a crow flew straight across this Wallkill,213 across the Hudson214 would I come to a window which held your silhouette at a table, writing? Wanting most to say something about the extraordinary structure of Flying . . . just jumping up & down up & down yelling YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT! It works, holds, clasps, unwinds and pulls taught to break apart & reform . . . steady, coherent, the seemingly impossible gathering of experience to language, the interior flow of present into past—which vivid, clear lays the trap-door of present . . . and cycles again in the sensation of following what “is” instantaneously “was” . . . [. . .] Thank you for all that it is, lives and breathes as language and

226

211. Kate Millett papers 1912–2002 (and undated), Duke University Library, Special Collections, box FL6. Thanks to Laurel Fredrickson for calling my attention to this letter. In a handwritten note on the margin and back of the paper, Schneemann wrote: “Dear Kate— Flying arrived by truck, crunching down the dirt and iced road. It is fierce, delectable & engrossing. I think the form is quite amazing and tough. Just into it, look forward to the sustained, fat time in winter surround. Very glad for it. Work well! Carolee” 212. Marcel Proust published the first of his seven-volume novel Remembrance of Things Past in 1913. 213. Wallkill Valley and Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge are in the same area as Schneemann’s home in Springtown, New York. 214. Hudson River.

its—your blessed humor! I am waiting for the appreciation of that keen gift among your others to us.215 CS to Jonas Mekas216 9 January 1975

215. Kate Millett papers 1912–2002 (and undated), Duke University Library, Special Collections, box FL 6. 216. Jonas Mekas (Lithuania, 1922), film theoretician and avant-garde filmmaker who worked as a film critic for the Village Voice, an editor of Film Culture, and organizer of the Film Makers Cooperative in New York.

1969–1975

I appreciate your recent thoughts about my work. Your comment on the sadness, physical vulnerability in the current film (& performance), in contrast to your remembrance of my previous idealized physicality may be an acute appraisal of the past to the present; still this shadow of the past may be obscuring layers of the present film. “Kitch’s Last Meal”—the super 8 film (part of the installation, “Up To And Including Her Limits”) is an on-going work, two years of material in process now. [figure 46] Three hours of actual film and sound are completed out of an additional six hours being edited, and the final work may be up to nine or ten hours. Each sound tape “speaks” to another— it would be difficult to characterize the film by any one tape. I assume the tape which affected your consideration was #2—sorrows/outrage. #1 is sensuous, subliminal sounds which envelop the cat’s daily awareness—barely audible to us. And tape #3 is composed of silences out of which a couple’s domestic conversations emerge—serene, quixotic. Your notes also led me to think about degrees (a staircase—each step a degree)—of attachment/detachment between myself and the work which uses my immediate personal life as source & resource. 1. Degree of attachment/detachment: as soon as viewers see the film in a generalized—present time, the personal time will have become “the past.” (It takes me several years to complete a film.) 2. Viewers may take the psychological atmosphere of the film as “being her life” (an open ended time in their perceptions), but I will have changed & been changed by working on the film; the film will have turned me to other areas. 3. I welcome and trust the familiarity, intimacy of what I experience directly: that my own “life” is available to shape, explore. (And perhaps as a woman excluded, threatened by the strictures of masculineaesthetic preserves, I have kept to “myself ”). 4. The processes of filming itself, editing, and more mysterious collusions cannot be imaged as

227

[Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.]

1969–1975

46. Lawrence Alloway, “Review of Books: Carolee Schneemann: The Body as Object and Instrument,” Art in America, March 1980, 19. Courtesy of Brant Publications, Inc. Photograph of Schneemann in outdoor performative sketch for Up To And Including Her Limits, 1973–76, by Anthony McCall.

228

“real life”—only as “reel life;” film, celluloid, emulsion layers, pigmentation, projection beam, lenses, densities of exposure . . . What IS is barely visible; what is invisible may become clearly visible, what should be clearly visible may become visible. 5. I recognize and detach myself: for the personal instant to be timeless; the specific person an illumination particle. 6. I assume necessary energies move through me. Whatever “I” stand for/function as, belongs to possibilities beyond my conscious (and self-conscious) intentions. 7. As I edit the film I don’t think “here is my walk down the porch,” but rather “as she walks down the

porch do I increase or decrease the light?” 8. I become She. We become They. 9. The passage of identifications shifts with differing considerations. 10. Personal Istory: watching “Fuses,” I may indeed think “there we are”—meaning, that was us, in a past time/past relatedness which the film brings vividly to an unobstructed present. All of which brings me to particular slants as witness of myself. How I focus on the cat as medium of perception; the couple as core of what is seen; and the hidden, persistent force which has been the greatest influence on how I work; being starved for the precedents of other women artists. CS to Carol Wikarska217

My life is sweet now (and happy yours is) and has been these past 4 years with Anthony. Jonas wrote his article on the basis of one section of “Kitch’s Last Meal.” The film is currently working with four sections of double projections; each set has tape, and these tapes range from “speaking out loud”—to the feminist and personal istory statements—to the hushed, subliminal sounds which surround Kitch and form a daily envelope of sound particles. Since the filming, editing and sound layers continue week by week the speaking sections begin to function in time like recitatives: Jonas heard the “sorrows & outrages” tape but not the “domestic-harmonious couple” tape—which is very funny, subtle and uses banal but magical trivia which can elliptically contain and release fierce emotions bound into a couples ordinary life. I am fond of this section where we talk about the passage of a snake through the house/is my camera male or female/making oatmeal bread . . . Jonas did not stay through the length of the film. [. . .] I’d very much like to write on Dance & Film. Elaine Summers was the very first dancer to integrate film & performance; her early notes would be of interest (1963–). (Yvonne was late, being resistant to the impurity of media for a long while.) How long can the articles be? Illustrated? (I mention Y. because a young critic says she now gets credit for introducing film with dance!) What about Meredith Monk? Things are going very well suddenly—really a burst, a sweep; my work will be central to a new book on Woman’s Erotic Art . . . I’d sent 217. Carol Fazzio Wikarska Titelman (United States, 1946), film critic and an editor of Women and Film.

1969–1975

28 January 1975

229

in some things months ago. This week by chance one of the editors came to the loft and completely flipped . . . they really didn’t know what I’d done. Those 3 years I was in Europe women were discovering each other, unraveling their immediate traditions and the scope of my work was skipped . . . slowly it is being re-integrated. A long review for Super 8 Filmmaker magazine touches on the questions of Super 8 having some particular attractions/advantages to women. Yes (Yes indeed for me—because it was “too slight” for MEN; since they didn’t want it we could have it. And it is not proscribed with masculine aesthetic traditions!) Then next week a program of erotic films by women at the Bleecker St. Cinema and I’ll be the speaker. In two weeks my Video Tapes Accumulations of “Up to & Inc. Her Limits” will be at the Inter-American Cultural Center as part of a program for the magazine Dance Scope.218 Also preparing Up To for a two week cycle at a new Artists Performance Space here; and later in the year for the Walker Art Center (not definite tho). CS to Clayton Eshleman

1969–1975

12 February 1975

230

Very hard at work—editing, writing for deadlines (little mags of various sorts), job interviews—a great deal underway. But recently mildly depressed which makes me defensive—I shouldn’t feel like this/I can’t show it amorphous, ungripped—delays writing to you. Pull myself clear through work and make the personal reach wait . . . A long time between our notes. Changes for you I cannot picture in their California light. But directly to your last letter: Jonas has been VERY generous—giving me central concern of three columns—one turned over entirely to my letter to him & letter to him from Michael Snow. If you don’t have it let me know & I’ll send a copy. Then a very full, incisive and emotional note of regard from his wife, Hollis Melton.219 They feel the obliterating jealousies, structures daily build to exclude my present, deny the relevance of my past work to this “current” aesthetic greed-munch-bunch. And Higgins has come through as well! The new, good and heavily populated art book shops owner had me & my tender Cézanne220 out on the street in an instant—perfunc218. Dance Scope (New York, 1965–81). 219. Hollis Melton (United States, 1944), writer. 220. Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter.

47. Carolee Schneemannm, cover for Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter, 1974, artist book published in three editions (1974, 1975, 1976) by Tresspuss Press, New Paltz, N.Y. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

221. Jaap Rietman (Netherlands, ca. 1935), bookseller who opened Jaap Rietman Books on Spring Street in the SoHo district of New York in the early 1970s. He specialized in rare and unusual artist’s books, art books, and imported art books and catalogues and closed in the late 1990s. 222. Margie Keller (United States, 1943–94), filmmaker.

1969–1975

tory glance & Jaap Rietman grunted “not enough art in this . . . I can’t sell it.”221 [figure 47] I was staggered—since making it had in mind his shop as THE distribution point. I told people what had happened; then Jonas mentioned the book in his column and in two weeks Rietman was bombarded with requests & complaints . . . yesterday he told Margie,222 when she asked for a copy . . . “perhaps I made a mistake, if you see her, tell her to come back with it.” In the meantime Higgins had made a strong protest & told him he absolutely should have the book—that topped the others, and I’m very pleased Dick responded. Since in the central “letter to Kaprow”

231

1969–1975

he is a non-respondent witness, and by affiliation guilty of all my bewilderments with Allan223—Dick224 will recognize that, or did and had the heart, courage, to manifest a different determination. That is, to help me. [. . .] I wanted to say hello in a way that let him know I accepted his rupture from Alison,225 their current companionship, his love for Emmett’s226 son, the death of the Press227—all of that . . . money, homosexuality, ego-mania, hysteria, generosity, manipulations—We had shared, witnessed a bulk of endeavor, shared and exchanged areas of uniquely imagined and risked in presentation, and since 1962 found our personal lives running in proximity. So . . . I made the first personal step in so far as I could. Often these tender steps make no difference at all . . . then again, they can. [. . .] Well, I’m full of it all having just come back from a city weekend— and a splendid one at that. . . . very rich, full of interesting works—Joan Jonas,228 Phil Glass229 concerts, film by Ozu230 (“Spring” see it if you possibly can—1950s Japanese . . . extremely fine (rafiné), clear, simple until suddenly the psychological weights fill your gut);231 “Spring” is perhaps the only treatment of the Electra232 theme, (the primal love of the daughter for her father, the father as original lover) that I’ve ever experienced . . . I really went “out.” It’s my psychic key—unbearable. The audience got up into the lights chattering, bright, responsive and here and there were these collapsed, imploded females—men holding them against dissolution—the sight of these companions to my pain, only confirmed its reality. It was funny—rather like a symphonic heart-break; one of us would just get control, wipe her eyes, stand up and see another sobbing in a corner to be swept back again. It took thirty minutes to clear the theater of “us.” (And quite Japanese somehow.) That night we233 went to the first totally enjoyable ny art party since?

232

223. Allan Kaprow. 224. Dick Higgins. 225. Alison Knowles. 226. Emmett Williams. 227. Something Else Press. 228. Joan Jonas (United States, 1936), artist. 229. Philip Glass (United States, 1937), composer. 230. Yasujiro Ozu (Japan, 1903–63), filmmaker. 231. Ozu’s film Spring (1964). 232. Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytæmnestra, was murdered by her mother. The myth led to Sigmund Freud’s theory of the “Electra complex,” referring to a girl’s romantic feelings for her father and competition with her mother. 233. Anthony McCall and Schneemann.

234. Jan van der Marck. 235. Marisol Escobar (France, 1930), sculptor. 236. Suzi Gablik (United States, 1934), critic and curator. 237. Schneemann confused Andre Masson with René Magritte as the subject of Gablik’s book Magritte, published in 1970 by Thames and Hudson in London. 238. Eshleman’s poem “Baby Rhubarb” (1975).

1969–1975

We got stuck in the overloaded elevator between floors . . . then we made it go. The loft appeared impossibly mobbed but one found room to dance by the music and space around the food which managed to outlast the three hundred gluttons. At mid-night a HUGE birthday cake for the hostess no one seemed to know, and any one who really wanted a piece seemed to get it. Just enough dope when needed, and wine. Not one enemy or discomforting associate! Not one. In every dense group a friend, an old lover, all the recent young friends whom I had introduced appear, van der Marck,234 Marisol,235 a few authentic fur coats; and hours of carefree, unselfconscious dancing—everyone seemed very pretty and real, actual, present, in touch and at ease! That’s rare. [. . .] We all must have allies. To love, to be loved and allies to keep the spirit of our work in exchange, flow, support. [. . .] I am sickened by the ny art establishment using one selected artist to batter to death those closest associates not chosen for the select position of battering ram . . . In the sixties even if we were hostile, edgy, wary, jealous, we sincerely wanted each others’ presence! Suzi Gablik236 mentioned above is a great friend of Francis Bacon (she’s written a good book on Masson)237 and I had the wish to send her your poems—but she dislikes me just enough to withhold approval of anything I might share with her! They are really exciting, terrible— the plunge the momentum between forms rigid, ancient, classic pumping organs, a cantata of shit pulsing blood . . . the anal wonderland . . . you do carry the bodies inside right out and pull us all back in! Thank you for them and for BABY RHUBARB 238 which I’m not sure “belongs” to me although you explained the insight-connection-tissue. It is my childish notion that a poem to someone must in some way be about them, their life. And the life of Baby Rhubarb is not like my own child/ parents life . . . in this way but I love the poem this pastoral comic strip biological horror film unreeling in the garden, under the sun . . . those combinations very fierce, funny and distressing . . . gives a painful twinge when you laugh laugh! The botanical accuracy—how rhubarb once established is set “forever”—measure of civilizing intent on early homesteads—you have to wait two years and then the patch be-

233

comes parent to the planter . . . and hollyhocks are always planted close by the rhubarb patch. I don’t know why; it is so here and on each old homestead where I found the rhubarb, the hollyhocks were within view. And I guess you know it is poisonous raw—oxalic acid in the leaves; the stems must be peeled carefully . . . but its appeal is as homey as pigeons, mud in a flower pot, the Bible on a window sill . . . Ah the map for Anthony . . . he is traveling: to Sweden for an exhibit in March, then to Germany & London. We’ll be apart for six weeks— exactly the month (season, space—the loft) where Jim left, Tom left. So I’v had some tangled conflicting tangles looping around. I’m afraid I’ll go “funny” again, but not really . . . still . . . (Tom has brought another woman to live with him—sort of a stalwart one? forcing Sarah & baby to leave.239 She is o.k., relief at admitting the impossibility of it dominating anger, hurt, sorrow right now. I was pleased she called me; asked how I had thought of him after our going apart. So we could share these unlikely duplications, help each other—or, she asked me to help her which was something comforting, strengthening to me. She’s quite marvelous. Harold240 will help her out until she gets work—the baby is exquisite, not yet a year old.) [. . .] I mailed out sixty Cézanne’s241 to friends, people I hoped would like it. Received one thanks so far (a month) . . . have you spoiled me? CS to Daryl Chin 19 February 1975

1969–1975

I should be able to court my (recently) hesitant visions, & approach Kirby.242 But I cannot. I—for once—cannot even write you what I think. I can’t stand it. Struggling with paralysis of will, the effort of any inclination, chore, duty, wish, desire much less an assertion against those fortresses . . . it divides me too badly. Quietly whispering with an extended hand to a few crumbs to the gulls in an open palm/or a first frozen at the top of the typewriter. The best I can do is force myself over to the threads of super 8, continue editing, pretending it is leading me where I have to go (at least I can trust myself on the basis of my past!).

234

239. Sarah, wife of Tom Molholm. 240. Harold Witt (United States, ca. 1925), investment banker, patron of poetry. 241. Cézanne, She Was a Great Painter. 242. Michael Kirby.

CS to Daryl Chin

I suddenly recognize the household of selves—rather crowded at times. What with the ghosts of unborn children who last month materialized in the bedroom as I was minding my own business, reading Orlando243 . . . (they were extremely LARGE, grown up, with long, shiny brown hair, solemn, beautiful faces . . . they resembled Jim & me . . . 2 girls and a boy. [. . .] crowded . . . again, I was reading at the kitchen table when the presence of a woman intruded . . . Russian or Armenian; she wanted me to know I was who I am because of her; she had long braided hair, intense passionate eyes, a vigorous body, the solemn expression of my refused-children . . . as if for ghosts “after life is disappointing.” [. . .] She wanted me to perceive/sense her. You are here because my house was taken from me, because I had to leave my vines, the roses, my vegetable garden, my sheep and chickens, the cat I adored, my cow . . . the dishes I dried on a sunny window sill, the thick wooden table I scrubbed and laid. Oh my. She let me know I tried hard but did not live up to her in the garden; my grapes were not pruned properly, more apple trees and peach trees should be planted . . . why did I have only wild roses? She wanted quickly, frantically to tell me so much! Her body was swaying from side to side. As with unexpected visitors, guests who intrude on some silent moment with something important to share, I wanted to be gracious, even welcoming. Though she was unbidden, she was the key to questions I asked secretly of myself . . . or were those questions hers, placed in my thoughts to revive the possibility of herself? I despair of the istorical drop-off; our connections are huge, towering within the years spent with our parents; unless grandparents are close and long-lived they begin to fade . . . they have no youth, but freeze in memory as some dulled photograph merged with fragile skin, an aroma, a gesture attentive to the child we were . . . and their parents are not a photograph but a vague fragment of story . . . at least mine are: He was a horse thief said one aunt; no my grandmother said he was a priest; he was a farmer; no your aunt said he was a butcher . . . her hair was so long it touched her ankles; flaming red hair, all the men in the neighboring villages came to dance with her; she gave your grand243. Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography. New York: C. Gaige, 1928.

1969–1975

25 February 1975

235

1969–1975

mother all her jewels, called for the coach & horses and bundled her in with the two babies (Aunt Bella, Aunt Rosa)244 . . . I don’t know said my aunts; she never told us; they didn’t speak the language; she wanted to forget; they promised to come but . . . So, if this was my ancestor at noon, in my kitchen insisting I perceive her in me . . . but she was not a clear enough key . . . intense but fleeting . . . she churned, tumbled senses of deep buried dreams, places, doorways, three stone steps I don’t know where and my own shape seated so securely, normally, at the table began to pulse, enlarge, contract, strange dresses, aprons, weights and textures fell over me. My hips broadened, narrowed, my breasts grew huge & returned small . . . all in an instant . . . who was she? who is she in me? I concentrated on her, then searched for the presence of a man, her husband, father or brother . . . but she remained alone, singular to my eyes. Now the most interesting thing which no one ever told me—[. . .] IS that one assimilates and carries intact into the future all the “images” of a friend or lover from the past and that these past selves (face, body) are immediately superimposed onto/within the changed person. After not seeing Jim for four years he steps out of a car in Berkeley, California; he is instantaneously 19 years old—that is the “self ” I first saw, now “see” first/in the next instant he is present aged—I see deep lines, sadness in his face/the next instant meshes the two extremes, the rich thick “selves” of times between settle in as well; we embrace all we were as “are” to each other. I find this such phenomenal conjuring. Young people have no idea. I used to look at middle-aged people as wasted, ruined versions of our at least appealing young selves. Their libidinousness was curious— they didn’t look delicious, were they still so attractive to one another? thickened, balding, lined, graying, & pained by it! A secret of middle age is that with those one did not know in the past, one strips down, clarifies the present face/body to see the youthful one. As simple as changing slides. In 1959 I was fascinated by an extremely aged, elegant, tiny Salcedo245 (the finest cellist of early 1900s) taking the hand of Louise Varèse (in her sixties), looking into her eyes, sexually, intimately saying “my dear, you are as beautiful as ever.” He was seeing AS EVER. Anyone watching saw that they had been—if not lovers—attracted

236

244. Schneemann describes the uncertain construction of her genealogy, stating that Aunt Bella and Aunt Rosa may have been fictive personae. 245. Carlos Salzedo (France b. 1885, United States, d. 1961), harpist, composer, and conductor for whom the Salzedo Harp Colony in Camden, Maine, is named.

246. Marie Bashkirtseff. 247. Paula Modersohn-Becker (Germany, 1876–1907), artist. 248. Berthe Morisot (France, 1841–95), artist.

1969–1975

to each other for forty years! The older one gets, the nicer it is to have old friends about—all carrying the manifold selves of one another! (The young people come and stick you with the pin of their intense, demanding, prejudiced, and limited perception—which may have other freshenings, surprises . . .). Since I was 19 when I watched Louise Varèse & Salsado, I froze them old-in-that-moment as anyone 19 would do . . . but I was trying to grasp the emotion they shared—which was as young as I was. Now I am constantly dismayed that I am no longer my young self— where did she go? but carrying around her works, effects, wishes, testaments! I re-read “our” books, choose her clothes, objects, over and over. And I wring my hands at the chances she took, the wild risks, her vulnerability, her problems which are still mine. I envy my past audacities, visions, good looks . . . I estimate my change by how determined, opinionated, voluble—she talked much more than I!—fearful, she/I was. I was such a passionate, determined, opinionated, judgmental artist that I find it difficult to change! to go against “her”/to bring her along! That is why I so welcome any help, insight, attention to my past and all its work/workings . . . No longer being the young-self; force of circumstance burnishes the growing-older who preserves actuality of the young self (young people cannot fairly perceive older people—not having that “self ”). Protecting & appreciating the past young-self/interiorizing process/shared in an extended time as if people “her” age come to evaluate & gain confidence from “her” as she did from the young Bashkirtseff,246 ModersohnBecker,247 the young Woolf, de Beauvoir, Morisot248 etc . . . those women not totally buried alive . . . 28 February 6:30 a.m. a soft sizzling painterly dawn. Rolling streaks violet silver rose. Anthony just onto the early bus for NY; (I’m not desolate, I go in this evening). How still the bird stays. Crimson, gold light slaps onto the cliffs; silver, violet, rose stream horizontally in the river, the frost shines, glimmers. Yesterday I dug up rutabagas, beets under the frozen mulch. Each winter this seems such a triumph—as compelling as any aesthetic “breakthrough”—coming into the kitchen with a bowl full of bright, stubborn vegetable survivors of frost, freeze, snow, sleet . . . the holy loss-of-self-in-work, work which emerges stronger, stranger than any

237

1969–1975 238

efforts, intentions could assure . . . the elaborate and non-visible processes of growth: growth of thought, growth of a vegetable, growth of a film. Well, that sounds simplistic and you’ll never catch me nodding to those fanatic but innocent souls who insist their acre of tomatoes is equal to paintings/sculpture/dance they no longer do . . . (maybe tomatoes are better!). [. . .] I keep coming back to your idea of “fetish” and troubling to interpret that in terms of my realism . . . it’s funny but city people find manure exotic or repellent; walking into deep mud frightens them, unaccustomed to reaching the bottom; to the cycles of discomfort & pleasure—hot tubs for frozen feet, scrubbing the boots down, drying in front of the fire . . . for a pantheist like me it all runs and streams together—city life holds one experience, one fragment of an organic cycle in strange relief, cut apart, thrown into a beam of light, seen as a thing on its own . . . feathers belong to chickens, I wipe my ass with a sacrificed tree, I know how much grain made that hunk of hamburger get to the plate, how many days of sun before the lettuce matured (and how and with what it was sprayed & dosed commercially . . .). All this sensuous connectedness to nature seems naive, somehow indulgent when consciousness is the consciousness of the red squirrel, Blue Jay. How can I work! The tree is performing with creatures! Culture is so wigged-out, debased, abstracted from its own centers . . . or re-approaching with all the maimed, tawdry, self-conscious desperations of the converted, inducted, signed-on . . . So my fusions with nature/with my own nature are easily seen as sentiment; my identification with natural forces an evasion of intellectual rigors & demands . . . if I were an Indian I could represent the alien culture . . . or be left with its self-enclosed traditions . . . funny. I consider, since you grew up in the city? right? and I in the country . . . what you call or see as “fetishes” might be chicken feathers? The dump behind the barn? old feed sacks . . . ? The joy of a hidden ancestor & a winter rutabaga cannot change my public, shift attention to an inward, silent center and I do not choose them apart from the world, being, working “in the world;” but my work makes real sense being drawn back to that rootedness. I see I could go on & on about this; that agricultural society is the only one which makes sense to me—is the basis of anything else/different and yet remains, has become hidden, obstructed . . . that I can’t realize how few people watching Meat Joy ever had thirty chickens to slaughter every summer Friday . . . had a barn of manure to shovel

every morning, pigs to feed, cows to milk . . . (This is just like my note on female sexuality as the basis of all sexuality.) The sun in this window feels like a miracle banal miracle. In the past I opposed the functional and the aesthetic; had elaborate and precise theories on antagonisms between functional vision and visual vision . . . with Kitch’s Last Meal I seem determined to let the banal be—as I find it—visually fantastic . . . so that all the principles of my past dedications now . . . come home to roost? Or were always here necessitating a different approach because of the medium? (paint, environmentperformance . . .) (how much chickens have influenced my work . . . why doesn’t someone ask me about that? will you?). All this began with my pleasure of your linking K.’s L M with Ozu— whose films, with your perception confirming have given me fresh confidence to follow through the daily rhythms. Ann Holloway & James Tenney to CS 5 April 1975

Just wanted our friends to know we got married March 28, 1975. Wish you could have been here! CS to Lucinda Childs

I’v noticed some critical idiocies about your recent dance concert which I loved & admired; I hope your clear sighted connection to the interior phase of the work will not be disturbed by people who really can only be “entertained.” I made some notes on aspects which most persist in memory and send them with the hope they relate to what you intended. Sound—breath only feet—throughout connectness to what is/makes movement (sound IS the movement & its physical passage/occurrence in space) bare essential pared down perpetual motion equality of the beats equality of the movement for the performers who are interchangeable– that is, each equal to the next (function as precise as particles in a cell)

1969–1975

8 April 1975

239

also lovely—the dependencies between performers do not work with defending, setting off “a personality of the body” (still Cindy’s presence more simple, more fierce, more riveting . . . compelling)249 rhythmic variations so embedded in continuum of motion no way to differentiate one duration from another . . . like an act of nature Clayton Eshleman to CS

1969–1975

19 April 1975

240

I fear you feel that in each relationship the woman is source and the man is taker, or something like that. I think that is way too simple and very misleading, and I think you are being taken in by a “cause” if you feel that that is true. Caryl,250 for example, is living exactly the life she would like to live. Just because she is not a working artist, or does not have her own career etc., from your outburst I would assume that you would think that she is either being used and/or asleep. What I wanted to tell you about Helen Kelly at the point you got angry was that I was struck how much she has developed as a person in the time that I have known her, and how much more she is on her own, living the kind of life at least for now she appears to want to live. The fact that she serves Robert251 hardly makes her a slave (as you imply). Let’s put it this way: do you serve Anthony? Was someone like Gandhi a slave? My questions have a double prong, namely that you do the cooking in your household (probably more from what we have seen in visiting you than Caryl or Helen do in theirs), but that to do so, if one chooses to do it, is not slavery, any more than one thinks of a person dedicated to service on a wide social scale as a slave. The point is choice. Jane Brakhage has always struck me as frustrated relative to this point, and Stan as a companion is oppressive and patriarchal in a way that I am not, nor do I feel Robert Kelly is. The real problem I feel we are talking about includes gender but is not basically defined by such, any more than apartheid is at root racial. The only real revolution as far as I am concerned occurs when all people get sufficiently fed up with the human “selfhood” and cease to cooperate with a structure that is held together by women and blacks as well as by men and whites. 249. Lucinda Childs. 250. Caryl Breslaw. 251. Robert Kelly.

a woman in a sling which while soothing and bearing her naked body controls what she draws.

1969–1975

Let me hear what you think about this. And the job—did you take the Maryland one? An hour later PPS—sitting for Caryl in the backyard, she is sculpting my head in brown clay, I tried to imagine you in your rope sling at the mercy of it and gravity making the strokes you conceive of as made by your body “a pencil” to the rope sling; the focus thus on you in a sling rather than on what you make given that position. The product, the markings on the paper, struck me as paleolithic before I guess because of a resemblance between them (I think I saw a reproduction of a marked up sheet) and the pre-visual markings on cave walls that appear to be prior to visual e.g., depiction of animals, art: in your context these marks take on something I would call helplessness, that is, you know better, and are putting yourself (as a broken arm?) in a sling (reminiscent of the childhood swing) to constrict your will, or whatever one would call your ability to draw in a natural position. So the question looms again in a more complex way, why the sling? Not only does it seem to be source of the markings on the paper but another source under it seems to want to emerge the more I think about the combined image of you/ markings/it. The fact that you place yourself naked in it and allow its windings/stillnesses to determine what you draw now evokes the enemy, the rope sling as a curiously combined balm and constrictor which you place your naked body captive in, to evoke in us your audience the complexity of your situation, the meaninglessness of what you do (draw) given the constriction (how masculine built society holds you and works you in its grip), yet a balm for your anguished body, as if you are coiled in the stomach of the snake and its digestion and peristalsis engender what you make, so the source weight of the rope sling remains somewhat masculine. As if you have neutralized it to a certain extent, yet the leading (or hidden) edge is

241

CS to Daryl Chin 29 May 1975

1969–1975

The Reich252 concert should have been listened to with chop sticks. [. . .] But we went with all the old crowd (Tenney & me ghosts, yes) to a wonderful feed Beryl253 prepared for him and their guests (and actually we ate with chopsticks!). Wonderful sprouts, shrimp, cold thin vegetables in sauce. All the dear familiar faces. [. . .] Now Charlemagne254 and Merce255 were something else! Since MC256 has from beginning generated great inspiration in my muscles being in total revolt, antagonism and fury from his perfectibilities, inclusion without collusions, rigidities in spirit of innovations, and how he hamstrung and left residue of classical—clavicular, avuncular—terror in the tendons and wings of his dancers who later fell under my visions, into my paws . . . and lest I forget how he lifted materials & movements from Chromelodeon to groom & dramatize them on Winter Branch257 . . . recently inherited surprise of affection, high regard and energy transmission (routed via Tenney in Cal.) passing between Charlemagne and me . . . then meeting on the St.258 and C.259 said he’d have to make something against what he had found in situation with Merce, had to break it up . . . so we was there! Was you???? The Battle of Gettysburg, a helicopter over the plains of Leningrad, invisible on a Polish Charger running German Tanks, none of those haunting battles could have satisfied as did the battle of Palestine—Cunningham. (And I do respect and revere the consistency, determination, clarity and beauty of movement that he has invented over and over again . . .) [. . .] But Charlemagne forced us to choose—on the spot didn’t he! Immediacy of the conflict, toe to toe combat—so to see. Those heavy, lumpish desert boots stumbling down the forbidden, glossy floor where ONLY trained, bared, dancers feet have rights of egress; his self-absorbed slouch, shuffle to an inner time, moaning with unlikely squeal of a pained animal, heading towards . . . molted stuffed animals, snatched from the grown-ups garbage heaps, dressed in toy overalls, talismans on a grand piano . . . oh no! He was cutting between the ex-

242

252. Steve Reich. 253. Beryl Korot (United States, 1945), artist. 254. Charlemagne Palestine (United States, 1945), artist, pianist, and composer. 255. Merce Cunningham (United States, 1919–2009), dancer and choreographer. 256. Merce Cunningham. 257. Winter Branch (1964). Robert Rauschenberg also worked on this performance. 258. “street” 259. Charlemagne Palestine.

quisite dancing machines and their audience wasn’t he . . . lumbering against their bright, exact metronomic stance, a dangerous, unable scissor. A rip in time! Not juxtaposition—a choice was forced as painful as civil war: were you lining up behind the flange, the marching regiment order or would you join the crazed invaders hanging from the Grand Central golden clock? The disruptive celebrants whose spontaneity would jumble into pulped bleeding messes under the magic truncheon wands of the brigade? Which? I felt that half-forgotten terror, thrill of being forced to embrace my own principles from without. When Charlemagne turned the vast, expensive, smooth grey curtained backdrop into a slithering, poked & crumpled bedspread, his feet sticking out, his elbows poking hilarious shapes from childhood and the dancers were stiffening—if ramrods can stiffen—even more in resolve to be and do everything for Merce against the disruptive rattling noises, the guffaws of the audience, the dis-attention, disaffiliation of much of the audience (and I saw then in Venice in ’64 being pelted with oranges, tomatoes and eggs, (then in Paris being booed and screamed out) “go home and never come back” as they rose and disappeared on the risers made for an Opera with real elephants—then their courage was fierce and undaunted— the enemy was without, the resistance defined their achievements . . . but here in Westbeth, in their very HOME, the invited collaborator was indeed the enemy spirit itself and the audience had turned to him in fascination!) . . . And suddenly the curtain itself betrayed the dancers in their meticulous re-arrangements, and smoothly sped on its silky track to gather at one end revealing the studio MIRROR! AND THE AUDIENCE SAW ITSELF! AND THE DANCERS WERE ONLY MOVING SPOTS OF A TEXTURE GESTALT. (And Palestine was quiet behind the bunched grey fabric.) Brilliant, brilliant . . . CS to Daryl Chin 5 June 1975

260. Daryl Chin had written on 30 May 1975 to tell Schneemann that a filmmaker friend of his hoped that Schneemann would agree to appear in her movie, describing Schneemann as a “powerful image,” “sensual & very mysterious,” and an “image-person.” See Chin’s letter in the Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

1969–1975

I have promised myself—doing an agonizing Indian rope burn of my left hand around my right wrist—that I WOULD NEVER BE IN ANYBODY ELSE’S MOVIES NEVER!! 260

243

1969–1975

What are my most enduring hateful, abused experiences . . . rape? abortion? robbery? None of them equals being in other people’s films: Brakhage, shudders, Gidal, yowl;261 Dwoskin, yukkkkk;262 Vanderbeek, groan . . .263 exception ahhaaa Oldenburg264—but he always let me be myself, wanted that . . . physical, no “plot,” “idea.” But how can I disappoint you, knowing how the image of one certain person can generate the texture, the quality of an inclusive process? (when Irina’s boyfriend said he’d never let her in the house if she performed once more in Meat Joy, when Shigeko called at 2 a.m. to say she couldn’t continue in Snows . . .)265 Well I’m thinking about it and will read the manuscript. I was startled and began to test on anyone who would listen, your insight about the self-enclosure of SOHO—the very name is something which echoes itself, stands still in one spot, remains apart from any other name we’ve followed as a spot-light in the city . . . it is fixed and once established has lost any possibility for discoveries apart from what does already define it . . . SOHO SO WHAT? . . . What I did see early on was that I wouldn’t move into a Barrio for artists! A middle class ghetto for ART! In which day by day all young, vital artists will be giving their best energies to the plumbing, wiring & book shelves (for ART), of the foot loose and fancy free advertising directors and art surfers needing space from confines of uptown . . . the same bunch who will soon have us be MARGINAL before they lose a margin on their stock report . . . co-opted in the Co-op266 . . . (why does George Maciunas have knives sticking out of his door? because he knew how to be a capitalist without paying his dues to the team captains . . .) (Quite right knives out of him or stuck into him . . . either or.) So I’m interested you told Yvonne267 . . . but who among us would peruse the annexed folly of Living Theater among the steel workers . . . or perhaps that is the only move appropri-

244

261. Peter Gidal. 262. Stephen Dwoskin (United States, 1939), filmmaker. 263. Stan Vanderbeek (United States, 1927–84), filmmaker. 264. Claes Oldenburg. 265. Irina Posner (United States, 1939), television and film producer; Shigeko Kubota. 266. As early as 1966, George Maciunas (soon to be joined by the artist Robert Watts) began to buy real estate in SoHo in order to establish Fluxus cooperative studio buildings and by 1967 had acquired 80 Wooster Street. These buildings and their management were the source of much controversy as Schneemann’s letter indicates. The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit, contains many unpublished documents on the realestate ventures by Maciunas and Watts, who contributed to the gentrification of SoHo in New York City. 267. Yvonne Rainer.

ate to THEATER . . . OR I am hierarchical and specialized, directed to a special receptivity still I do not want to find myself in a corral . . . any ranch’s corral. (Though I want to work through a Gallery, be packaged and “dealt” . . . so figure that in or out.) Attitude of an elitist populist. CS to Daryl Chin 11 June 1975

268. Schneemann refers to a request by a filmmaker friend of Chin who wanted her to play a part in a film, which Schneemann declined to do.

1969–1975

Why I had to refuse to be in the film is quite simple but convoluted to write . . .268 I’ll try . . . all to the good that my presence, qualities, image moved somehow into this particular film-image. But for me to actually “play” some formulation, symbolic cast of myself—to concretize that self aura—is to actually rebound, confound who I am and how I am identified with my physical being in my work and sense of life. I simply cannot “perform” . . . predetermined placement without feeling I inflict a violence on myself. To take a role—no matter how appealing—is to make a gesture towards what I have always resisted . . . and this clear determination is surely part of what your image of me as the woman in your film—it is like trying to capture the elusive, unconscious flow of love or dream . . . so I cannot play a formation of myself and I cannot perform at all without feeling what is best in my nature become imprisoned, falsified . . . it is a way that I hate to face a “self.” (If you wanted to make a film of my daily life or some “performance” work I was making that would be good for me) . . . it all sounds selfish but I think you will understand; it wasn’t such a big deal request to work in your film but it is exactly where I “go to prison.” I know you’ll feel the sense of this, I just hope you will now find a way to replace this “me” imaged out there . . . **** Another tact to your thought on the insularity of soHO ($hohum) the special rigors and strengths may just now have to do with artists redefining art purely among themselves, as specialists addressing other specialists—that the value/notion of religious-social entertainment, enlightenment (EN—LIGHT—ME—MENT etc.) be stopped dead in its very predictable, co-- optable forms . . .

245

CS to Carol Wikarska 20 June 1975

1969–1975

And believe I wrote you how when Anthony away, six weeks I made such a good life (unexpectedly) so that now the Couple turns into questionable force—to misquote Nin269—I cannot see over stretched out white wing of his goodness. And my own psyche-ego energies have the bends from his realized Genius with unique film forms; his assimilation, transformation of elements of my own work which in his context (formalistic) turn antagonistic . . . or opposite apostasy! Anyway living with the Wave of The Future is daunting for me since our areas overlap, superimpose rather than contrast or re-enforce; although I struggle to see his work/mine in exchange. Which is not to say he isn’t always encouraging, supportive, respectful etc. He is also younger and engaging, engaged in issues which blow out my own. I SWORE when I was 18 after love-affair with another painter (kids) NEVER live a love in same mediums . . . but when I met Anthony HE WAS NOT MAKING FILMS (or more rightly, restructuring the epistemology, hegemony of the conceptualist point reached at outer edge of experimental cinema . . . sigh . . . which IS what he’s doing . . .). I feel that I plod along, internalized . . . Past few weeks amazing longings for Jim—with whom, since I was eighteen there had been that equitable sharing, sparking of each other, going far together for each to use freely what both/either discovered. This bird song, the hot sun illuminating shaken leaves of exactly that high golden green diabolically tossing back summer days in Vermont, in our little shack in Sidney Illinois, the porch mad Polish Romer built into the side of the mountain over the great Swamp in New Jersey . . . half listening to the fly buzzing, for the sound of him driving into this road . . . where we lived since ’65.270 I’ll never leave here—not to move

246

269. Anaïs Nin (France, b. 1903, United States, d. 1977), writer. 270. Schneemann commented on Jacob Romer: “He built the stone house into the cliff in Meyersville, NJ where Jim & I first lived—leaving Illinois for his job at Bell Telephone Labs—before settling at Springtown Road. It was an extraordinary handmade stone-solid, eccentric house, in which Romer actually hung himself. Given this configuration, the rental was very low. Next door was a marvelous old earth Goddess Julia who had been the lover of the mysterious Romer. Julia was utterly delightful, an old world spirit who single-handedly planted twenty peach trees and hauled tons of rocks from both properties down to the edge of the road. Her son Adam lived in a funky house up the hill behind our places with a very disturbed, screaming wife. They had the grey and white cat Charlie who fell in love with Kitch. . . . . . shy, blue collar cat that he was. It was Charlie who so reinvigorated Kitch, though spayed, that they made howling cat love over a weekend on our porch. The local vet confirmed that this was quite exceptional, but possible. We were gone three years up north and arrived one spring unannounced (on a visit to Klüver) to see how Julia was fairing. This

for Rutgers or any other goddamn thing. The house happens to be completely melded with me; Jim and I restored it over 4 years . . . Kitch and the house. The only two things for which my commitment is boundless, my devotion complete. (Work is different since it is not as much separate from me as cat, house . . .). [. . .] Would like to talk with you and Clayton on Reich;271 C272 & I great confirming Reichians early on to each other—my life influencing his expectations; his erudition enforcing directions Reich inspired in my work BUT I have had to live out many discrepancies—not to discredit but to discrep. I want to write a big piece (ha) on the lover of greatest physical imagination deepest sense of drama of body of sexuality being one with no conscious, destructive or deceptive ways—which made certain shrinks interviewing him273 ask had he ever murdered anyone! And made all animals, small girls and many big girls surrender every self shred to be in his arms . . . His capacity to merge love and eroticism, passion and spontaneity . . . the wild beast one could trust . . . a phallic aggressor with a cosmic permission to fuck into, gather into, merge, fuse . . . an example of profligate nature . . . [. . .] Now Cézanne, back with the man who wants to fuck me and offers the offset—ing price to re-print in hopes of above (below) so I’ll soon be parent to 500 new copies with card jackets, marigold, still only $3—smakeroos; if you think of any book shop let me know—Book People have a previous copy & I’m waiting for them to say how many they think they’ll want . . . if any . . . Stan Brakhage to CS 14 July 1975

occasioned a dramatic scenario: the cat Charlie unexpectedly appeared at the top of the driveway just as Kitch jumped out of our car. Each cat froze in motion, staring at each other across space and time. Then with the fabled energy of a Hollywood romance, they ran into each other’s paws.” CS email to the author, 10 March 2008. 271. Wilhelm Reich. 272. Clayton Eshleman. 273. Schneemann refers to a secret lover.

1969–1975

In brief—cause I’ve been up to Custer, So. Dak. TWICE last week, finally testifying before judge in closed session of court on the UN-reality/reliability of film as evidence, somehow managing after two hours of testimony to infuriate the judge (who is generally known as a calm,

247

1969–1975

cool, and just man); and I will probably have to go back to testify before a jury any day, or even minute, now. I thought, in retrospect, that I was clearer about what film IS than I’ve ever managed to be before. At end, the judge said something like: “THIS witness hasn’t, in two hours of testimony, told me ANYthing useful whatever.” Anyway, my summer’s shot to hell, my desk is loaded with overdue shitwork, and I’m exhausted. I’m reconfirmed in my view that no Indian can get a fair trial in Custer . . . or maybe anywhere. I’m quite certain that ALL thousand and some feet of film of newsreel “coverage,” like they say, of the event, highly edited and thus highly biased AND (by repetition) highly inflammatory film was scheduled to be shown and will be shown no matter WHAT I said or say. Thus THAT was probably the most purely aesthetic lecture I EVER gave. I naturally wished I hadn’t somehow, managed to anger the judge; and I asked the defense lawyer, John Flym,274 what I’d done wrong. He said I hadn’t done anything wrong exCEPT go into a court with the idea in mind that it was an arena wherein you might possibly determine The Truth. “The court’s not interested in either Truth or Justice . . . only The Law.” Now, as to Telluride.275 I almost resigned last week. They told me there’ll be NO fare paid for ANYbody, including Jane and myself (and I’m supposedly a consultant, as well as speaker). There’s no money for fare for Broughton276 or Peterson.277 My time-slot is midnight; and you can imagine how ticked I am about THAT. At this point I’m fighting to get money raised (thru S.U.N.Y.) to pay air-fare for Broughton and Peterson (who, otherwise, can’t afford to come). If I do, and if I can, then persuade them, they’ll maybe get a time-slot at midnight, too . . . or maybe one at eight o’clock in the morning. “THE TEXT of LIGHT” will be shown in a satellite showing; and that’s that. I don’t suppose I’ll even attend that show. In short, there’s not only no money, but there isn’t even time left to squeak anything else IN; and I have my doubts if they’ll give us more than two time-slots at all: thus “Text” will probably get bumped. Okay, so I can’t do ANYthing for you . . . other than that I’ve exacted a promise from Bill278 that IF something gets dropped, he’ll contact you immediately. You’d still get no travel fare . . . nor, probably,

248

274. John G. S. Flym (United States, ca. 1934), attorney and legal scholar. 275. Telluride Film Festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado, begun in 1973. 276. James Broughton (United States, 1913–99) poet, playwright, and filmmaker. 277. Sidney Peterson (United States, 1905–2000), filmmaker. 278. Bill Pence (United States, ca. 1935), film collector, teacher, and cultural activist, helped found Janus Films in the late 1960s, the Telluride Film Festival in 1974, and Kino International in 1975.

any other concession. I’ve got no fight left . . . I’m just struggling to get Broughton/Peterson there (I mean, they’re the oldest we have, right?) and to present one midnight show of as many people’s films as I can jam into it. That’s it. Bill has your addresses and phones; but I wouldn’t too much expect to hear from him. Even tho’ the Fest last summer was a success, it went $4000 in the hole, which came out of his pocket. He’s under impossible pressure. Hundreds of powerful Hollywood & other people expect to be accommodated. The theatre only holds 180 seats. The outside # of programs is about 18, with abt. twice that # satellite shows. CS to Stan Brakhage 2 August 1975

Here is the second edition of “Cézanne” and the birthday—Kitch poster. I’m afraid you (and Jane, for it is to both) will hate the book—its tone is aggressive, aggrieved, polemical and that has been cathartic and strengthening to me and to many others, whose response is wholehearted, affirmative. But another response might be to chop it up (since the de Beauvoir was burned long ago I still understand the physical enactment having last week ripped an art magazine to shreds—I won’t have it in my space, detesting the woman who edits it, her hostility to me, etc . . .).279 But I hope you will find my book useful—in your old sense of “use”— and perhaps clear key to many of the issues and insistences which do make men uneasy and make women determined for change. So to say, if it is distressing that is not personal to you from me, but from what I have to say that you look into . . . CS to Colleen Fitzgibbon280 5 August 1975

279. Stan Brakhage burned this Christmas gift from Schneemann: “The feminist principles were toxic for Brakhage’s relationship with Jane and so he tore up my gift and threw it in the fireplace.” CS to the author, 24 August 2006. 280. Colleen Fizgibbon (United States, 1951), filmmaker.

1969–1975

We had death as a banished force last night and we’re all worn out . . . Kitch battled fiercely and we stood by, held on, giving all the human healing possible . . . electrical convulsions, a huge short circuiting we were sound asleep she was dragging herself onto the bed flipping quak-

249

1969–1975 250

ing torn shaken by a pulsating invisible thunderbolt for about ten minutes it seemed life would be battered out of her from within violent horrible the nerve endings potassium sodium in positive/negative charge muscles held in tension organs balanced by this charge gone berserk and as you write the brain trying to learn what the organic disorder Is—as this entity apart of but apart . . . and Kitch was furious! Recovering her breath, holding onto my hands she hissed into the night . . . struggled onto her shaky legs, determined to walk, half in a daze she went into the next room, collapsed onto the rug looking intently, standing again, circling . . . we thought her memory (that long and glorious strand) affected, that she might not realize where she was—but it was rather like after something so rending and unbelievable happens to the physical self one wonders if the familiar surroundings have not as well been subject to attack, dissolution . . . are we after all whole, recognizable? She wouldn’t sleep tho she must have been exhausted but sat alert, on guard against the malevolence. Ant281 & I slept for an hour and at 3 woke; she stood to greet us, purring! Purring very loud and strong (death crumbling, motes in dark corner). Well it’s there it’s there; floating like gauze or mucous, behind the implacable shimmer of leaves, the toss of shadows summer sun . . . last summer I felt it in my pockets, staring out of windows . . . but we are young enough and strong enough with time to make the organic improvements . . . the body is capable of tremendous change. For Kitch it is fighting something inevitable, imminent . . . the limit is cellular, biochemical timing . . . but she sustains this stubborn, willful attachment to life, to me, us . . . when she had the pneumonia—in London—which the vets gave up on—she’d drag herself across a room, over to me, to a window as if, if she only kept moving she would shake off the crushing force (but we have just realized Kitch was hissing at, searching for an enemy—an animal form from without; she did not comprehend the force as coming destructively from within. That is why she went looking through the rooms, and still quaking ready for a battle if she would find the intruder). The car is—as usual—broken down so I can’t get to the books on nutrition which would be useful (and mine still afloat in the crate which never, even after a year, arrives from London) . . . Meanwhile here is a brilliant book I love dearly and a poster and the good news is that the heart is the strongest organ in the body, responds 281. Anthony McCall.

to being built up and that people live long and normal lives with holes, scars, and partial damages. I’m sure you’ll have your health again—and perhaps better than ever before. But building organically is slow, steady WORK . . . (I know & despair but still improve gradually . . . only if I do EVERYTHING Right . . .). And I’v lost those damn ole Reichian convictions: the environment the surround is so bereft of what sustains life, so toxic, poisonous, ruinous you don’t need to blame any secret neurotic susceptibility . . . there is hardly anyone really well at all that we know . . . because it ain’t flesh & blood possible; what is promising is that we survive and persist as well as we do—taking things into our own hands . . . Stan Brakhage to CS

I’ve spent the day reading “Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter;” and it was/IS something I can’t put down: you are carefully clear each page of it; and (in contradiction to yr lettered grace) I took it as very “personal to (me) from (you).” The very form of the book encourages this—that it can so easily be unstapled and read as the letters it is mostly composed of. And, as I read you . . . you are almost always right. Your writing is so persuasive that I am moved to feel that even where I think you wrong, I am just lacking experience of a greater right your bias is aiming to include. I have no argument with your pronouncement apropos “Window Water Baby Moving” (tho’ I think there was a better balance in some of the later childbirth films); and I am properly shamed by the “his”s which pepper my writing: I’ve tried to weed them out: it is not always possible. I’m most especially grateful for yr “istory” (complete with roots). This makes absolute sense. I’ve only been able previously to point out the bias in that and other words. I felt some guilt especially about extending help, particularly the stories of yr own difficulties. Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that the most selfish man on earth was one who had married and had a family—that he would abandon old friends in need, etc., with full excuse that his efforts were directed to the help of his family, etc. I’ve always thought lovers were the most obviously selfish people on earth, particularly young lovers; but next to them is perhaps the family MAN . . . i.e. I’ve noticed that when women are the head-of-the-family, as it is called, some (at least) tend to more naturally extend beyond those perimeters. I suppose it all has to do with the particularity of the train-

1969–1975

11 August 1975

251

1969–1975 252

ing of little boys as “providers”/“protectors,” etc. I do know that there is MORE guilt for me when I take from the children to support someone or some cause outside the family than if I refuse . . . or ignore, as is more often the case. I remember one of our arguments, when Jane and I first came to visit, began with my insistence that you realize the AWFUL task men have been socially assigned, called “making a living.” I think we would not argue now. It is all the same . . . the same enslavement which denies the uniqueness of person. I also have always wished to be SUPPORTED! . . . as do many women, willing to pay that exorbitant price—a being-nothing-there OTHER than what the supporter wants. The economic supporters (mostly male) most obviously want to destroy the earth. What I’m trying to say is that I feel your book struggles for my freedom as well as your own and that of other women. I am deeply grateful. As for the guilt—that’s confusing . . . mixed up with the disturbance I have about “FUSES.” I constantly have supported Maya Deren, Marie Menken (while she was alive, yes) and now Gunvor Nelson.282 I am enabled to SEE the work of these three women in film; but (while I’ve never excluded “FUSES,” have in fact rented it, lectured on it) I do not really see it well. You know this; and it’s perfectly imaginable to me that istory will damn me for this inability; but there it is. All that I otherwise-than-family really support is that which I do fully recognize as Art—that poor tired old word . . . And just last night Jane commented that I had “sacrificed friends again and again for what I believe,” etc. She was not criticizing me (tho’ I winced under the words) but rather encouraging me to do it again to a current house guest interfering with my work. I’m reminded that Jim once said almost the same thing to me (and he WAS criticizing me for it) when I was debating WHAT to do apropos P. Adams Sitney and The Anthology Film Archives. I obviously did not take Jim’s advice; and I HAVE suffered a great deal over that path taken which wrecked more than one friendship. But I suppose I would behave exactly the same if the issues came up again. Which also somehow brings me to Telluride. I’ve put ALL my energies into effecting that Sidney Peterson and James Broughton SHALL be there and WILL be honored by an up-front inclusion in that event. I will probably have to pay Peterson’s air-ticket myself. I’ve spent fifty bucks on phone calls alone and have, in uneconomic terms, nearly destroyed the necessary peace of this summer. IF I’d put that energy into bringing you, I probably could have succeeded. Truth is, I’m now sorry I entered 282. Gunvor Nelson (Sweden, 1931), filmmaker.

that fray at all. I feel a deep guilt that I haven’t devoted this (which may be the last summer we’re all together) to the children. I feel I may even have blasphemed with (dis)respect to The Muse. And I feel guilty that I didn’t manage your being there, too. Well, I just bring you my problems, as you say men tend to do . . . The ref. to The Muse causes me to wonder what image or visions you’ve experienced to shape for yourself the mysterious persuasions (I used to say “forces”) which prompt your work. I’ve run the gamut of God, Gods, Angels, Demons, Daimon, Sub-conscious; and I return again to that most clearly feminine invocation: Muse. The Angels also seem to me (and on sight, the few I’ve had) more feminine than neuter. It is a simple curiosity, remindful of childhood body searches. I support your writing. What do you need? I’ll help as much as I can. And our love of your etching and painting and collage is visible (and has been continuously) on our walls.283 I ordered copies of all you’ve advertised, sent check; and if that means there’s another “Cézanne . . .” coming, I’d like permission to send it to The Turtle Island Press. That’s the only hope I have at the moment; and all my books are now out of print. I was very moved by your gift of the VARÈSE book.284 I had heard there was a 2nd volume out. And what is “Being Geniuses Together”? One thing I will for certain send your way (when the money starts coming in again) is “Cat’s Cradle” . . . only worthy echo to perhaps prompt your remembrance as Kitch’s Poster did mine. Marilyn Wright to CS285 26 August 1975

283. Schneemann reports that among many of the works she gave to Brakhage, which “were dispersed and disappeared, a section of an important diptych entitled ‘Armenian Palliation’ was found in a garage sale in California by a man who called me and suggested that I purchase it back from him: I could not meet his price.” CS to the author, 24 August 2006. 284. Louise Varèse, Varèse: A Looking-Glass Diary (New York, Norton, 1972). 285. Marilyn Wright (United States, ca.1935), poet. 286. Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter.

1969–1975

Your book came yesterday.286 When I woke up this morning into a soggy grey dawn, I brought it up to bed with my coffee and read it through. (I always have visions of Collette in bed, her bed covered with books and papers and when I have no lover, the side of the bed where a lover would be fills up with mountains of books and papers. A book lover.) I feel warm towards you, reading your book. There is a sadness, too, in

253

1969–1975 254

that we haven’t been friends, have never lent each other the help and support we needed. There is so much loneliness and so few of us from that time back in the Dark Ages when all the changes began to begin and we few have been unwilling to know each other, to really acknowledge each other’s efforts and presence. Was it men, our relationships as artists to men (I always felt that you related to Mike,287 for instance, as an artist, and not to me, and I say that knowing that Mike is (?)/was a very good painter) or the differences in our approach to our work? or relationships to our own ideas, ideas of self? Or the Queen Bee syndrome at work? There is a part of me that feels very “ordinary,” even conventional. And yet it seems my whole life has gone against the grain—each action taken being ahead of the time in which it would become acceptable, comfortable. Having abortions, getting divorced, trying to support three children without support from anyone, living as a woman alone, trying to earn money, going on writing, having lovers, never separating my life with my children and my lovers and always, believing that writing was important that it had to go on, that time had to be found, made, that just living a life was never enough, never enough. You always struck me by your certainty, your commitment to your own feelings, whereas I’ve seen myself always acting out what “had to be done” in terms of my own inner and outer necessities, always as a kind of bumbler—apologetic, unsure, feeling “freaky” but unable to do otherwise than what my needs and situations required and dictated. It would be more characteristic of me to do my work and keep it on my desk for years than to stand up for it, fight for it, insist on the world’s recognition. In that, you remind me of Gertrude Stein who had that certainty in what she was trying to do and say. I admire that quality in you enormously. It has a courage I am still groping for, although I’ve had long practice in courage of other kinds. Some secret “knowing” in me that I am always really not “good enough” holds me back and back, growing at times into months of silence in which I’m paralyzed and consumed with disappointment. [. . .] Your book touches me, particularly, in that we are truly each other’s contemporaries. There are so very few of us, women from our time that it is a great loneliness. While there is always the pleasure and satisfaction in helping younger women through giving support, through encouragement and understanding, still it is a loneliness to feel that the 287. Mike Wright (United States, 1931), painter.

problems one deals with in others are already, for oneself, long behind and gone, and that already one is out in difficult further spaces, always without maps, models or guidelines, without precedents. I take one exception with you. I’m unhappy about the word “cunt” and your use of it. It’s an ugly word and could only be used in an ugly sense. Whoever invented it, invented it as an ugliness, an insult. Listen to it! What could it have to do with the genitals you know. The word begins with a “c” that cuts like a blunt knife, goes on to a “U” which is a shit grunt, or bestial grunt, and ends in “nt” like a brick wall. The word is short, hard and brutal, could never relate to depth, tenderness, the gentle flower-like qualities, the passionate energy of inner muscle, the organ capable of speaking the language of life force. There is, it seems, no adequate word. Vagina is somehow wrong. The “v,” the hard “g,” the shrill “i” just doesn’t quite make it. “Pussy” is condescending, despite your respect for and long loving relationship with Kitch. Cunt is a proper word for taxicab drivers who won’t stop and all sorts of other human horrors. The one thing it ought never be used to indicate is our bodies. That meaning ought to be driven out of the language. When you use it to refer to yourself, it’s like beating yourself before someone else gets a chance to do it. (Or maybe using it is like taking the power to hurt away from men—like diffusing a bomb . . . an action which intends its effect into the future. Diffusing a bomb.) CS to Stan Brakhage

I’m thankful for your generous-hearted letter; fair-minded and open to considerations which are often blocked by conviction, habit, privilege, self-determination . . . thankful that you spare me the constant re-formulation to men friends of what I’v already written—and that, to be able—as men—to simply LISTEN to women, is for now the key. (In the back of my mind is our other friend whose understanding arrives always in the form of an attack . . . as if we cannot be divergent and on equal footing . . . the raft must always tip in tension.) It does seem to my remembering true that the friendships with women have not had as much pain and discomprehension—I have not felt embattled, put-upon, fogged-over—as with some friendships with men. (Not with lover friends, that range perception exchange in emotion or sexual bond is always more accurate, clear, complete than platonic ones.) So, my friendship with you is more mixed with appre-

1969–1975

7 September 1975

255

ciation, apprehension, closeness, despair, bitter hurt, fragmented love than any other . . . CS to James Tenney 7 September 1975

Belated congratulations to you and Ann on your marriage—Anthony and I send every good wish for a long, happy life together. I’m several (six!) months behind in personal matters; partly due to job pursuits and a prolonged, complex film which I need to disappear into (“Kitch’s Last Meal” -1973, ’74, ’75 reels—two hours completed). The job at last is at Rutgers and I’m teaching everything they’ve lacked—for the first semester—which includes full range of “media.” Rumors coming here of your current work are superlative and we wish we could hear it. If there is any chance/time at all could you make me tapes for my class? The school can pay tape, mailing costs willingly, for me. Want to keep them on the best track . . . As the enclosed birthday card shows, Kitch continues—phenomenal, brave, bold and not too old for new ventures. My health improves gradually under Soltanoff ’s288 supervision and just in time for the teaching, commuting strains . . . Clayton Eshleman to CS

1969–1975

11 September 1975

256

PPS (to my last)—you in sling is metamorphosis of camera in sling in “Fuses;” more, a putting your body where your eyes were, bumping the machine out of the sling and forgetting about the lovers under it, going solo rather than in tandem, also a shift from the film in which you show what was done to performance of being watched while doing; irony is you lose “what was done” in the sense that the product? The marks on the paper under you are insubstantial in comparison to the film. Now I feel a connection between you in the sling and David Antin no longer being willing to read a written poem at a “poetry reading” but improvising a poem, doing a “talk” both examples sacrificing the reworked concentration possible in “what was done” art for something I do not understand in “being watched while doing” art—the something I do not 288. Jack Soltanoff (United States, 1915–2000), chiropractor and authority on natural health, nutrition, and immune function who treated many of the Judson dancers.

understand means, to me, I don’t understand why someone would give up the former, which seems in time to me stronger, for the latter, especially in Antin’s case. In your case it must to a great extent hinge upon the necessity for you to show your naked body and as I think I suggested before, to show it in a sling implies woundedness, Look at me I have been wounded by you (your bodysling says to men in audience), like one shows a wound, as if for aid, and the contrary to this might be: Look it will redeem you from your male (wounded) centeredness to look upon me wound/wound CS to Clayton Eshleman

The teaching is the most exhausting work I’v ever done—more than producing, direction, rehearsing, performing and all attendant disasters, tensions, responsibilities, technicalities, upheavals, disorientations— more than any of all that. I do three days and at the end of Wednesday am led out the door and dumped at the train station—my nerves utterly riddled by the students—whose needs, starvations, appreciations I measure swiftly (with that sense of this certain beginning and the journeyventure to be made, together, to another place in mind/eye/sensibility, to a world which is there to be studied)—by the faculty whose very niceness tingles over the thin ice of my being there at all. (The mess/ competition set off for this job; every woman artist in New York seems to have applied for it; the questions of those who really did want me and those who acquiesced—I don’t yet know which is which.) And because of their internecine complications my teaching load is especially difficult: I have the beginning Art and Fundamentals (often taught by Grad students) so that the older faculty don’t feel I escape the mass ardors; then ALL the film & video courses (a grad takes an introductory section) for middle/advanced; includes tape (sound), slides, still photography or what I make it considering the special projects underway . . . and my own course for graduates which technically no one should teach until they’ve been staff for three years . . . all that stuff. I have a beautiful view out my office window of trees over a ravine. There is no door or window which can be left opened (or opened at all)

1969–1975

12 September 1975

257

1969–1975 258

to the outside. The climate is “controlled.” Under every pleasure, curiosity, strain, attention and plan of the day is the mounting and furious impulse to SMASH open my window and let in the air. I keep my classes outdoors as much as possible. (We are having a very early cold fall!) I do like it. The check knocked me out. After ELEVEN years without steady employment . . . being paid is such a shock I don’t know what to make of it . . . as if after dreaming of meat for years one finds a plate piled high . . . the dream and the reality so lack cohesion . . . I have to push the plate away muttering “are they sure that is “meat” ????? Then Anthony Now Anthony is going to Europe for three weeks—his films being shown at the Paris Biennial and he has to oversee the projection of them. Once he is gone on his trips I usually have a fine time but before is awful, feeling the emptiness, missing him in advance, regretting the change in our close and contented routines. Around all this is intensive editing on “Kitch’s Last Meal”; prodding at the art world for ways for the work to be in; interest from Europe to be cared about. I suspect the underlying fears—can I manage two households, will the job take from my creative work (the ambivalence, seeing other artists living from their work—which may only be pronouncements, Beuys; booklets—Dieter Rot)289—will ease off in the near future. It has to do with the prerogatives of choice—many of which I believe women do not have. Anthony helps me in every way possible BUT I am the manager, the center-receiver of the messages for domestic relations. And since, so far men have not been raised to be like their mothers, they do not have the implicit connectness to daily, constant domestic management. And we all agree (women) that teaching willing companions what has to be done takes almost as much time and energy as doing these obvious, constant, daily things ourselves . . . But before I go into the difficulties of your recent letters there is an older thread I meant to catch up. About who cooks in our household. It’s funny. I cook for my friends, he cooks for his. We never planned it, just falls that way. He likes to do Eng­lish style for his islanders; I do have the garden as my special work (with which he assists in heavy duty) and the vegetables must be protected from 3,000 years of Eng­lish over-cook/kill . . . so that makes a “natural” division—you’ll never see Anthony drop the fresh white corn into the pot if I’m around . . . and 289. Dieter Roth (Germany, b. 1930, Switzerland, d. 1998), artist.

1969–1975

centuries of unwavering tradition do have them turning a hamburger or steak to woodwork. BUT he does all the baking! Well, not all . . . we have noticed after one of those fond fucking Sundays I feel compelled to pat together mounds of butter, honey, flour and bake little things in the oven for us . . . (it just comes over me). I have written so long and hard about Women and Choice . . . my burst to you this spring re Helen Kelly wasn’t so much about Helen herself as: living within the light and shadow of a distinguished man— this is a “choice” for creative, innovative women who did not find that structure of life and work for themselves. 1. I have never known a man living in the light and shadow of a distinguished woman artist who was not himself an artist. 2. Women live within the light and shadow of distinguished men when those parallel paths HAVE BEEN CLOSED TO THEM. The signs we read from childhood on say clearly DO NOT ENTER MEN ONLY ENTER AT RISK ENTER AS MONSTER GODDESS ETC. ENTER IN MEN’S EYES etc . . . Our choices have not had the range, equity of men’s choices. I got through; the cost is clear to me and other women will feel it . . . no man can describe, assume, know what living within a phallo-centric world does to a woman. When he says he knows, it is entangled with his condition, expectations, given rights, habits, language . . . all of it part of the troubled and problematic culture but still it is one made by men thinking of themselves, enacting their realms of dominance. Issues of master/slave, degree of service/must be described and defined by the persons in the disadvantaged positions. (For instance, for Whites to presume to tell Blacks what their experience really is.) To imagine that women and blacks (as you wrote in April) hold up the disease structure in the way of white men who have promulgated and controlled this structure is to tumble into a pit of totally unconscious political distortion. But as poet and man you are within and without the system simultaneously—you justifiably feel you are peeling, tearing, examining the seeds of death, suffocation and manipulation of this culture. Nevertheless your “double knowledge” will differ from the “double knowledge” by which all women define their life possibilities—because sexually we have been discriminated against without respite—it is in the fabric of this sexist, racist society.

259

Clayton Eshleman to CS 15 October 1975

I haven’t answered because there seemed not much to say in a letter to your letter: you do not write directly to ME, but to ME AS A MAN; since I am constantly in the process of removing myself from that “wall of huge men” it is frustrating to be put back in it when addressed. As for the sling, you have your sense of what it is to mean to someone and seem irked when I do not realize what you intend. I see what I see. Sometimes we connect. Exchange on a gender-oriented level becomes more and more meaningless as gender-fixation relaxes. I do have a new poem, “THE WOMAN WHO SAW THROUGH PARADISE,” which owes something to what you mean to me as a figure (as for Brakhage, if he wants anything from me he can ask for it) (from me, not via another). [. . .] The only viable tradition I am aware of in the world today is that of relation, based on values of 1) gratified and transformed desire 2) self-regulation 3) the shared life. CS to Clayton Eshleman

1969–1975

24 October 1975

260

Your last quick note. Yes indeed I fall into treating/writing to you as if you are the enemyman rather than the individual man who has done so much to separate himself from that wall of men I describe. My exasperation is this: you have opened, unraveled, aided, opened, unraveled, aided and used every knot and knife in your male psyche to open, unravel and aid and within I find old wall of man—stubborn, autocratic, severe, humorless, punishing. You insist you see what you see. I have expended all this energy because you DID NOT ACTUALLY SEE “Up To And Including Her Limits”— the perceptual systems to which you submit it become an imposition and limit the form of my work as I know it to be and as others are effected by it. I emphasize the physical experience of it because your physical identifications are mental, symbolic . . . if you had seen me you could feel in your solid body that I am long, lithe; I fill my lungs and float on the rope . . . I quiver on it, it turns, pulses . . . The suspension is erotic, ecstatic and relates—as I’ve tried to make crystal clear—to the sensory interpenetrations of ground and field, horizon and earth,

290. Francis Bacon (Ireland, b. 1909, Spain, d. 1992), painter. 291. Japanese ukiyo-e is a woodblock print method that emerged in the Edo period in the 1600s. Ukiyo-e meant “pictures of the floating world” and included images of bordellos and courtesans. The term later referred more generically to woodblock prints like those of Ando Hiroshige (Japan, 1797–1858) and Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), landscape printmakers. 292. Chaim Soutine.

1969–1975

form and reflection which was the basis of Water Light/Water Needle. Of course someone who weighs 160 pounds isn’t going to float in a harness! I am at the end of my tether when your physical empathy can’t see me in my place . . . you are seeing you in my place. [. . .] In your earlier letter you write about my using temporal experience “must to a great extent hinge upon the necessity for you to show your naked body” . . . I do not “show” my naked body! I AM BEING MY BODY. Brakhage used to drag his Freud all over me . . . his fraud . . . do you really believe the cunt/woman IS a wound? Sounds like you read into us just that way. Contentious and arrogant men cannot worship—tho they wish to; nor can they be cherished. The goddess of greatest bliss will not open her legs. Struggle! Americano macho—to wrestle with a cosmic force; to break what yields, to fragment the whole. To see what you see. You impose what you see. If I am wounded then what woman is whole? You tear me apart in your viscera mythic stew of Eng­lish anal/rancid Bacon290 stoked-off Velázquez, Japanese Ukiyo-e291 cock strut, Soutine’s292 blood and grub, I BELONG TO NATURE NOT TO THESE ARTIFACTS YOU CHOOSE. I AM ELECTRICAL VULVIC BOLT IN TIME I BLEED MY MONTHS NOT YOUR CALENDER WHAT IS SYMBOL TO YOU IS MY BONE THE MEN IN YOUR MIND ARE NOT IN MY MIND YOUR PERCEPTIONS ARE NOT CLOSE TO MINE YOU ARE UTTERLY CORRECT FOR YOURSELF AND KEEP IT OFF OF ME. YOU DO NOT HEAR ME. I HAVE NOTHING FURTHER TO SAY. Finally, I realize this is not so much in response to your article itself, but to more generally invite semiological attention to the network of images and interactions you mention. If I am historicizing unnecessarily it will be because since 1962—with only two exceptions—my works have NEVER been reviewed, described, considered in any American magazine or journal of the art community. (It is through the writings of poets, radicals, journalists, disaffiliated artists and in Europe that my work is noted.)

261

Clayton Eshleman to CS 1 November 1975

I will enclose a carbon of “The Woman Who Saw Through Paradise”— as I said, if you feel that such would be appropriate I will dedicate it to you. THE WOMAN WHO SAW THROUGH PARADISE

1969–1975

She was squatting in her garden weeding, many years ago yet also long before her age, that is, she was two women, one about twenty in jeans, the other naked with her body close to what she weeded, these two in one discovered a head that day severed and shrunken, that is she felt it under a root, thought it a rock at first but in pulling it up she knew it was a head

262

Then this two in one raced a long and splendid shadow across the midwest, a goddess she appeared to men, her clothing in tatters, her feet barely touching the furrows, she raced because she cried, frightened and smaller than the men who felt her like the wind, and in her crying she crouched surrounded by a wall of huge men, that is why she raced, because she crouched frightened in her garden by this head she could hold in her palm

Now the girl in jeans took them off and in a kind of secret ecstasy fit the face against her cunt, just to play with it there of course, to slime herself, bored, without a man, she lay back and rubbed and rubbed until the head came apart, feeling funny then she dressed and went back into the stone house; but this naked other who was close to what she worked looked at the head in disgust, A poisonous head, she whispered to herself, it’s only time and the stories I’ve let get in me, told by men, that would seduce me into having contact with this head—if I rub it against me it will try to take root– but if it were a woman’s head I would care for it, cradle it in a sling which I’d hang from a high beech limb, if it were clearly a woman’s I’d nurse it and bring it

Then she too returned to the stone house and found her sister with many arms, hairy, the jeans split lying on the floor, entangled in a skein of stuff that seemed to issue from her stomach, sticky, a web she was either weaving into a structure, or was she sewing herself into an opaque cocoon? The naked other sat down below her sister, she put an end into her mouth and while her spider sister sewed began to eat, it tasted green but something else was in its fiber,

a kind of dust taste as if the crushed skull were in her sister’s thread, she saw herself back in the garden holding the head once more, as she looked up she felt the presence of the huge male wall around her “you are in paradise” it whispered, now had she been her sister in jeans she would have heard “paradise” and felt so glad for the protected balance between wildness and domestication a walled garden meant —but she was not her sister nor was she now totally dependent upon the garden for survival, she bit off another segment and heard “paradise” as “paired eyes” suddenly nature seemed to be intent upon her, each living thing composed of eyes paired against her, yet the beech boles were not eyes and although nature was charged with wall she saw no wall—she felt outside something that as her sister self she had before felt inside, but when was before? Before I smashed the head she said out loud to

1969–1975

to a body again, but this is a mythic head, its meaning is the distortion in life, and she scratched its surface off, but was stopped by the skull which appeared to be male, she felt another sense of origin was inside, but her fingers couldn’t reach it through the mouth or sockets so she smashed the head against the beech that, had it clearly been a woman’s head, she would have slung it from

263

1969–1975 264

steady herself and went to the beach to inspect the place of impact—the trunk was sheathed in aura, a grey concrete light, an interaction of the power the beech sent forth and something that had been injected into this aura or into her mind? As she tried to discern this something she felt sick and looked up at her spider sister in the stone house semidark —the weaving had stopped, the spider was haggard and motioned at its mouth, but what could this naked other feed her? She was hooked on the web—she reached down below her butt and handed up the only tangible thing she had to give—this the spider swallowed and resumed her weaving —this block seemed to mean: think it through again, keep the circuit closed and moving or the male image you have partially opened will seal fast—she took the beech aura in her hands and saw that the injected something was greyish semen which interacted with the beech power giving the aura its concreteness,

out of their impotence before death men had conceived this specific image making force to establish origin as male and offer women themselves as consequence and as generation, responsible yet secondary, such appeared to be the content of the wall she felt surrounding her, a world made by men for themselves and for women which, when she crouched in the garden, was calculated to evoke paradise, which when closely examined was a skin that kept her and her sister self at one remove from what raced through nature, a woman never really glimpsed but there, as a thrill in the air, as a part of what is green, a fluid in the night and the day, a contour to the blackness and the light which now streamed into the stone house illuminating the spider sister, her web littered with corpses, a chalice of blood in one claw, a scimitar in another as she danced in place a dead stiff cock inside her, the engine of her dance! With one hand the naked other picked up the edge of this destroyer image and peeled it like a bandage

from her creative self— she took the head this self now offered her, it was a shining wet thing, beyond generation—she grasped it firmly then snapped it open,

her brain! She looked at the coiled snake from which the male caul had been removed, stunned she carried it outside to the beech sling.

CS to Clayton Eshleman

DAILY PARADISE—to Clayton I do not “crouch”  I run free  I do not “crouch”  I run free And I come in my cunt  in my cunt on the cock of my lover from the wall of men where I fall free  fall high onto his cock that is paradise  his face my face in his hands before the wall of men  we build fucking free every day I come in my cunt and fly free  I am light exploding daily in my cunt coming free in my lover No death in my garden  a beige doe in my garden I shine the light of my cunt shines corn beans tomatoes  potatoes  swiss chard  turnips parsley and lettuce  rutabagas  onions red beets root there in furrows I turn from my garden My body is me  I do not “show” it as you wrote I am my body I do not show my garden it grows free  I spring up in audacity in snow  rain  sun courage of my body  I run free I do not “slime”  I cream I milk I glitter honey draw deep  to melt fuse  I pour in my lover he pours in me  glittering I shine I sing in my cunt in his cock on his hands  eyes we shine in the dark The raccoon rolls apples across the porch  the woodpecker drills a Black Locust daily squirrels in the walls as we sleep Flowers bloom in my house light cuts each stone where I shine in my cunt on his cock deep in me typing a letter cutting  film cooking a goose  stroking his cock I do not “crouch”  my “fears” are for risk  in strength from my cunt I fly free I cannot accept your poem paradise runs free streams pours

1969–1975

8 November 1975

265

joy. Your words oppress me heavy heavy weights stones in a sling which could fly free. Anus for cunts, spiders for eyes, the static Beech when I am Ivy spiraling on Elm. I do not split apart  I bury the skull, child’s cycle, tenderly. I do not accept your poem: no levity, no light, not rising free in the cunt embrace cock where paradise is daily I do not “slime”  I moisten I butter and cream  he licks me and drinks  I lick him and drink we sink battered rise banging screaming fly free Stone house built by men.  My fortress built by men by their love of cunt and cock to fly free by the hands of my father lifting me high his blue eyes of my lover  my father the tree where I spiral       dreamed father blue eyes      in my lover I butter and cream  burn blood and salt paradise streams in me from my father spread  wide to his hands perfect trust in his grip   his cock streams in my cunt holy father holy lover paradise flies free   dishes cups curtains and chairs    my wild hair opened thighs cunt bread butter milk and meat.

        

CS to Clayton Eshleman

1969–1975

19 November 1975

266

I am sorely tired, upset by “The Woman Who Saw Through Paradise.” The information is there, the circuits askew. I recognize of course images—“Illinois Central”—Goddess run through the furrowed mid-west; certain words, phrases, ideas from recent letters: the wall of men; men assuming specific power of imagemaking and origin of creative will; woman manna source in nature for man’s created realm. I always have a garden, I live in a stone house; I leave spiders webs in corner light. “Illinois Central” had images of furrows; “Snows” had imagery and motions in cocoons; I turn and float in a tree harness in “Up To And Including Her Limits.” These elements in “Woman Who Saw Through Paradise” subjected to a set of distortions, involutions away from my emotional cognizance, as misappropriate as Brakhage’s insistence on my wearing an apron as I painted Jane’s portrait and he filmed us in “Cat’s Cradle.” His admitted

need to dissolve, fragment relationship, coherence of Jim and me and our working-life as “exemplary couple,” so that he could free himself and Jane—his necessity to obliterate what was best and courageous in our presence. (That Jim and I became “host” to this sumptuous reel of distortions never ceased to pain and amaze us . . . at the time we “felt” this manipulation and hoped the actual footage, editing would not be alienating . . .) Why you think “Woman Who Saw Through Paradise” should be appropriate to me I do not know. The persona is stripped of all ecstasy, joy. You & I agree the source of ecstasy and joy is in the body, in the unitary stream of idea, impulse and physical enactment. My own courage to take risk and give myself totally to my work is rooted in vulvic sexuality—my center. Just to complicate things in this particular cultural moment this means yes, the orgasmic depths of “paradise” are vaginal. If you have not “forgiven” me for those years when I was ill,293 you have not appreciated my resilience, the health and energy which makes my current life possible. No matter how slow the return to myself in the last few years, the masturbating, fearful, tangled creature in her garden is not close to me—even at my most damaged. Nor do I recognize the persona as archetypal female. To avoid, ignore, misunderstand the source of my energy and dual regard, reverence for both male and female principles is to mismatch, misspend how I appear to you as friend, as artist, how I love, what binds my life in love and how this moves positively for the men related to me. Clayton Eshleman to CS 30 November 1975

293. Schneemann refers back to her time in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and to her resistance to having Eshleman becoming her roommate there.

1969–1975

The poem I sent you is not about you. I offered to dedicate it to you because I felt you would admire the way I struggled with and honored a kind of inner female “hieros gamos” (divine marriage) drawing the contention away from outside inevitably male systems. Your reaction so simplistic I can hardly deal with it. A portrait of CS? If that is what I had intended that is what I would have called it. I am really getting fed up with your deliberate confusion of issues. If you have a bone to pick with Stan Brakhage for God’s sake do it—you

267

do not respond to my poem by dragging in your 20 year old rancor with the way he treated you and the way you yourself allowed him to treat you. Under your cavil is the desperate prima donna, that any response to what you do must conform in your eyes to the way in which you currently wish to be seen. Such is the death of response and, ultimately, of relationship. CS to Clayton Eshleman 30 November 1975

1969–1975

i am simplistic and concrete i mention brakhage because for many years i wanted to make him understand the situation of the woman artist—from his antagonisms and prejudices i was learning much of what the man struggled with and from towards his art. As with you. Of course if my protestations are only those of a “desperate prima donna” there is nothing worth listening to. I begged your attention; you begged the issues; that is, you did not recognize them. Which I regret. I wish I could detach myself from my effort to make clear to you what I might just embody which is relevant to your breaking and building as gender engenders I had hoped it was something we could continue to do together It’s impossible to tell a goddess not to behave like a prima donna it’s impossible to tell a prima donna not to behave like a goddess and it’s impossible to tell a poet he cannot speak for everyone! That he inauthentics; that he could not presume as man to divine an inner female divine marriage; that HE can not shift from the inevitability of a male perceptual system. I tried and have laid all the clues necessary. Perhaps if you would notice them and detach them from my particular and very particular being they would take form before you. In this sense I hope to be used. Accurately.294

268

294. There are many other unpublished letters between Scheemann and Eshleman devoted to this exchange in Schneemann’s papers 1959–94, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

1976–1986 Kitch died on 3 February 1976. The loss of Schneemann’s feline companion of twenty years began a period of bereavement that continued with the deaths of many friends and culminated in her memorial installation Mortal Coils, which she worked on through the late 1980s and completed in 1994. Also in 1976, Schneemann and Anthony McCall began a separation that eventually led to divorce after he began a relationship with another woman. During this period, Schneemann met the editor and publisher Bruce McPherson, with whom she partnered for the next decade. She produced a silk-screen edition titled The Men Cooperate (1976), which commemorates this period in a sequence of photographs of McCall and McPherson assisting each other moving in and out of her home. Schneemann also made ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards (1976) to document the triangulation of their relationships. Schneemann and McPherson produced her book More Than Meat Joy, which McPherson published in 1979. [figure 48] This book occasioned many congratulatory letters and broader public recognition, and was instrumental in the expansion of her career. Debates with male artists over feminist principles and recognition of the movement continued throughout this period, especially with Eshleman, Brakhage, and Dick Higgins. These and other exchanges also reveal Schneemann grappling with the experience and consequences of middle age, which she discussed with such friends as Jackson Mac Low, Malcolm Goldstein, Stan and Jane Brakhage, and Yvonne Rainer. Schneemann and Tenney remained close, following each other’s art and lives in letters, and Schneemann also increasingly answered queries from artists, curators, art historians, critics, and graduate students seeking her history and knowledge. These letters demonstrate how Schneemann tutored her correspondents in her own experimental techniques and befriended a younger generation, graciously drawing many into her circle.

48. Carolee Schneemann, cover of More Than Meat Joy, 1979, edited and published by Bruce McPherson, Documentext, New Paltz, N.Y. Cover photograph of Schneemann’s performance Water Light/Water Needle, 1966, performed at Havemayer Estate, Mahwah, N.J., by Herbert Migdoll. © 2008 Herbert Migdoll. Courtesy of Bruce McPherson, McPherson & Co.

CS to Clayton Eshleman 21 February 1976

1976–1986

Kitch died the 3rd of this month, while eating her breakfast. Her last lessons to me were that no matter how reduced her scope of motion, volition, what did remain was still wonderful. The following week was a major film, video and performance installation at the Kitchen of “Up To And Including Her Limits” . . . Kitch became part of the installation;1 it was right. The only totally still element between the film, video— in which her image reoccurs—and my slow, sustained motions on the rope. Many people came forward, said a good-bye to her.

270

1. Schneemann initially included Kitch in the performance; after Kitch died her corpse became part of the installation.

Carol Wikarska to CS 2 26 February 1976

2. Carol Fazzio (Wikarska) Davidson (United States, ca. 1940), writer, editor. 3. Gene Youngblood. 4. Avalanche magazine (1970–76), founded and edited by Liza Bear (United States, ca. 1940), writer and filmmaker, and Willoughby Sharp (United States, 1936–2008), artist. 5. Daryl Chin. 6. Yvonne Rainer. 7. Annette Michelson. 8. Anthony McCall. 9. Women & Film Magazine (1972–75).

1976–1986

How is the NY establishment avenging itself? I am calling Youngblood3 tomorrow . . . and why thank me for thanking YOU for producing such a terrific book? No need. Thank you for existing. Are you aware of the influence you are, the hope you hold out? Avalanche4 is folded completely, I think. But will Xerox the interview soon and get it to you. You might mention to Daryl5 that I met Yvonne6 out in Berkeley recently ( just returned from three crazy weeks there—intrigues, intense congregations of rhetoric, back to back films, personi famosi, butter lettuce and whole grain bread. . . .) at any rate, Yvonne is not crazy about Annette’s7 comments on her films. Too rigid, ignores the CONTENT. I found it rather interesting. Yvonne seems to be a fairly humble person . . . not ready to grab at praise for its own sake. It is the ignorance of people writing on her that makes her subject to criticism: that she was the first to do film/dance etc. SHE certainly doesn’t assert herself in that direction. How does Anthony8 feel about Annette M? How does he feel about semiology and film? Care to write a theoretical article for W & F?9 There will be two issues out before the dance issue which I’m getting together from down here. The upcoming issue is a mixture (short review of “plumb line”—mostly to let people know it exists—), next one to be on women, film and double bind (care to write something for that issue??). The dance article will be due in the early fall/late summer and can be illustrated (drawings and or photos)—length about (well, I don’t know to tell you the truth. Do you have a copy of W & F ? Check it out, the articles all seem to vary quite a bit in size . . . We are coming out with another issue in May or late April which I’ll send to you. This week I will write to the two women you suggested in one of the letters. Why doesn’t Daryl write to some of these people and let them know his criticisms? Could they be writing in good faith but in ignorance?

271

And since they already have a voice e.g. a regular place in which their work appears, why not enlighten the poor dears?? You never did tell me why your film didn’t show, while Anthony’s (congratulate him for me. Someone has written for the magazine on the festival and mentions his film in the article—upcoming issue) . . . I have a feeling we need an in-person visit with each other . . . I have plenty of gossip for you as well but god writing it out is such a drag. CS to Jackie Winsor 10 25 March 1976

This is to plead temporary insanity in regard to last Saturday night . . . if you thought I didn’t know who you were well I had just come from presentation/performance on friendship with Joseph Cornell—a recreation in some sense (3 channels of slides/his letters to me/my work & image at the time/his work & image at the time . . . 56–68); being lead by Anthony,11 Vivien,12 vaguely realizing I couldn’t recognize anyone. Saw you as “a dazzling beauty from Eng­land.” Just now turning up turnips from the winter this all tumbled together—Jackie Winsor! and I would have liked to talk with you . . . so, that’s why I didn’t. I look forward to the next time, being in the present. CS to Lil Picard 6 May 1976

1976–1986

I’m terribly upset for you and worried about Dell13—it seems there is no way to be “right,” to be spared dissolution and pain. I hope he is not suffering horribly and that there is a possible recovery. I’m afraid you’ll be drained and worn and anxious for him as well as your future—how to care for him, preserve your own energies, do work? I can only wish

272

10. Jackie Winsor (Canada, 1941), sculptor. 11. Anthony McCall. 12. Vivien Leone (United States, ca. 1935), writer and an editor of Aphra: The Feminist Literary Magazine (1969–1976). 13. Henry F. Odell (Germany, b. 1890, United States, d. 1976), husband of the artist and critic Lil Picard.

every strength and that we—your friends—will be asked and offer help in any way. I’ll phone you as soon as I’m back in the city; I tried to reach you last week without success. Perhaps its a time of blows to Libras . . . anyway to us. I’v been immobilized—except for having to teach—with my own sudden troubles. Anthony has gone through some radical changes and the crisis was last weekend—I couldn’t get to Bloch’s14 and had hoped you would be there. I’m really not sure what our future will be; I can’t imagine going on without him and all my “monsters” are at my throat. He left for Europe yesterday and I’m to meet him in a few weeks; I feel like I’m on “probation” through the summer. Been so terrified I barely can eat or sleep. CS to Mr. Sorin15 10 October 1976

14. René Block (Germany, 1942), art dealer, curator, and museum director. 15. Samuel I. Sorin, executive director of Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Philadelphia. 16. The exhibition “Beyond the Page” was held at the Poetry Center of the Philadelphia Young Men’s Hebrew Association in 1975. Schneemann explained: “Art historian Lucy Lippard, together with Allan Kaprow and other artists in the exhibition, all told Mr. Sorin that they would close the show if my work was removed. Their action saved the entire exhibit.” CS to the author, 24 August 2006. 17. Anne Sue Hirshorn (United States, ca. 1940), curator. 18. Schneemann remembers that Mr. Shaw may have been on the board of the YMHA.

1976–1986

I feel compelled at this juncture to call your attention to my position in the controversy over the removal-censorship of my work “Interior Scroll” from the exhibit, “Beyond The Page,” currently at the YMHA.16 Since this has increasingly become a public issue I may have delayed too long in making my reactions clear; this delay was motivated out of regard for the show itself, and for its organizer and curator, Anne Sue Hirshorn.17 Nevertheless, I hasten to inform you that at no time was I ever advised as to the lack of appropriateness of my work, but rather that the nude figures—auxiliary to the theoretical text with which they are juxtaposed—were the sole reason relayed to me by Mr. Shaw,18 for its rejection. I do not think the removal of the work could be considered anything but censorship. Amazing distortions as to the nature of the nude figures have been conveyed to me. The content of the written material surrounding the figures, which establishes the underlying ambi-

273

guity of the image, has been ignored, obscuring the intention of the work itself. I have refrained from now in objecting in the strenuous terms because the survival of the exhibit itself was in question and it deserves far greater attention as a whole than it has thus far received. I’m frankly in sympathy to the activism of Mr. Quinn19 and all other artists objecting to the Y.’s refusal to consider reinstating my original work, created for the exhibit. In light of the long tradition of the Y in supporting radical art works and actions (which has just come to my attention), and the current lack of clarity as to the social and cultural purpose of the Y Gallery, I can only view this present confusion as highly ironic and regrettable. CS to Bill Thompson20 17 November 1976

1976–1986

This is the letter I need to write and don’t know what is the beginning, the middle . . . the love, the love floods and covers us in invisible skins. Bruce.21 I’m met, led, met in extremities of communion, passion, incredulity. It seems impossible to both of us; we grow, deepen; joy together is constant, ache and distraction to be apart. He continues to live in the two book filled rooms in Phila., where his press is and his unemployment office! I go there, he comes to N.Y., to the house, back and forth part of each week I had film showing. We’v traveled to where he lived for five years, Providence, to his friends whom I cherish and regard—particularly, the writer Jaimy Gordon22 . . . the three of us in past meetings felt deep friendship; she also older than he, unqualified devotion to her work (and by many of us considered the most significant writer among contemporaries); his love in the past with her, brief, the friendship enduring; we see it as some psychic grounding for our love now, and the welcome to us by her. She and I fully friends and equals. It’s important because ostensibly the discrepancies we have to negotiate are spokes in the years: age, accomplishment, figuration in the world, money, mobility all that. [. . .] He says we shed the past selves to

274

19. Schneemann remembers that Mr. Quinn was a journalist in sympathy with the artists. 20. Bill Thompson (United States, 1947), photographer. 21. Bruce McPherson (United States, 1951), publisher, editor, designer, and founder of Documentext, which published Schneemann’s More Than Meat Joy (1979) and Carolee Schneemann: Early and Recent Work (1983), and Schneemann’s partner for ten years. 22. Jaimy Gordon (United States, 1944), novelist, poet.

be in this present moment. I’v made an incredible new work out of the triangulation: ABC—WE PRINT ANYTHING—IN THE CARDS.23 [figure 49; plate 14] All on file cards: white—dreams and diary/ blue—ABC— what we say, said to each other/green—quotes from friends about relationship. You are quoted on several green cards. For instance a blue card: “B. said to C.—put it all on cards, then you can shuffle.” 145 cards; did the reading/performance this week, both A. and B. attending. Work received with full appreciation—sort of a breakthrough for all of us. Both A. and B. went over them (Bruce contributing in the formation): I have tremendous fears of “laying it out, playing my hand” and that B. would want his privacy maintained. He did not. That A. would suddenly feel from the reading what our talks together didn’t seem to make 23. “A” for Anthony (McCall); “B” for Bruce (McPherson); and “C” for Carolee (Schneemann).

1976–1986

49. Carolee Schneemann, details from ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards, 1976, artist book with 158 note cards, photographs and text, in a boxed edition of 151, published by Brummense Uitgeverij Van Luxe Werkjes in Beuningen, Netherlands. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

275

clear to him: that the situation with Bruce was not an affair and a work project. Anthony spends part of each month here at the house with me; our base. He continued to be supportive of my relation with Bruce; that he wanted “to be separate but not separated,” and for us to be lovers when together. It has increasingly become impossible to be his lover. All that I wrote you in October remains the same—more or less—A. still no money at all, can’t fix up the loft; Paula24 doesn’t see him. He is hard at work with the Catalog (Book) being done by Artists for Cultural Change and advancing film projects of a radical nature. His emotions seem, just now, to be emerging and we’re both terrified to really lose one another. It’s an echo of my most awful past—letting life with Jim go for an impossible love—but Bruce is not Tom; as much as I identify the fullness, completeness of life with Anthony with that of Jim. I just don’t know what will happen. Bruce has given up graduate school in S.F. (and the tuition from his father) to stay East. He has just published five shorter books (“stories,” wonderfully printed, illustrated by experimental writers) and we’re close to continuing “our” book. So, no sudden resolution in sight. I don’t know if life is offering a wondrous chance for change and growth or if I’m being foolish and about to destroy a relationship which has still (I think) a strong futurity??????? Willie Varela to CS 25

1976–1986

1 December 1976

276

I am writing to you as an interested viewer of your art. I have read about you in various art journals, and was also told about your film “FUSES” by Stan Brakhage when he was in town last March to speak and show his film “The Text of Light.” While Stan was here, we had an opportunity to talk about his films, and in one of the conversations we had, he spoke very highly of your work. For this reason, and because I am also an artist (filmmaker/photographer), and also a member of the film selection committee at the University of Texas at El Paso, I decided to book “FUSES” with a series of films by Stan and Robert Nelson.26 As you can see by the clippings I’ve enclosed, your film was censored on campus. I voiced my protest very strongly. . . .and also wrote a letter to the campus newspaper. I am trying to do everything I can to insure that this 24. Paula, an intimate, private friend of Anthony McCall. 25. Willie Varela (United States, 1947), filmmaker. 26. Robert Nelson (United States, 1930), painter and filmmaker.

does not happen again, but so far, I haven’t been able to do much because the other members of the film committee don’t really give a shit. I’m afraid experimental film hasn’t gone over very well here in El Paso, and I fear for its complete disappearance from the film-going scene (what little we have) here in EP. El Paso and the campus are extremely backward and conservative, and simply do not like to experience new things. Thus the reason for the censoring of your film. I have enclosed the clippings for your own information and because I wanted to let you know that I support your films and your other art activities, both as an artist and as a trying-to-be-liberated male. Perhaps this last statement is a bit too facile, but I am familiar with the feminist overtones of your work, and from what I have been able to absorb by reading about you, I must say I am in complete agreement with your conceptual approaches to expressing a uniquely feminist sensibility. Maybe you don’t like the label, but I can feel what you are trying to say. Hope you don’t mind the fact that I have taken the liberty to write you just out of the blue. It’s one of my favorite colors. CS to Willie Varela

I appreciate your writing to me and enclosing those incredible clippings; the fact that these “ancient” issues are still in question certainly complicates the larger social situation surrounding the censorship. 1. the fact of the aesthetic validation of “Fuses” in books, review as an influence on subsequent work, as a transformative means for viewers past and present . . . the fact that this validation has no recognition among the film selection committee (except for yourself!) means a total break in the effective strands of experimental film itself. 2. this jams us into “their” corner, where censorship itself becomes socially “justified.” I found that in itself quite terrifying for this moment in time. 3. Your own isolation. I don’t see how one’s sensibility can take on a resistant and self-righteous group. You’v planted the crucial seed, taken a firm and clear position. But perhaps, as with the “woman’s movement” it is only with a proportionately shared awareness to make some difference that radical (tho obvious and “simple”) information can be injected into the self-protective hierarchies. El Paso is certainly exceptional for its conservatism . . . (you wrote: “They simply do not like to experience new things”). Since “Fuses” was made from ’64 to ’68 (that long in process), when the cultural Taboos were blatant as malaise and repression,

1976–1986

6 December 1976

277

the loss of recognition of the overall vitalities and ethics of the 60’s is amazing—not what we ever expected! It’s not even a back-lash, more of a fascistic sleep without dreaming, without awakening. [. . .] Anyway I am pleased that you’re there to activate and witness the SA card carriers;27 that Stan spoke well of my work; and finally, that “Fuses” still has “socially redeeming” work to do—only one level of its construction, which by now I fully expected to have been assimilated, absorbed and “fused” with all its other aspects. Do you have my book, “Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter?” I’d like to give you one, but they are about out of print. Perhaps you could get the library to buy it—$6—and steal it from them! I enclose a few fuels for your fires. The Scroll reading image was censored last month in Philadelphia—a huge text and photo blowup for the show “Beyond The Page” was taken down on opening day by the trustees of the gallery . . . so it goes . . . on and on. As you may have guessed, my favorite color is also BLUE. Elizabeth Kulas to CS 28 2 December 1976

1976–1986

You may not remember me but you stayed with Jerry (Kearns)29 and I when you showed two of your films at the University of Mass. They were a powerful experience for me and I’ve now come to understand them. I really loved the piece published in UnMuzzled Ox.30 Beautiful. It has a kind of honesty, the kind we need that is a large part of my work. I did a research paper in which you were included; rereading your book “Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter;” it meant a great deal to me. Various women friends raising their consciousness are reading it now. For the first time I’m having meaningful relationships with women . . . I find we need each other not in the old ways but for things . . . issues we can only resolve between ourselves and through support, at this point in time. Things we cannot resolve in our own singular existences. My work I’d say is similar to yours in sensibility or we have interest in similar kinds of issues. For three years at U. Mass. all but one of the profs who knew my work felt that it was not art . . . and then there was

278

27. Student Association card carriers. 28. Elizabeth Kulas (United States, 1951), artist/activist. 29. Jerry Kearns (United States 1943), painter and filmmaker. 30. See Schneemann’s “Correspondence Course,” The Dumb Ox 10/11 (spring 1980), unpaginated.

a year in graduate school that was dominated by males and they fought my work vehemently. Rebuffing the attacks was unproductive for me or the group so I in many ways isolated myself from the school; it was a hard introspective period for me in which I had to make my work make real sense to me within my own definitions. Some of the time I was actually frightened about making my own work and it really helped me to know your work and you existed. CS to Elizabeth Kulas 6 December 1976

Of course I remember you, and I hope we will see each other when you come to N.Y.—which I consider a brave venture, leaving the containment of the country was painful for me—the shift from Vt to nyc; and even now, each week it’s wrenching . . . but necessary. I’m happy Cézanne was useful—my wish and need to share and clarify the risks, rights of passage. That never ceases. I remember the white works you were making at the time—ropes & strings and chalk, I think; “consecrations” is the word comes to mind, and how they defined space. I’m wondering why you would imagine I might not remember you. Your birthday and Easter. The three of us sitting around your table, discussing the book until you went to bed; your being on some edge which Jerry & I dominated then, made me uneasy about myself. And it was a wonderful, generous time you both provided for my work, for me. Hope the MFA exhibit was appreciated, satisfying for you despite or within the academic art-male preserves. Look forward to our meeting again and thanks for your good letter. Jackson Mac Low to CS 31

Thanks so much for sending me that lovely picture. You look so radiant in it! It’s a joy to look at. I look pretty happy about something too. I can’t remember at all what it was. I’m not even sure which day this was. How in the world did we both get that look as if we’d just spent a wonderful night fucking? I have such a “clean” mind that I never realized it until two different friends [. . .] remarked on our look (which is somewhat 31. Jackson Mac Low (United States, 1922–2004), poet.

1976–1986

7 January 1977, 5:30 a.m.

279

intensified because I masked off the lady to the left & part of the right side, on my bulletin board). Can you possibly get other copies of this picture? (Why, we shd write a book together or make some joint multi-intermedia work so we can use this photo on the book jacket or the flyers (or record album?), don’t you agree?) Why I want other copies is that this one got creased in the mail, right across my eyes & your hand, chin, & shoulders. So I’d like an uncreased one very much. Are you in contact with the photographer? (Was it that man whose name I forget who was going around taking pictures, & who’d been several times to Antarctica as an expedition photographer?) That’s all this letter is about. I’m sorry I cdnt get down to your party, but I got to Charlie’s32 late & found many old friends unexpectedly & a few new ones, so cdnt get out in time to get to your place, for which I’m a little sorry, but which was probably the right thing for that night. We shd sometime soon just get together to talk. We never have, for any length of time, & we shd. For one thing, I’d like to talk about relating to a number of other people. (I wd never begin to tell you about my own situation, which involves not just ABC, but 7 to 10 letters, in a letter, but I’d very much like to talk about it & completely other things.) Thanks again for the photo & especially your radiant look. Please call me sometime when you’re in the city & wd like to talk a while, either at 29th St. or here. CS to Robert Rauschenberg/Changes Inc.

1976–1986

26 April 1977

280

I had just gotten to write this letter for my friend, neighbor and associate Larry Miller,33 when the phone rang and a dancer who had performed with me in Sweden a few years ago, told me she has a tumor, must be operated on and has suddenly to raise several thousand dollars. For myself my teeth are patched and partially saved due to my Changes grant of last year. I begin to see many of us as “Art-Health-Objects” surviving to work again due to . . . Changes, Inc. I want to confirm Larry Miller’s situation: he has been living in penury and by the kindness of a friend whose loft he shares, since his 32. Charles Morrow (United States, 1942), composer. 33. Larry Miller (United States, 1944), artist.

income as a carpenter has been curtailed due to the bone damage in his knees which his application to you describes. He is a marvelous and dedicated artist, working in mixed media—and he is a strong and resourceful man. Despite the onset of the crippling of his legs, he recently presented and built a huge performance labyrinth in the SoHo/Berlin program this fall. His situation is really quite desperate and I hope that Changes, Inc. is currently in the position to help him get treatment over the summer— the convalescence from the operation will take several months. Nanna Nielsen34 came to New York two years ago and worked with the Cunningham Group and with various other experimental dancers. She’s exceptionally vital, gifted and beautiful to work with and see. In her case, as well, it seems to be an emergency and an operation is called for in the coming weeks. She has insurance in Sweden which should cover all or part of the hospitalization and operation costs, but due to the time factor she needs the treatment here before the degree of coverage from Sweden can be ascertained. Our grateful thanks, again, that you are there and may be able to help. CS to Clayton Eshleman

We’ve been reading Archaii;35 your voice there so fluid and strong, the complexities are firm as objects unbroken, as music’s changing lines and tonalities . . . it requires hard listening and seems to cohere effortlessly . . . I’m trying to say how solid the writing is and streams. Also a texture breathes the context, palpable, new; I relate to it, refer to it . . . Cutting a new (and almost final) set of Kitch’s Last Meal; continuous listening and forming on the reels of five years now; may have gotten as close as possible to the textures of pitch, timbre organized from cassettes of ordinary life sounds: music in another room, conversations between the couple clear, or muffled; kitchen noises, glass shattering, a storm, the train, insects. I feel good about the reels now. Overleaf is the work coming forward this month after a year of not showing publicly. Busy with all this; the teaching at New Paltz three days a week (no contract! pays $4—less than unemployment per week . . . they said take 34. Nanna Nielsen (Sweden, 1944), dancer. 35. “Archaii” (1977), a poem by Eshleman.

1976–1986

10 May 1977

281

it or leave it); two courses in Super 8. I enjoy it; remarkable works after I infuse the energy. And it centers me here in the house where I’m usually all alone; Bruce can’t often get here, we spend four or five days in the city at the loft. Much joy. The struggle for him to find some economic base; no money to live by from the press which sustains itself but not him—his own upholder, his own defender; searching for work so he can move to New York. I go to Europe for six weeks, leaving end of May. Will perform new work in Amsterdam, then at a festival; then to do a multiple—hopefully the long dreamed of Book Box, with the Conz Archives36 near Venice. A collector of only twelve artists! Making a little museum of us: Phil Corner, Jon Hendricks, Alison Knowles, etc. He invites you to live at his house while he produces a work you create. He told Philip “if I can’t use my own work to provide $1,000 for an artist I care about to do a work, then I have no wish to be in business.” For the summer Bruce and I will be here finishing our book.37 Look forward to that. CS to Stan Brakhage

1976–1986

23 July 1977

282

I’ve carried this paper to you (and one to Jane) all over Europe, with increasing frustration—not that I couldn’t grasp a moment but the need was to speak with you. [. . .] The “patron” Francesco Conz invites a particular group of artists—individually, although the unexpected bunching-ups were source of delight, consternation (there’s a man in my bed . . . my desk is covered with strange papers!), battles and renewed friendships. Conz invites us to work, to complete a particular project for which we are housed in Medieval mountain splendor (sometimes imprisoned isolation as well), food, work materials, an honorarium provided. The works are limited editions, a certain number to the artist, the rest into his Archives . . . or projected museum. Hermann Nitsch has his own spaces reserved there, and described your films shown in Austria, and in the usual confused babble of languages—at least three going all at once—some enthusiastic reminiscences. If you had a photographic—not film—project in mind this might be something to consider as part of working in Europe. We made an edition of forty plexi-glass “book boxes” which I’v waited 36. Francesco Conz (Italy, 1935–2010), art collector. 37. More Than Meat Joy.

eight years to do—a double hinged section in which acetate photos and the debris of three theater works are collaged; the large book underway with Treacle press38 will go in the book section. It’s beautiful. But Arnhem39 was the place to be, performance there and devoted poet, printer doing an edition of the ABC photos—159 text cards and 159 slide images into photos, edition of 150 in hand made blue boxes. The adventures and labors grounded amazingly in the loving friendship of a 21 year old Dutch poet couchette conductor on the Amsterdam-Milano night train . . . which I had to take often . . . which became a home base (we actually made sort of a “home” each time in the compartment he could save for us, no matter what the touristic frenzy arriving & departing . . .). Italy always operatic, extreme, disorientating riches; while the Dutch I know, came to know, smoothed every way . . . a calm and steady passion to get art into life as we need it to be . . . personal, committed unstintingly. CS to Stan Brakhage 9 September 1977

38. The “large book” to which Schneemann refers is More Than Meat Joy, which McPherson published under Documentext rather than Treacle. Schneemann’s book was the first in the series of Documentext books. In 1983, McPherson merged all of his publishing endeavors under the name McPherson and Company. See Jack Granath, “McPherson & Company,” Rain Taxi: Review of Books (December 1997), full text available at https://www .mcphersonco.com/cs.php?f[0]=frd&fNM=na.php&naNUM=raintaxi. 39. Arnhem, Netherlands. 40. Jane Collum Brakhage Wodening.

1976–1986

I’m a bit overwhelmed with the time at Telluride—with thanks to you for making it happen; that we could all be together dominated the films themselves. These re-unions, “festivals” with their random joys of finding dispersed friends from various other years and places—these have a quality of life-after-death for me; wishful, disorderly, a kind of “heaven”; (people keep embracing, exclaiming “oh I had no idea you’d be here” . . . “I didn’t know myself, it’s all by chance” . . . or . . .) surely these dislocations in sequence, linear progression, the super-imposition and combination of images from pasts into present, being concretely experienced—not evanescent as dreams—were more fascinating to me than any work shared among us. The beautiful straight backed young woman in the shining skirt turned around and was Jane,40 vivid, warm, substantial with the same something untamed, mysterious-presence . . . even brighter, more realized. The children are astonishing; Myrenna

283

more closely the age of Jane when we first met than other approximations of age; Neowyn as an infant had that delicacy still in her body; Crystal, the light, brightness, always “extra, more” I remembered.41 And the two boys becoming men, that next turn and frightening also that I see we have to become old . . . eventually, impossibly, as the others before us. You and I seemed to be afloat on the eddies of events, persons shifting over the hours. A lovely place to be. [. . .] I’m hoping you and Jane can send something personal, brief for the re-union pages in the “More Than Meat Joy;” it’s simply about friendship and time. Cage has made a lovely epigram, Alison Knowles sent a recipe, Paik a dream . . . anything is possible . . . not an “estimation” or difficult thing. Though saying that reminds me how moved I was by your introduction of me and how you’ve continued to open yourself, a generosity . . . Stan Brakhage to CS 19 September 1977

1976–1986

I hand-wrote you a letter about a week ago. It is, I think, as absolute a “document” as anything I’ve ever written. I don’t know if it fulfills the needs of your request or not—does it stand as “document” along side Paik’s poem or Cage’s dream? . . . more to the point, is it true representation of our relationship? I’m very awkward about this sort of thing— have no real feeling for it (or else am misunderstanding what you want). Jane also non-plus’ed, but will send something if it hits her as appropriate. We’re both overworked by sixes and sevens these days—everything happening at once, and us still not recovered from either Telluride or Montréal42 (which came just before). [. . .] “Plumb Line” was, to me, a use of film to accomplish BOLDLY one of the most amazing set of sentiments, and delicacies of feeling, yet unskeined from a strip of celluloid: its strong visuals graphed across the screen something kin to a shriek—but, say, like an oriental shriek (Kabuki or Chinese Opera) which completely and appropriately expressed what is usually muted in human expression.

284

41. Stan and Jane Brakhage’s children are Myrrena, Crystal, Neowyn, Bearthm, Rarc; in his second marriage, to Marilyn Jull, Stan had two more children, Anton and Vaughn. 42. Brakhage attended the first annual Montréal World Film Festival.

James Tenney to CS 43 23 September 1977

I have been told that our word theater (or theatre) comes from the Greek word theatron, first used in the sixth century with the beginning of the theater to mean “a place for seeing.” This, in turn, is derived from the very theasmai, which, in the work of Isocrates (the pre-Socratic philosopher) is used to mean “viewing, as spectators.” In Plato, the word has the slightly different connotation, “to contemplate.” Also derived from theasmai is our word theory, via theoria, which—at earliest–meant “a place for seeing.” In the sixth century Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Pythagoras, categorizes three types of participants at the Olympic Games: those who go to sell peanuts, those who compete, and those who go to contemplate the spectacle—the theori. In Plato the word means “contemplation or consideration,” and Aristotle uses it in the De Memoria to mean “an object of contemplation,” and in the Metaphysics as “speculation.” I can think of no better way to describe the apparent polarity but fundamental unity (through complimentarily) of our processes (yours and mine, during the dozen-or-so years of our “collaborations”) than is suggested by the evolution of these words. That is, both theater and theory are derived from the same root verb, theasmai which, in Herodotus, the Iliad and the Odyssey is used to mean “to gaze at or behold with wonder.” CS to Agnes Varda 44 27 September 1977

43. This letter is reprinted in Schneemann’s More than Meat Joy, p. 270. 44. Agnes Varda (Belgium, 1928), filmmaker.

1976–1986

I’ve been a verbal supporter and agitator (when necessary) for your films. They remained distinguished, pioneering works among the burgeoning films by women in the early seventies. The importance of these new works’ emergence necessitated in my own critical attention, an approach which has carried a double awareness: that while we are conditioned to values of masculist aesthetics, we may have to counter these hierarchical elements in film by extending to the film works by women another sort of tolerance, encouragement—to expand and provide a base for new critical standards—those created by

285

women, recognized by women as formulating concerns and techniques distinctive from those of critically approved “film culture.” To sustain this approach I find I would never be vituperative, aggressively denying and publicly condemning another woman artist’s work. Though I might find it objectionable, hold strict reservations, my larger perspective is based on opening ourselves to new forms which clarify themselves in time, and by juxtaposition to all sorts of related works. Your very public condemnation of my “Interior Scroll” reading was in sharp contrast to the conversation you initiated with me at the last Telluride gathering, which was reasoned, calm, considered. Nevertheless for two days reports came to me of your persistent, aggrieved, and public “denunciation” of the “Scroll” action. Even bartenders and waiters commented to friends that “Agnes Varda was making a scene.” This I consider fascistic (you used the metaphor of a “fascistic zooming” in an otherwise well-intentioned “liberal” film); because you interfered with the private space of other people to make their own independent estimation of “Interior Scroll.” The intensity of your objections were, in effect, an invasion of private psychic space. The quality of your reactions—apart from speaking with me I consider hypocritical—a form of public betrayal and indulgence. In this situation you seemed to see yourself as judge, arbitrator and upholder of the “proper” sort of feminine collective conscious and creative will—to justify the intensity and expression of your objections to “Interior Scroll.” And of course you have every right to define the areas of feminine creative values you are committed to. Nevertheless I want to convey my objections to beating down one area of aesthetic concern with another, when the larger cultural issues should unite us in tolerance and an opening of expectations given public issue. CS to Robert Haller 45 23 October 1977

1976–1986

Your recent letter commenting on the relation of Loving, Fuses and Lovemaking 46 invites a cat out of the bag, and for me clears an intermesh of experiences, more than “a footnote.” In Loving I was both participant in and subject to Stan’s search for

286

45. Robert A. Haller (United States, 1929), author, film critic. 46. Brakhage’s films include Loving (1957) and Lovemaking (1968); Schneemann’s film is Fuses (1964–67).

47. Brakhage: Daybreak (1957) and Whiteeye (1957). 48. The title is Desistfilm (1954). 49. Window Water Baby Moving (1962).

1976–1986

a visualized sexual self-definition; to have been naked and fucking— which was my natural wish and need then for my lover and myself, and for my sense of Stan’s filmmaking—would have been to assert my dominant sexual nature over his pursuit of his own through us. (This was before meeting Jane; after a year exploring life in New York during which Stan had a brief intimacy with my closest friend, a writer; and with JoAnn, Jim’s sister, who is the subject of Day Break and referred to in White Eye, which was filmed in our house in Vermont . . . the “I love you” on the window had been written by Jim to me . . .).47 Perhaps Stan recognized in Jim’s and my love a key to sustained and equitable erotic intimacy; but for many reasons in Loving, he and we were subject to that continuum of outdoor foreplay. Since Stan was Jim’s closest friend and identified with the progress of his life since High School, there was an ambiguity as to which of us was the sexual focus of his conscious/unconscious desires and identifications; did Stan come closer to Jim through his sexual acceptance of me with Him?; did he feel any erotic bond to me through his affection for Jim? Were we together symbolic of something as yet unrealized in his own experience? The genital taboos between the men were stronger than any for me, or than for me and Jim. I became the vehicle through which the men revealed as much as possible of their developing erotic natures. (And Jim had been the alter-ego or “stand-in” for Stan in previous films . . . the first Desist).48 The taboos I encountered, sensed were not internalized—that is why I was able to use our own life in Fuses, which was to a degree motivated to “make-up” for the erotic partiality of Loving. Like Cat’s Cradle, Loving was an extremely frustrating event, in which I felt repressed, witnessed, appreciated but constrained. Fuses was also an “answer” to Window Water Baby Moving, that extraordinary work, in which the birth anteceded the lovemaking which produced the birth.49 A very different source of emphasis, each a piece to the puzzle of relationship, desire, ecstasy imaged in specific moments of actual life. Around the filmmaking with Stan we three argued endlessly over Stan’s concept of “use.” I felt “used” because not freely, fully myself in Loving and Cat’s Cradle; because central energies of Jim’s and my life together were fragmented or diverted from image. This has aspects

287

of my friendship with Joseph Cornell (whom I met through Stan), in which I was constrained to a role, a partial recognition and expression of self; because “more” would have destroyed what I did value in these relations. Your question is one which I’v thought about for all these years— since I was eighteen, in love with Jim, freely embraced in the grass and leaves in front of Stan’s lens, until those moments when Jim and I had to go alone into our cabin to consecrate our desire, and return again with Stan “shooting” us. One further thread is that Lovemaking may have been made as a response to Fuses; it comes several years later. The conditions of affinity, mutual influence and response are more consistent between Stan’s and my work than is normally understood. (This could go back to my working from nature—as a painter—when we first met and my insistence then that Stan look at nature, learning a language there of form and transformation, and to study painting.) [. . .] I wanted to mention to you my correspondence with Joseph Cornell, which an Italian publisher is interested in bringing out—it is very beautiful because the letters are embellished with wonderful tokens and signs; in the course of the correspondence—over ten years—Joseph finally reveals the source and nature of his own mysterious sexuality. I am wondering if this might be something for the Pittsburgh film-book editions rather than a European press. Robert Haller to CS

1976–1986

28 October 1977

288

Your wonderful letter arrived yesterday—and you are right, letting the cat out of the bag is much more than a footnote. I quite agree with many of the things you say, and suggest, about your influence on and interactions with Stan’s films. You have refocused some of my thoughts on this pivotal period of his life, and illuminated further my understanding of your own remarkable work. As many people know, because Jonas50 mentioned it in one of his columns six months ago, Stan has lent me his papers for cataloging and research purposes. I am finding it a treasure trove not only about Stan, but also about a whole generation of film-makers in the 1960s and 1970s— 50. Jonas Mekas.

51. Hollis Frampton, (United States, 1936–84), filmmaker and theorist. 52. Paul Sharits (United States, 1943–93), filmmaker. 53. Kenneth Anger (United States, 1927), filmmaker. 54. Bruce Conner (United States, 1933–2008), artist and filmmaker. 55. Larry Jordan (United States, 1934), filmmaker. 56. Ten works exist under this title Short Films: 1975 (1975). 57. In Thigh Line Lyre Triangular (1961), Brakhage documented the birth of his second child, Crystal, following Window Water Baby Moving (1959), a document of Jane’s Brakhage’s pregnancy and the birth of their first child, Myrenna. 58. Scott Bartlett (United States, 1943), filmmaker and producer.

1976–1986

Hollis Frampton,51 Paul Sharits,52 Kenneth Anger,53 Bruce Conner,54 you, Larry Jordan,55 [. . .] One of the reasons why I am so interested in the Fuses: Loving— Lovemaking—Short Films: 197556 juxtaposition is the way each of these very different films approaches the issue of intercourse (I am refraining from using the word “fucking” for reasons which will become clear). In Brakhage’s case he has made one film each decade (in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, so far) overtly concerned with this basic matter—which in its physical sense is very limited, although in other ways, the important dimensions of the physical conjunction of two people, has universal possibilities. Stan, for instance, has made an important issue out of the difference of his two titles (Loving and Lovemaking), suggesting that the first film is more about affection and caring, whereas the second is more concerned with the physical imperatives for coupling (or just “fucking”). Your film, to my eyes, does everything Stan’s first two did (albeit Lovemaking was made after Fuses), and also adds other dimensions that are very much yours: a political sense (you and Jim are real equals in Fuses—the film revels in the sexuality of males and females, not just from one point of view, as in the works of others: one example is your treatment of the erect penis which too many artists still shy away from; you make it, for heterosexual male viewers, such as myself, as erotic and attractive as your own breasts, vagina, your whole body). Another of your dimensions is your use of paint on the film, and the other emulsion altering processes such as baking, which do not, as in Brakhage’s Thigh Line Lyre Triangular 57 obscure the image or serve just as a metaphor for something, but which intensify the on-screen loving. Your film is substantially about joy, ecstasy in a way Stan’s (and Scott Bartlett’s and others on the act)58 are not. Now, Stan’s new film in Short Films: 1975 is very different from Lovemaking, and more like Loving, with its lovers in a forest, with an emphasis on caressing and holding and loving, rather than just fucking as in Lovemaking. What is fascinat-

289

ing about this is the way Stan’s perception/filming of this has changed over time (granted, his objectives were different in each film, and he has used a sense of intimacy—sexual—in other films, such as Scenes From Under Childhood, Part III, where I felt I knew Jane on a new erotic level).59 Thus, finally, I come to my question of you. Have you made other works about loving/fucking/intercourse that could be compared to Fuses as I have discussed Stan’s films above (in your letter you already compared Loving to Fuses)? I don’t know your work that well, but I am sure the answer is yes; perhaps in other media (I had a strong sense that Plumb Line is a continuation of your concerns in Fuses, and Kitch’s Last Meal too, but I can’t recall them that well). Robert Haller to CS 26 November 1977

1976–1986

This was my fifth time through Fuses, but the first time I began to consciously recognize a number of things in the film. A few are: the silence (no sound) is very important in that it adds to the dream-trance state of the film (echoing the “dream”/superimpositions that riddle the film itself ). I became aware of the purpose of the double images that appear so often: you and Jim taking similar physical positions (one knee up, one leg straight, etc.), footage flipped vertically and horizontally, the latter especially within a few feet of each other, so we can notice the repetition—all to assert the equality of the participants and the ongoing rhythmic nature of your life, your loving, as well as the intercourse on the screen. The film grows more gentle each time I see it, noticing gestures (like Jim drawing his hand along your cheek and then placing it—his hand—over his breast) that were lost in initial viewings. It also grows more erotic as one recognizes specific gestures and caresses that also become visible. I find myself in the unusual position of knowing you rather well (I think) on a verbal level, and watching (and participating, in some of the more important sexual ways) in the act of intercourse on a physical level—when I don’t think I have ever touched any part of your body except your hand. Yet those are your breasts, your lips, your thighs that I feel I know so intimately (I know too that you have made an intense, largely successful, effort not to separate your mind

290

59. There are four works in Scenes from under Childhood: No. 1 (1967); No. 2 & No. 3 (1969); and No. 4 (1970).

and body); but that doesn’t change the schizoid effect on me (which is not at all unpleasant!). Perhaps more important than all of the foregoing is the extent to which I am now aware of the integration of the sea footage, and the Kitch footage, into the intercourse footage (I still can’t bring myself to use the phrase “fuck footage” because I associate fucking with an act against or upon someone, on a purely physical level, i.e. mindless, exploitative—which you aren’t). In all previous viewings I knew that was your intention, but now I am beginning to see how the camera movements across human bodies, the cat body, and the ocean are deliberately linked, wedding the different images on a kinesthetic level hard to pinpoint but nevertheless very affecting. I don’t yet have my hand on (or to follow the metaphors of the film, my penis/eye in) the function of the cutout geometric superimpositions, apart from the fact that they now seem functional (when before they didn’t). The immediate reaction to them is as vaginal orifices, but more important to their effect is (I think) their kinesthetic quality, not some sexual overtone. Kitch is central to much of this because the cat’s impact on the film is to at once stand in for the spectator’s eye, and to educate that eye by associating intercourse/ocean/animal movement/cinema/ seeing/understanding/transcending. After your screening at Carnegie Institute four years ago somebody said to me that the film wasn’t much, it was so obvious, “That pussy was Schneemenn’s cunt . . .” as if that snide cliché summed up the film, and defused it for him. How he missed the point (and how sad). We live in the womb of the universe, which is echoed all around us (in your vagina, your eyes, your camera, my mind, the ocean . . .) in nature, and in your film. CS to Daryl Chin 10 December 1977

60. Susan Sontag (United States, 1933–2004), literary critic and filmmaker. 61. Ramones, a rock band founded in 1974.

1976–1986

Now about your AGEIST letter . . . I want to take that up . . . the interview with Sontag60 you mention and her wanting to see the Ramones61 . . . and your “why can’t people just age gracefully i.e. not try to be upto-the-minute” . . . and “then too much to see so one restricts oneself ” . . . but there is also the internalizing restricting of one generation turn-

291

1976–1986 292

ing on its antecedents and saying your presence invalidates the unique invention of our moment . . . I mean, I got a lot of those messages: we want/need you to see what we’re doing/you’re influence/respect/ means a lot/take a look and many thanks, what a terrific friend and artist . . . followed shortly by: We’ve got our own territory now/grow up/ hang out with your own crowd . . . the growing old gracefully becomes an implied social imposition from the somewhat-younger artists to the ones just ahead who were worshipped for their nourishing flavors and absorbed into the new art-body which then inoculates itself against a free exchange of vital fluids with the disowned parent body/which had seemed like a sibling perhaps until the strength of rejection took form . . . it stinks and it’s tiresome and it’s weird . . . when that happens to me I can never again quite be “myself ” without turning out as another “rare” exception, a rarity, it’s even in the way the once-friends look at me: cooled out cut off a self-conscious strain to anything to be shared communicated across the divide demarked now of “our mark”/“your mark.” [. . .] Women who are forty usually look strange to people who are 26—they are blamed and blame themselves for the wear or pain or disillusion on their faces even though they know themselves to be essentially the same person they always were. The double flip-flops start and they only go in one direction of tolerance and insight—from the older person to the younger—because for us it is the recapitulation of what we knew we felt and projected when younger onto those artists older and ahead of us . . . Another cruel and amusing variation of the perspective of parenthood—you assimilate the awful things the child does because you’ve had as the child of parents to do them yourself . . . and your time includes both the anger and pain brought to you, the sources of it, the motives which you recognize—and finally the privilege of getting older is the range of simultaneous perspectives one has to have a hold of. Sontag, if she’s still like me as she was when we were friends, always identified with new energies and was curious—good, bad, substantial or faddish—forms and manifestations on which she builds, constructs—the idea that her ideas themselves have to take a restricted nourishment is really to accuse her jealously of projective possession— that is, that she will come in and gulp up new energies and rebelling systems into her analytic maw—which clarified, structured so particularly and yet allows wide range of associations and constructs . . . I get it as a possessive cry: keep her out of our (NEW YOUNG SEPARATE)

territory . . . she vitiates it by representing the past against which we set ourselves/or she won’t get it anyway because it’s not her authentic energy system/or if she does get “it,” write about “it,” classify us among her other critical displays we’re under glass, dead and frozen on the tract of history before we made our run . . . (we’re not vagrant variant unique enough to escape her spectrum analysis . . . or would the PR do us good? hmmmmm how about press passes to her agent hmmm . . .). Anyway it’s all biological/time, fuses, pulsed on the bio-vego cellular clockwork, certain impulses have to be lived out at certain times. Well I can’t keep my mind here too many enemies this week! Have to go and sharpen feminist swords against the fascist feminists (kiss kiss Wilke is even at moments anarchistically-politically CORRECT . . . so how clear can anything get?????).62 CS to Bridget Kollerström63

Very dear Bridget: Thank you so much for writing to me of Oscar’s death; it is some solace that you were not apart. I looked in my dairy to see if anything unusual had communicated itself to me. On March 2nd I had written: “early this morning in the Port Authority Bus Station a palpable shock after so many months of ‘absence;’ Kitch arrives! I was just stepping onto the escalator, moving down to the bus to go home to the country . . . the impact, she is holding on to me, so present, such a long time since I’v felt her shape, weight . . . She streams into me . . . does she carry a message of a death? Is that message a wave she rides to crash her small sweet fur body over mine? The yellow eyes . . .” (Kitch died February 3rd 1976, and I won’t say to you that in our twenty years together she was “only a cat”). Of you and Oscar, feeling so much a unity—by coincidence or synchronicity—the unity of coming together fixed in the memory of shared time, environment, the unfolding events—so our disparate exits are fracturing, unbearable. In my mind Oscar and you, the Westcroft Square house, the little dogs yapping, then Anthony and the seasons shifting as I stand at your door (the fan of dreams light spreading from disorientations to clarity, strengths, in which every visual perspective is 62. Hannah Wilke. 63. Bridget Köllerström (Eng­land, ca. 1900–1985) wife of Dr. Oscar Kollerström.

1976–1986

5 January 1978

293

1976–1986

altered—again at your door . . .)—in minds eye you occupy each others form and the house itself . . . forever! (This variation on Oscar’s “recall of an eternal moment—transposing it into the briefest flash of autobiographic memory.” From The Actual and The Real.)64 Dear Bridget, I’m happy you are working on his books—it is so important that they be published;65 and that you are continuing Oscar’s work with the patients—you will be a great comfort and source of regeneration for them. I think you are extraordinarily brave, gifted, and I know how close and present Oscar is with you. Still, I can think of no words to bridge the painful mystery of presence/absence; perhaps only Oscar could guide me to understand my sorrow and wonderment that he is not materially present with us. He was so extraordinary! Singular in full insight, empathy and the accuracy of its direction (and weight or lightness); his thoughts so incisive, keen, never manipulative—grace, humor, integral full feeling and its measure . . . a spiritual alchemist and indeed a rare healer of the human psyche. It would give me great joy to have a photograph of Oscar; I see him vividly at any moment and my wish is to include an image of him on the page in my book “Of Friends and Influences”66—which is a collage of photographs of certain friends and teachers, their names, without commentary. For me it is a space to visit those I’v loved and who have in their various ways made this important book come to life.67 I “see” many images of photographs in your house: Oscar in fulldress, a hat and a cane, his arm around you; you are in a full skirted, off the shoulder dress with a corsage—radiant. In another Oscar is seated, smiles towards the camera (which may be worked by you). I see the monocle and watch chain . . . another is a family gathering with the two of you in the center . . . you are wearing a woolen dress, full gathered red skirt with ribbon trim on it (and gloves?), younger grown up man and woman are on either side of you and Oscar. I wonder if any of this is actual! If you can send a negative I will have it printed and returned to you within ten days—that’s really a sacred sort of trust for me and imagesource; if you have only an original it should not be risked in the mail but that involves making a copy which could be a nuisance for you to

294

64. Oscar Köllerström, The Actual and the Real (London: Turnstone Books, 1974). 65. These books were never published. 66. See More than Meat Joy, 256. 67. Schneemann and McPherson included statements by and photographs of friends in More Than Meat Joy.

arrange. If you had a duplicate print I would copy it and send yours back . . . in any case, care and dispatch! I know how very busy you must be and hope you will be able to grant my favor, or to let me know otherwise as I’m doing the page collage now. I send fondest good wishes for a happy and productive New Year, for the strengths and joys Oscar would wish for you, and love. CS to Susan Hiller 68 15 February 1978

68. Susan Hiller (United States, 1940), artist. 69. “The Goddess,” a special issue of Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art, and Politics 5 (August 1978). 70. Valie Export (Austria, 1940), artist and filmmaker. 71. Caroline Drewes (United States, ca. 1958), art student studying with Schneemann during the year she taught at Rutgers University. 72. Sisters of Menon (1972), an installation by Susan Hiller.

1976–1986

I waited to write you on two grounds: 1) I submitted several works I believed in for the Goddess issue—“believed in,” in almost a religious sense, yes . . . and my own work: EVERYTHING WAS THROWN OUT.69 But not all at once, therefore: 2) I’v prepared a letter to you and Valie Export,70 Caroline Drewes,71 Jaimy Gordon . . . for us to share, describing something of the labyrinthial “contradiction” between aesthetic/ spiritual concerns/struggles to obfuscate and manipulate will to power/ dominate ego needs denied in the guise of shooting down exactly those works which are close, illuminate territory . . . The bullies and the sloths win. I re-submitted “Menon”72 last week, and did not finish our “rejection letter,” because groups continue to meet twice a week now . . . changes . . . but not . . . And I can hardly write to you because I’v been so shocked, outraged and fascinated by the social process—tempering my own wishes—to see what could be learned to the value of the group at large . . . to accept that, not only was anything of value I contributed to the group to be immediately assimilable (and anonymous) insight/principle, but that my own work and these works I was most committed to would be found incomprehensible, misunderstood . . . and believing that this would change, that perhaps my personality was interfering with the perception of the submissions . . . giving them over to others to present (again) . . . Susan, it’s been a nightmare . . . I’v been pushed to those isolated, suicidal edges within the arms of my “sisters” . . . I never learned the

295

1976–1986

art/wars/games played with the men and couldn’t do the women’s version . . . Each “collective” you should understand forms itself anew for each Heresies issue around a particular theme . . . if you attend the meetings you are part of the collective . . . then within this group sub-topics are made and you can belong to one or all of them! . . . We had committees for: Visual/History/Archeology/Poetry/The Personal/ . . . submissions are brought in, invited, or arrive in the mail . . . each committee chooses their material for the issue and THEN re-submits it in general meetings of everyone else . . . so the archeology committee “really responded negatively” (the language of the meetings begins . . .) to your piece and mine! and Caroline Drewes . . . Why? why . . . because they (many of these groups) seem to be in terror of spiritual manifestations/of unconscious energies and relations which cannot finally be rationalized or dramatized . . . because dramatization maintains a narrative form so that one does not have to choose to open, receive, take in . . . being led ... Hierarchically the visual committee had less power to reject or object to archeological material (for instance) BECAUSE the old masculist split on authority of literary/rational forms over imagistic/metaphoric forms was still operative in our groups . . . It’s hopeless. This letter is a mess. It stands for my inability to cut through the actual group process as well as inability to clarify the chaos in writing you about it. At the same time I think it will be a splendid and vital issue covering full manifestations of the Goddess principle . . . there’s that irony which remains along with: “I’m on your side and I think you want to kill me! . . . or am I crazy?” I know you’ve been through bouts of this in London, and you understand how indescribable the details and convolutions are—I remember the rounds you endured with . . . name slipped . . . G? Serpentine . . .73 I very much want to know what MaryBeth74 wrote you. I’v often been close to her in the long reviewing, submissions process . . . finally she chopped up an article’s reference to my new performance “HOMERUNMUSE” . . . Lucy’s75 writing was unanimously accepted— tell her, if she doesn’t know that now please . . . [figure 50] [. . .] Initial reaction to “Sisters”76 was awe and fascination, delight;

296

73. Serpentine Gallery, London. 74. Mary Beth Edelson (United States, 1934), artist. 75. Lucy Lippard (United States, 1937), art historian. 76. Sisters of Menon.

later some of “them” tipped the approval by finding the visual imagery “meaningless” . . . none of the women had ever heard of Valie Export and found the photographs of an action sequence (leaving the sea with loaves of bread tied to her feet)77 unclear, ambiguous and also not “good photographs” . . . the Caroline Drewes they understood as a visually projected set of mathematical evocations by which ancient languages connected to myth and Goddess imagery . . . and rejected these incredible drawings and notations as “too obscure” . . . my visual piece was a documentation of mystical affinities embedded in various works through the years and the first reaction was “I wish I had done that” . . . finally rejected for putting images of my body next to images of the Goddess . . . “personalism” . . . and then “anyone could have done that” . . .

77. A description of Valie Export’s performance Homometer (1973).

1976–1986

50. Carolee Schneemann, invitation for Homerunmuse, 1977, performance at Brooklyn Museum of Art. Photograph by Bill Thompson. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann and Bill Thompson.

297

CS to Moira Roth78 18 February 1978

I was quite astonished by, admiring of your “The Aesthetic of Indifference”79 . . . because it formalized, developed a coherent analytic procedure for issues which were central to a secret feminist perception—issues which are crucial to my own understanding but which had never been validated, never nudged into the art-hierarchies of what is understood. (It’s early and I’m slipping between these awful words but . . .) I’ll have to speak with you sometime to discuss the manifold layerings it touches on between the personal (lived)/aesthetic (created and endured—by others). Sometime early in the 60s the poets, whose work and spirit were most inspiring and confirming to my own, fell aground for me on the facts of their life; they mythicized the poor young woman in the next room suckling their baby—neither of whom the poet had REALLY seen/looked at/for a week (touched, I meant and fucked was also drained into a distancing abstraction). Anyway, when I teach anything I always suggest the students know about the life behind the work—in so far as that is possible . . . because the de-mystification of “art” and its “higher purposes” is not simply overt on the economic parameters . . . well you’ve made something essential and neglected clear, and a means now of going further . . . Susan Hiller to CS 28 February 1978

1976–1986

no time now to reply to yours in detail. (you left out the homey photos; do send . . .) having just been excluded from 2 major publications here on similar grounds (what these grounds are, i suspect, but can’t define) this month, i conclude there is something important going on that needs to be faced, understood, and overcome. my work and my person generate extreme interest, envy, and malice. the irony of being rejected by the heavies is that i’m one of them, that is, someone with grand soc. sci. qualifications, actual field experience of anthropology, theoretical work in linguistics, big grant from national science foundation, teaching fellowship etc.—which i gave up for complex reasons (talked about this last year at inst. for soc. anthro., oxford, and will again at my

298

78. Moira Roth (Eng­land, 1933), art historian. 79. Moira Roth, “The Aesthetic of Indifference,” Artforum 16, no. 3 (November 1977): 46–53.

80. Noam Chomsky (United States, 1928), linguist, philosopher, political activist, and writer. 81. David Coxhead (Eng­land, 1940), novelist. 82. Jill Purce (Eng­land, 1947), general editor of the series “Art and Imagination” for Thames and Hudson and pioneer of vocal techniques for healing through sound.

1976–1986

oxford/cambridge show) mainly summed up by chomsky’s80 remark that “the social sciences ought to be studied not only for their intrinsic interest but also in order to understand that they have absolutely nothing to say about the basic issues of human existence” or something to that effect . . . the “meaningless” visuals in Menon are a “morphemic analysis” that is, graphic indications of meaning-units . . . so. but i feel i’m in good company . . . i (actually david pointed this out to me)81 think a better strategy than your unsent letter to the collective would be a letter analyzing why each of the works you submitted was rejected. something of this comes across in the personal letter you sent me; this would make a good tailpiece to the heresies issue, and perhaps could then be included. my own non-appearance in so many publications over the years distresses me, because i feel my work deserves better. certainly i didn’t “submit” Menon for rejection, and feel, guiltily, that i have done the Sisters a serious injury. i and what comes through are being disappeared, sunk without trace. however, i do find that recently this doesn’t bother me as much as i think it ought to. i feel, “for some reason,” things will come out right. now, another piece of strategic/tactical advice. i know you know this better (even) than i do: if you can’t get a collectivity to see your point of view, find an empty space and fill it alone with your energy. now: the goddess book/slot at thames & hudson is still waiting to be filled. i just spoke to jill p.82 who says that the letter you sent was too “vague and unformulated” to be able to act on. she is extremely interested in having you do the book, and i think the distribution would be much better than the press you mentioned is interested. it would mean that you would simply have to sit down and write out, at length, a simplified outline or presentation of some kind, that you would not have to stick to (keep that to yourself ) in the actual writing. before they can commission a book, they need to argue it out at various levels; jill p. herself needs to be convinced, then she can try to convince the others. she does not want a “political or straight feminist book” but does not know what either politics or feminism is about. i assured her you were a “mystical feminist” who would be acceptable to the movement (they do not want

299

to do a book that will be blasted), respected here & abroad, who had done tons of research. i said also you were somewhat paranoid about having your material ripped off, and so would not want to submit actual texts or pictures yet . . . do, please think about this. maybe you can ask a friend to help you prepare something with “““total impact””” that will impress publishers . . . try to think of this phase as a silly game, which it is. but the difference here is, its possible to win . . . and of course, as well as an altruistic interest in your book, i would hope that “Menon” could be rescued from limbo by inclusion, and i know T & H83 can afford color plates to run the original! so! if you will be here this summer, you can then work on jill in person. but if you dont get the bumpf to her NOW she will commission someone else. names that she mentioned included julia blackburn,84 and also someone who’s doing a conference in santa barbara . . . you ought to mention your study group thing and anything else that sounds academic. hope you don’t mind the above remonstration. i often wish someone would bully me into doing things i ought to, but cant face . . . but of course that doesnt mean you wish this, also. CS to Susan Hiller

1976–1986

3 March 1978

300

The value of new, exploratory work takes a pressure, an accumulating set of pattern recognitions which really pull and tug and stretch on/out of all those forms which have already brought us to the point where we recognize the next step or leap . . . (Possessive of these FAT winter birds at my tree; they are like feathered breasts (not beasts) skipping from limb to limb. I feed them before the snow storms . . . this very distracting reward.) I was trying to re-trace the occurrences by which I saw not simply that your work was “interesting” to me, but was evolving aggregates, significant shifts in visual premises, and what lay behind a recognition of that fact . . . went back to the accumulating recognitions. There in the works, then were forces which carried my own connections to material and its formations, the embedded “thought” or mind of it. Then it hits sort of a deep, unformalized plateau where I feel it’s a privilege and sustenance to be as close to your work, to follow it, and also of course to 83. Thames and Hudson Publishers, London. 84. Julia Blackburn (Eng­land, 1948), author.

85. Gloria Orenstein (United States, 1938), art historian.

1976–1986

you—but the “you” is the conveyance for the work just as I understand myself to be a parallel or associative conveyance for my work . . . that “track” of self to the work—a special friendship then, communicating process to each other . . . [. . .] The narrow judgments and exclusions of important works in the Heresies collective was from the “scholars” among us—if the visual arts group hadn’t had to have the collective vote of the other units, the works I submitted would be in. It was a gap in knowledge and practice and the “authority” of those specialized in verbal-theoretical forms ran rough shod over the rest of us. There is no way that the collective would allow me space to analyze the rejections—that sort of re-education would require weeks of group consciousness raising because along with the cultural issues are complicated (and by now convoluted) personality struggles. Some of the groups are working at that now—getting clear with one another, but I’v had to drop out to keep editing and production on “More Than Meat Joy” even remotely close to deadline. And it is an immense labor . . . we’re gaga . . . had to add 30 pages and have to raise $4,000 . . . in loans; doing design, layout, cropping, paste up ourselves! In the bare interstices of my brain not consumed with the big book, I’v had some glimmers on the Goddess work you justly bully me about. And I want your advice, help further. What I see as a real possibility now is an anthology of Goddess related imagery in contemporary works; a wealth of material of amazing quality has come into the Heresies issue, and many essential explorations underway will not be represented in that issue. My idea now is to compile, edit a selection; an excellent essay on why this imagery occurs now—written by Gloria Orenstein,85 taking in religious, Jungian, Freudian aspects turned to a re-discovery of personal relation out of the obscure patriarchal systemizations . . . And I’m thinking of this book as something you and I could collaborate on. I can’t go back to my original research on gynocracy—take on an istorical perspective as such—because that time has past, not only personally (all the other subsequent work) but because there are so many scholars working intensively in spheres I could only touch on—epistemology, artifacts, etc. (which would have been fine as pointing the way three years ago . . .). It’s all happening very fast here. The Santa Cruz conference on the Great Goddess Re-Emerging will be intensive— I’m sending you the notice on xerox. Will shoot “Menon” onto slides

301

for Orenstein to present in her lecture there. The real problem now is time—the big book is here, everywhere, I haven’t a minute apart from it—at one time I thought it possible . . . but I’m teaching, and run ragged . . . I have to dream it, sleep it, eat it . . . until April. What do you think about the art anthology idea? Finally as you say in your letter (and for better or worse in relation to the “slowed time” notion) I also feel that our works will come through . . . delay and perseverance. Moira Roth to CS 4 March 1978

1976–1986

I am being sounded out by Arturo Schwarz to write a monograph on Performance. (I don’t know if I told you but I am currently doing a study of the California Performance—am enclosing the first article.) Just got a letter from him, and have written back asking for more information— he had read my Arts86 article and liked it very much. If I do—but there again, even if I don’t, would still want the same material for my own sense of history—would be systematically doing research on East Coast Performance, especially its early history, and you are obviously the person I should—and am—beginning with. SO—is there any material you could easily send me on yourself, xeroxes of articles, photographs, slides. That kind of thing. It would be wonderful. I also think, and have talked to David Antin about this, that Arturo Schwarz or not, I can definitely start publishing a couple of essays on the subject—Arts has given me a sort of open invitation to write, and so has Artforum, so I think either, or perhaps both, of these magazines would be interested in an essay on East Coast Performance. I write slowly so it will take some time, but I would like to begin with you. MAY I? Am very happy and touched that you liked the “Aesthetic of Indifference.” I have been asked by Artforum to do a sequel to it—and will be writing on the late 1960s, early 1970s—about attempts at Commitment, especially focusing on Feminism and Performance. So you can see that I have some loose and—even to myself—somewhat elusive but coherent scheme to my interests and a focus that hopefully will pull together over the next couple of years.

302

86. Moira Roth, “Toward a History of California Performance: Part One,” Arts Magazine 52, no.6 (February 1978): 94–103. See also Roth’s “Toward a History of California Performance: Part Two,” Arts Magazine 52, no. 10 (June 1978): 114–222.

CS to Robert Haller

I’m frantic with work but must take a moment to clarify some points in your Filmmakers program notes which have to do with the very subtle distortions of specific statements shifting context. It’s not “misquoting,” it is rather like a slip of the frame . . . Loving was not the film of Stan’s in which I felt my “central energies” were avoided by him; that was Cat’s Cradle which had to do with the surround of our home, the four people in interchange through camera eye—and that “home” space was the center of our working processes— our studios in fact. Loving was a pristine and exquisite concentration of lovers bodies in the fall of leaves and sun—it happened to be us but there was no need whatsoever to “personalize” the situation, the filming; we were pleased to be his lovers for the film. It was frustrating because we needed to fuck and that raised issues outside of the scope of Stan’s film, and issues about the penetration of camera eye—who was loved and held and from what deep feelings of Stan’s . . . complex . . . I don’t want to be a judge of evolving consciousnesses (ours, then) in retrospect. I’ll explain my unease about masking, unclarity, masculist myths and certain struggles I endured and grew into/out of/around with Stan. But it is still a living process and I can’t stand to get a slipped insight frozen in a complaining, vituperative position—that is not the whole story and I want to insist on that dialectical or multiple awareness and ask you to watch for it . . . not to take up the simple length of argument at one point and close an issue . . . It’s further complex because Stan was originally/essentially Jim’s friend; in Loving (and at other times) the emphasis of address was between them—the two old friends; their understandings together had precedence in duration, depth, continuity . . . I wasn’t excluded but the sense in the program notes sort of colors in Stan and me, and Jim is auxiliary to those “figurations;” while actually the balance was slightly different—Jim was the central pivot—to Stan, to me, he brought us together; his patience, adventurousness, clarity, spirit, and tigerish, tender physicality has to be referred to . . . My “frustration” in those early days to which you refer had to do with THE ENTIRE WORLD OF CULTURE FRAGMENTING AND EXCLUDING FEMALE PRINCIPLE the “I love you” on our door was minor and I knew it then and would mention now not as significant in itself but ONLY in

1976–1986

17 March 1978

303

relation to the larger struggle endured . . . to weight that is picky and slight and makes no sense to people who don’t necessarily feel themselves the tremendous pressure against/pushing down/and against a young woman living through her art . . . Now I really have to know if you think those notes went to Stan in some form or another—because if they do/did I would imagine he would feel I was fighting over old dry straws, taking advantage of past closeness in some way which would be distressing to him now—it would be to me! Personal istories I feel free to describe to you may not be public material in any case—there are real and significant conflicts, misunderstandings to be unearthed and examined in terms of the film work and mutual life crossings . . . but we’ve got to get the full form or else it will be needlessly hurtful, damaging and deny all the growth and change which has occurred. CS to Gene Youngblood

1976–1986

21 March 1978

304

I was happy to have good news of you recently, from both Moira Roth and Jud Yalkut.87 They mentioned your in-process work on video and I wanted to let you know something of what I’v been doing with video over the past five years (since I’v been back from London). I enclose some notations and commentary on a work for which video is central, “Up To And Including Her Limits”; the video camera accumulates indeterminate repetitions and variations of event (the trance suspension on the rope, with hand “tracking” motion with chalk, scrawling messages). In both this piece and the recent HOMERUNMUSE (at the Brooklyn Museum, November), the video-tapes function as witness and as a form of information commenting upon itself—simultaneously the immediate present, depository of action/time, and historizing element. In “Up To And Including Her Limits” the accumulated tapes are shown at the same time with a monitor recording the present events; the monitors are placed in an opposite area from the live action, forcing viewers to choose what is immediate—in effect, to create their own lapse-synch. The tension of this fact (or dilemma) is in relation to other discrepancies of perception by which the overall work is organized by the spectators. (The enclosed notes might clarify this.) 87. Jud Yalkut (United States, 1938), artist and filmmaker.

In HOMERUNMUSE, video monitors show the audience actions they cannot see: I run into large areas of the museum where a camera picks up the action which is seen on monitors close to the audience area—to which I return. There are bells around my legs which ring as I disappear from view and are picked up on the blank monitor; I run back into my own sound, in an overlap (lap-dissolve) of invisible-present/visible/ present. All my recent works incorporate an unknown outcome or direction as part of the work process itself; a degree of interaction with the actual physical situation leads to unpredictable resolutions; these the video camera contains and freezes. I look forward to “The Future Of Desire”—in every sense, and know it will be a crucial and splendid work. I’v been tied to the typewriter for a good part of two years, finishing now “More Than Meat Joy” . . . books books . . . that Camus quote, something like “once you’ve established your principles you’re forced to live with them . . .” Gene Youngblood to CS

What a pleasant surprise to hear from you after all these years. I appreciate very much your letter and the documents, which make me wish I could experience your work in person. I’m now working seven days a week to finish The Future of Desire by August.88 I will have invested ten full years in it by the time it’s published next spring. It has been an amazing decade for me, tragic and transcendental and mundane. I’ve changed a lot, as I’m sure you have too (although I don’t really know you, and thus don’t know what “change” means for you . . .). The new book is no longer about video per se, it’s really a work of philosophy (epistemology) about the nature of reality and the observer. Video and other electronic media are involved, but only secondarily. It’s about art, too, but only indirectly. That is, only from a philosophical metalevel, without discussing any particular works or people. I appreciate the Camus quote and I’m touched that you felt it appropriate for me. It is, of course. Often I curse my principles for the pain I’ve endured on behalf of them, but naturally I wouldn’t want it 88. See Youngblood’s “The Mass Media and the Future of Desire,” CoEvolution Quarterly (winter 1977–78): 7–16.

1976–1986

25 March 1978

305

any other way. Belief in one’s values is the ultimate source of life and energy and reality. I never doubted for a moment that you are unconditionally committed to your principles and ethics, and that has been for me your attraction. I’m working like a warrior, without “insurance” of any kind, completely broke and stripped to the bare motivational bones. Pushing, pushing to the end. When this is over I’m going to make tapes and movies and models of possible realities. [. . .] You have my spiritual complicity in your acts. CS to Cee Brown89 3 May 1978

1976–1986

I was very happy to meet you the other night, to talk, and look forward to the next time. Cee, I am enclosing 78 xerox documents (resumés, bio material, articles, flyers) and a bill for $25. I understand your archive is not funded and you are personally struggling to breach a long overdue area of vital importance . . . nevertheless my life and work ARE NOT FUNDED and I’m exasperated with financially “low” and “middle” level artists having to support materials and awarenesses by which the entire art market evolves itself . . . that is, I am in no position to support the efforts of institutions . . . and they ask constantly that I be not only a raw, free creative resource but that my time and effort for their/our concerns be made available with no recompense . . . (the old we give you exposure, publicity, help people find your work etc . . .). Anyway I teach my university course for 12 hrs a week and get $118 a week for living and work . . . performance artists have very little to sell unless we turn artifacts back into the Object-Market . . . So, please advise me to whom I should address this bill to refund my costs . . . or, if you like, you xerox all of it and return these materials and I can send them onto the next museum, newspaper, gallery, publisher, reviewer, graduate student, tax shelter syndicate, granting committee, library, collector, etc. Please don’t think I’m snapping at you personally; I feel so sympathetic to you and what you see to do that I’ve taken this liberty of

306

89. Cee Brown (United States, 1952), curator.

making perfectly clear one of the routes by which my culture fails to acknowledge my actual and concrete needs, while intending to be of use. Above all very good wishes to you and hope we can speak before too long. Cee Brown to CS 9 May 1978

Thank you for the materials. As you can see, and as you well knew, I had to return your materials—but not without xeroxing them. Thank you. CS to Carol Bergé90 15 May 1978

George Maciunas died last week cancer of pancreas and flux memorials at anthology all the friends there in a daze and Gordon Matta-Clark91 whom we love who generates joy is dying now of the same disease as Fahlström,92 as George . . . the life and community process of how to be for one another shifts art process measurably . . . it’s a strange, difficult time. Geoffrey Hendricks to CS 21 July 1978

90. Carol Bergé (United States, 1928–2006), writer. 91. Gordon Matta-Clark (United States, 1943–78), sculptor and photographer. 92. Öyvind Fahlström (Brazil, b. 1928, Sweden, d. 1976), painter. 93. Bochum, Germany. 94. Inge Baeker (Germany, 1943), director of Galerie Inge Baeker, Cologne, Germany. 95. Asolo, Italy, was one of the sites of the collector Francesco Conz’s many archives and warehouses of art. 96. Nitsch presented the 63rd action of his Orgies Mystery Theater on 10 June 1978 in the first-century Roman theater in Trieste, Italy; the action lasted twelve hours.

1976–1986

Here is a check for a copy of your book, which I most certainly want to have. I guess it will be September before I’m back there to New York to see it. I’m here in Bochum93 working on a large “Sky” wall and a show for Inge Baeker94 in October. I got down to Italy to the Bologna Art Fair and for a brief moment to Asolo.95 Then on to Trieste to Nitsch’s piece in a Roman Theater there.96 Took part in that. [. . .] Phil Corner is here in Bochum for a few days on a circle of

307

Europe that took him also to Asolo, and he brings news that Francesco97 finally lost his new factory—the furniture part—(I guess not Viale Stazione) to the bank. He just couldn’t make the payments on the loans. But Phil says that he is in good spirits about it, sees the archive of primary importance in his life and is ready to start into something new— that he is young yet. Phil and Alison98 and Malcolm Goldstein were there when he got word that it happened. They were all in high spirits and quite philosophical about the whole matter. But it will no doubt change things in his life. CS to Stan Brakhage 29 September 1978

1976–1986

After two years steady constant work with every possible attendant delay, fuck-up, censorship (printers—twice!) we expect our beautiful, full, intriguing book to be printed and bound by end of November. To say every resource is exhausted is to spare you the blow by blow tribulations, joys. My health is poor, spirit strong; my job taken away by university; Bruce’s yesterday by an act of congress (CETA programs canceled in two NY counties—thousands of people suddenly with no income . . . madness)99 . . . I am applying for a Guggenheim and would much appreciate your writing a reference for me. I am fighting for time, concentration on a major performance work dealing with the theme of MUSE. I enclose the card from an early version (think I sent it previously?). This work requires months of total concentration, research, reading and connections to the physical voice which directs the discovery of the movement forms (carrying shape, presence, the durations) . . . you know what I’m pointing towards, how fragile and intensive it is . . . that’s not the note to a funding application but to tell you how important this area is . . . I can’t deal here in fragments of energy, left-overs of time and the fear of losing—not being ready for what moves in its moment—that’s a terror. I find these reference letters hard going; please don’t take a lot of time and struggle with it if you can do one for me . . . just the “project is worthy, she is worthy” I guess . . . who knows why they bend and offer a plate when they do?

308

97. Francesco Conz. 98. Philip Corner and Alison Knowles. 99. Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) Fellowship program for artists.

CS to Friedrich Bayerthal 100 7 November 1978

Very drunk and happy re-union in Frankfurt for the book fair after performance festival in Arnhem; Nitsch101 and I, Peppe Morra,102 Dorothy Iannone,103 Dieter Rot, Priessnitz,104 Dieter Schwarz,105 Bruce McPherson in a little Italian restaurant which tolerated, even indulged the group. There certain reminiscences and the thread of name; in Arnhem after performance of HOMERUNMUSE, a young woman came to introduce herself and say that her grandmother was a “Schneemann” . . . near Dresden? Yes . . . Catholic? Yes . . . and telling Nitsch and told him of a critic, historian I had met in ’64, loved dearly for his spirit and energy, who had also had a “Schneemann ancestor” and what had become of him? Hermann delighted to give your address to me then and there! Nitsch is hoping to bring me to Wein this spring to perform and perhaps something would be possible in München as well. In any case I want to send you my fond regards and hope to hear that you are well and guiding the senses of life and art as before. Stan Brakhage to CS 106 19 November 1978

100. Friedrich Bayerthal (Germany, ca.1900–1980), historian. 101. Hermann Nitsch. 102. Giuseppe Morra (Italy, 1946), director of Studio Morra and Museo Archivio Laboratorio per le Arti Contemporanee, both in Naples, Italy. 103. Dorothy Iannone (United States, 1933), painter. 104. Reinhard Priessnitz (Austria, 1945–85), poet. 105. Dieter Schwarz (Switzerland, 1941), artist and curator. 106. Brakhage wrote this letter of recommendation for Schneemann’s application for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship; she was not awarded the fellowship.

1976–1986

Carolee Schneemann is one of the most important influences on MOST of the Arts of our Time, tho’ she’s seldom been credited sufficiently for the work she has accomplished in Painting, Music, Dance, Theater and Film. It is an era in which journalists, critics, and even (sadly) aestheticians tend to expectations of specialization in The Arts as in everything else. Carolee Schneemann has, despite these prejudices, patiently continued her various creativities and mixes (and even added writing about them to her impressive list of accomplishments) to the delight,

309

wonder, and admiration of all those who have known her work well enough to understand it. Her film “Fuses” is a classic in the brief history of independent American film. It may seem strange and presumptuous to call any film (let alone one composed in the 1960s) a “classic”; but remember that Film is an ephemeral medium which cannot be expected to last for Centuries’ approval: thus I tend to use the term to designate those works which have clearly had such an influence upon the creative process of other film-makers that I feel the spirit of said film to be embedded in human consciousness as a part of the process of further film making. “Fuses” has had that effect; and I suspect her newer film “Plumb Line” will accomplish an even greater degree of such “permanence” as I’ve described. Any filmic “work-in-progress” by Ms. Schneemann is, thus, unusually worthy of what EVER help she needs to realize it. Suzanne Lacy to CS 107 23 April 1979

I have just received your beautiful book, this minute!108 Of course, I haven’t read it yet, however, I felt impelled to write immediately to tell you of my joy at receiving it! I am so proud and pleased of you (women, performance, feminist, artists) that you have done this book, that such an important part of our history is now preserved (as preserved as books can make it). Thank you! I have long wanted to know all the details of your work . . . women performance artists will be grateful for your sharing your work with us in depth. Lee Baxandall to CS 109 25 April 1979

1976–1986

The new book is magnificent. And it certainly does the job of documenting your creativity and primacy. I can imagine all the heartbreak and concentration and sheer labor that went into it. Believe me, the effort will be worth it.

310

107. Suzanne Lacy (United States, 1945), artist. 108. Lacy refers to the publication of Schneemann’s More Than Meat Joy, as do subsequent letters. 109. Lee Baxandall (United States, 1933–2008), writer, founder of the Naturist Society in 1980.

Charlotte Moorman and Frank Pileggi telegram to CS 8 May 1979

BEST WISHES FOR A SUCCESS YOU SO RICHLY DESERVE WITH “MORE THAN MEAT JOY.” WE LOVE YOU. Malcolm Goldstein to CS 22 May 1979

Sorry I couldn’t be at the party. The book is magnificent! It’s amazing— when it’s all put together to see how much and how special, the things you’ve done; dealt with things that still remain taboo in our pristine society—not wanting to experience/fearful in our rigid self-limiting shame. I hope the book reaches many and opens them to what you’ve done and continue to do. Stan Brakhage to CS and Bruce McPherson 1 June 1979

First, Bruce, much thanks for the book which just arrived. Thence, to both of you, BRAVO on a truly beautiful, real bound and solid (inside and out) fine book. Finally, dear Carolee, WHAT a richness of language and imagery of Times and vibrant DANCE withal welling up over these pages, yet as orderly pooled as any meadow’s cache of rain finally mirroring source. It is a book in true Medieval sense (as Notre Dame was called a “book”)—i.e. complete collection of all relevance suggested. No time to write more now, nor to fully read it yet, as Jane and I are off to London—town for two weeks. I’ll then have the rest of the summer to savor. Barbara Smith to CS 110

I am sitting here looking at your book (which arrived some time ago) wondering how you ever got it done! It’s beautiful! and I’ve wanted to let you know for some time. I’ve also been scared of it—The book— because of what I’m doing. Don’t know how much to get into what you’ve done until I’ve got mine in hand, etc.—Will mine be OK though different? Will I ever get it done? The task is so tedious to me, such a 110. Barbara Smith (United States, 1933), artist.

1976–1986

9 June 1979

311

prison of responsibility & commitment, while other things large & small keep coming up to interfere. My space is inadequate (not entirely nurturing), my alternative spaces temporary, my love life needs chasing, grasping, solidifying (“she” thinks). Family issues/problems interfere (my mother’s illness & death)—now I must deal with her household— move her things which are now mine—take care of her estate with my brother—etc. etc. I must teach, and worry about future jobs—(the one I have now being over this week). All I keep saying to myself is: how did she do it? I must not worry about the many opportunities to do new work, send slides/documentation for other shows, help so & so with their piece or project, go to this or that party, go to a gig or lecture here or there, see other friends’ shows & work, etc. etc. ETC.!! If you have any advice or wisdom; let me hear from you!! I hope you will know that it’s wonderful & exciting to see “hear” read how much you’ve done, the sheer energy & complexity & quantity & brilliance! Makes a lot of what’s been done, what we do here seems late & well—I won’t denigrate because we’ve done a lot!! Still, Congratulations & I must say I’m reading it bit by bit slowly & a bit self protectively—so as to be able to handle the progress on my own book & not get overwhelmed, intimidated or influenced—although my style is quite different. It’s wonderful! So nice to see & have. CS to Barbara Smith

1976–1986

17 July 1979

312

You write by hand do you remember what you wrote? [. . .] The book took three years and only as realized because of his111 determination, devotion to it and the risks he could take on behalf of this sort of “trust” which was overwhelming me and despite the remaining accumulations of what makes work and the materials of the work—still present in files, shelves, drawers, stacks against walls—despite these remains, the book has cleared the past for me . . . provided an open territory, but the fear jumps right in: how can I live up to what she112 did? The only advice . . . is hang on to the vision of that book of yours . . . everything interferes, yes, but then is melded somehow into the pro111. Bruce McPherson. 112. Schneemann refers to herself, as well as to her past accomplishments.

longed determination, and the singularity of that is harder for women because we don’t strip away everything else the way I see men can do (usually with the help of their women!). Just give yourself time, the production of a book itself is full of delays so deadlines keep shifting and then once it is “out” how do the people we care about find it? and another prolonged process extended from the time of making it. But you can look forward to the joy of response, as yours gave me so much encouragement, a confirmation about what it can carry . . . (And concretely this may seem silly but the best help to both of us in production was physical: a file cabinet the shelves the work table the financing was found and lost and finally B. got a bank loan and the bank owns every damned book but the good news is it happened and so far he has met each payment!). Ray Johnson to CS 113 9 August 1979

This letter appears as figure 51. [plate 13] Michael Benedikt to CS 114

Wow, More Than Meat Joy is a beautiful book—congratulations to you, and to Bruce for bringing it out. How rewarding & to some extent fulfilling (not exactly that, ’cause an artist keeps working, right?) it must be to see so many years of work presented in so physically articulated a way, with such clarity—it reads, among other things, like a kind of story. A very logically-edited & presented one, too. I appreciated, too (maybe especially from the new point of view of the times I’ve been having the last few years, largely spent up here), the various direct or implicit kvetches ’bout the difficulty of doing all that you’ve done at the time you did the work represented in Documentext. I mean, the ones about the first-stage difficulty of getting your body art taken seriously, about not being brought into the community (’cept for Saints like Allan Kaprow) so readily, about finances & life-stressful situations which sometimes ran alongside the work you did which so 113. Ray Johnson (United States, 1927–95), artist. 114. Michael Benedikt (United States, 1935–2007), writer.

1976–1986

12 August 1979

313

51. Ray Johnson letter to Carolee Schneemann, 9 August 1979. Estate of Ray Johnson. Courtesy of Richard L. Feigen & Co.

many people took such pleasure in. Those things touched me especially on this re-view of your work; heroic, I thought (of course I say this after some to-a-degree purely technical/esthetic relation to, really, only a very few years (but what years!) acquaintance with your accomplishments. I was glad that I could contribute my photographs to your book, Carolee. [. . .] I still remember that afternoon at your loft, at least in the general outlines. Fred McDarrah115 was in glowing good mood. [. . .] Peter Moore116 was snapping away inside his array of cameras—ran into Peter very briefly when I by happenstance attended the New York-Cambridge Avant-Garde Festival on the shores of the river Charles here over a year ago, he was of course still wearing his camera-coat, I took some pictures just for fun. Boston’s so out of that world right now, I sometimes think, it might as well be Mars. CS to Peter von Brandenburg

Surprise, delight, and my thanks for your review of More Than Meat Joy. The review originally arrived without the second page so the mystery of who wrote it persisted for several weeks. It is the first examination of the book, of my work which deals with the formative issues, the scope of concept in actual historical nexus. The usual ploy has been to treat the work as some sort of vagary—to focus on the person rather than the processes involved. Being “at the right place at the right time” has been double-edged; during the early days we had no critical voices, no cohesive analysis— despite the mutuality of issue and influence I felt (often) as if singing into the void. Certain crucial aspects of fore-sight have subsequently been trampled over by more recent events and net-works of information. I even feel a certain goofy hesitation to write my appreciation, having observed the speeded up process in which critical regard quickly shifts to the next “hot” spot to establish personal footing. What is “next” in current momentum takes about three months; “next” used to obliterate the “just before.” So I wish your review had been in one of the dominant art mags, none of which have ever given coverage to my work (mentions, yes), nothing of substance. 115. Fred McDarrah (United States, 1926–2007), photographer. 116. Peter Moore (United States, 1932–93), photographer.

1976–1986

5 December 1979

315

Perhaps that will change. Do you know Ingrid Sischy?117 That she becomes the editor of Art Forum! (Feminist, 26 years old, kept Printed Matter going for the past several years.)118 If you continue to write in the art maelstrom—and I hope you will—Art Forum might actually be opening, intensifying the boundaries which were tied up and in. Martin Rapp to CS119 14 December 1979

Thank you for sending the finished copy of More Than Meat Joy. Unfortunately I have had to decide not to carry it in the Bookstore. As you may know, our store space has been reduced by more than half since the 23 W. 53rd St. building was demolished. We have had to drastically reduce the number of titles we can carry in the store, and as a result, I’ve even had to refuse several curatorial suggestions for books. I do hope however, that you will keep me aware of any new book projects that you are doing, and hopefully when the new Museum120 is opened with a much larger Bookstore we will be able to consider More Than Meat Joy again. CS to Kristine Stiles121 20 January 1980

1976–1986

In haste I want to respond to your letter—I’m just going on tour with films, performance for a week. I’d be interested for you to include my work in your study; it’s quite a surprise and I’m curious as to how this particular area became a focus. 1. Did I know about DIAS.122 Yes I was invited to attend. I had no money for the trip; they had no budget to bring artists over as I recall. I also may have had some slight sense of the men getting together again and my not wanting to have to struggle for my destruction-art principles among their destruction-art principles; it was at all times apparent to me that my integration of means and materials usually had com-

316

117. Ingrid Sischy (South Africa, 1952), critic and editor. 118. Printed Matter is an international bookstore for artist’s books in New York City. 119. Martin Rapp (United States, 1940), director of publications for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City before becoming senior vice president of Leisure Sales, USA. 120. Museum of Modern Art, New York City. 121. Kristine Stiles (United States, 1947), art historian and artist. 122. Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), 1966.

123. Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation, 1967, London. 124. Gustav Metzger (Germany, 1926), artist. 125. During DIAS, organizer Metzger and the poet John J. Sharkey (Ireland, 1931) were arrested and charged with presenting an indecent exhibition. Their trial took place in July 1967, precisely during the Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation. 126. Susan Sherman (United States, 1944), poet, founding editor of Ikon (New York 1967– 92). 127. Jerome Rothenberg (United States, 1931), poet and founder of Hawk’s Well Press. Along with the poet David Antin, Rothenburg was the first to publish Schneemann’s writings

1976–1986

pletely contrary implications from those related processes of my male associates. 2. At the Dialectics123 Metzger124 was among the friends; extremely shy, small, unassuming, subtle, intense; the subdued weights of an immigrant carving a niche in the dense old paternalistic British world— which was beneficent and welcoming to many of us cast up/out on wave of Vietnam dissolutions subsequent to the Dialectics time—or conjoining that time. The price one paid for getting healed, calmed, clarified was: either having to work immeasurably hard at bringing energies into/out of aesthetic/political issues due to the resistance, steadiness, reserve of Eng­lish concerns; or becoming more “Eng­lish;” not charging about, insisting, agitating. The trial125 was plodding along; the London people were mobilized and active. I was not a “figure” who would make any difference to their legal situation. We were friends. R. D. Laing and the attorney for the Round House had made my own work situation at the Dialectics more difficult by telling me that if I insisted on using my erotic film FUSES as part of the performance I was making for the Dialectics, that they would take absolutely NO RESPONSIBILITY WOULD PROVIDE NO LEGAL AID OR REDRESS WOULD in fact, dissociate themselves and the Dialectics from my work & any problem it caused politically, legally. John Sharkey was a casual friend among the many people I was meeting in ’67; in ’70 when I had unexpectedly ended up living in London, John effected a certain turmoil more difficult for the principles involved than his trial had been; it’s sort of retroactive magic. He was leaving the woman who was to become my closest friend for a woman who was at that time my closest friend. London is small, U.K. an island; the atmospheres which are mystical, para-normal, fleetingly erotic would have to color any political analysis of the persons and events. [. . .] We don’t really get older, just an increasing density of events; so mention DIAS at the Dialectics? . . . there is a tape between Joe Berke, myself, Susan Sherman,126 Metzger, Jerry Rothenberg,127 and I think

317

1976–1986

maybe yes we discussed DIAS in the context of new art forms/transgressions which we felt enforced, confirmed the radical or radicalizing concepts of the Dialectics, but which we realized the intellectuals, students, scholars did not understand, recognize—with a few exceptions. Bateson128 for one, Joe Berke of course . . . (Paul Goodman was particularly insulting, offensive, objecting to the group working physically together in the space . . .) (here’s a gender & generation “betrayal.”) I hope you’re aware of the work processes which preceded and paralleled those of the DIAS confluence: the burnt construction series (61– 65); the smashed construction series—works built out of broken glass, materials set on fire; the direct connection of shredding, ripping, tearing, stapling, punching to Cézanne’s BROKEN LINE and the increasing permission/sensitivity to non-intentionality. But how to make these istories, does she129 know how handsome Sharkey is for instance, about his blood taboo, and how much courage it can take for an eng­lish person to grasp what we move to directly, that the shared language is a vertiginous mirror in which all same-meanings change shape and implication; that Yugoslavs are more like north americanos and how can you filter that into an analysis of one sharp moment in a decade? And do you know about Panna Grady’s party for the Stones130 off Regent Park where we all were, that any social gradation had the sweet shifts and containment of fish in a tank, and that this can occur across stratas of class/profession/geography in London with unique immediacy . . . well. Best of luck with it all, it’s the larger question of what DIAS poured itself into, that particular social geographic context of London . . . and for the Dialectics as well and what was the outcome if it can be ascertained? Why was London HOME BASE for a vast number of usa radicals, we flooded in . . .

318

when they included her score for Meat Joy in her essay “Meat Joy Notes as Prologue” in Some/Thing 1, no. 2 (winter 1965): 29–45. 128. Gregory Bateson (Eng­land, b. 1904, United States, d. 1980), anthropologist. 129. Schneemann refers to Kristine Stiles, then writing her doctoral dissertation on DIAS at the University of California, Berkeley. 130. Panna Grady (United States, 1936), heiress and benefactor of many artists and Beat poets. Grady threw a party in London for the Rolling Stones upon Mick Jagger’s release from jail after serving time for possession of marijuana. See “Charles Stein and George Quasha in Vancouver: Part 2,” Minutes of the Charles Olson Society 41 (April 2001), http://www .charlesolson.ca/files/SteinQuasha2.htm.

Gábor Attalai to Bruce McPherson and CS 29 January 1980

Excuse me this letter, but I should like to ask for your promotion. I read in a magazine, that you published a book of Carolee Schneemann titled More Than Meat Joy. Sorry it is impossible to order from here because we have not international currencies at hand, because it is forbidden. So I am confined to know this publication, what would especially interesting, important and kind for me. I am an artist working on performances and other ways. Circa in 1971 I wanted to collect an international breast collection of those women whom I known in any way. So I written almost a thousand letters for different addresses in the world. So I written for Carolee too. I waited the answers with photos. I received answer only by one lady, by Carolee who sent me three photographies about her breast. After this contact we changed more letters between us, but later I had not more news from her. An American artist friend written me, that he knows so that Carolee is in New York. Yes or Not, now I was very glad, that I read about her. If you could promote us by a copy of More Than Meat Joy, that would be important not only for me, but more artists too here, who are like the new art. I try to collect a little basis of new art publication for the future, for those little people who are interested in new moments in art. This is way that would be great if you could help us. Many thanks in advance too. Udo Kultermann to CS131 10 March 1980

131. Udo Kultermann (Germany, 1927), architect and art historian.

1976–1986

I enjoyed very much meeting you at the party in the Italian Cultural Institute and wish to thank you for giving me the information about your new work. I do hope that I finally will get a publisher for my old project, and you are going to be contacted by them directly. It would be a most fascinating book, indicating the pioneering contributions you made several years ago.

319

CS to Gábor Attalai 10 March 1980

Very happy to get a letter from you sent to Art Metropole,132 in which you ask about my book “More Than Meat Joy” and request the letter be forwarded to the publisher. Well they sent it on to me and I was pleased to read your remembrances of our mail-art in the past. The publisher of my book owes the expense of every copy to a little bank down the road in the country! No one would help him with this very wonderful work he was determined to realize; the reviews are now terrific—Bruce is able to re-pay the loan so far, but no copies belong to me and the complimentaries are long sent out. So . . . we have to wait for a damaged book! (not too terrible), and when there is one we will send it on to you, if you are sure there will be no problem with customs or such? There are some art-erotica images . . . we would regret if the book could not reach you finally! I read of your work in various magazines, articles which keep us all in paper-contact; it would be wonderful to meet. For now I send my fondest good wishes for your work and happiness in your life. CS to Stan Brakhage 17 March 1980

1976–1986

this is a kiss a miss a hello too much time space/between meeting   regret I was away during your nyc showing   just think about you and the work a lot things seen the motion shifts of nyc art life   and the intense constrictions there, spreading   loss of physical-alternative space and the loss of certain psychic space of the city and today some incredible drivel from Naropa133 I was thinking well they didn’t take Stan in for a moment (in any sense) and dangerous as you saw quite a while ago we have the same tight rope to dance and swing precariously, the atmospheres around are changing   is your income o.k. or more difficult (again)?   wish I/we could get west   just worked for four months to arrange tour (perform, films, exhibit) in

320

132. Art Metropole was an artist-run contemporary art center for artists’ books and other multiple-media artworks, founded in 1974 in Toronto, Canada. 133. Naropa Institute was founded in Boulder, Colorado, by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (India, b. 1939, Canada, d. 1987) and is now Naropa University.

California and like a charm it all fell through as an invitation to Brussels materialized . . . (I made it once to California). I suppose I did write you about performance and showing KLM 134 in Toronto? A wonderful visit with Jim,135 catching up and as if only apart a few months . . . that was so strange, the consistency of recognition, closeness. Another sort of concentration “battle plan” working on here how to get income; jobs very scattered and long times in between . . . that fierce isolation between public and private situation . . . what it appears to be and actually is . . . so new “films” made with lengths of fabric and materials acting as light, duration, recurrence (but it isn’t collage). A new performance work DIRTY PICTURES—will present it in Chicago last week of April or first week of May . . . are you still teaching there? Sorry I don’t know those obvious things, somehow no one has told me lately your movement from mountain and down. Bruce136 was so pleased he finally met you. We’re cozy now under first (and last) major snow accumulation; the fat cardinals stuffing on rosehips remaining above snow line; the cats piled up around the woodstove for which we run in and out with logs and chopping. So the center is here content, cherished. Trips every other week across the river Quasha137 land and all busy, productive there. Stan Brakhage to CS 26 March 1980

134. Kitch’s Last Meal. 135. James Tenney. 136. Bruce McPherson. 137. Schneemann refers to the founders of Station Hill Press, Inc.: Susan Quasha (United States, 1950), artist, designer, publisher; and George Quasha (United States, 1942), poet and artist. 138. Gulley Jimson, eccentric painter played by Alec Guinness in the film The Horse’s Mouth (1958), adapted from Joyce Cary’s 1944 novel of the same name.

1976–1986

It begins to look as if the world intends to end me up as one of those wild and roaming burley artists like Gulley Jimson.138 We are now thinking of moving away from this mountain hermitage IF we can find some place more economical/ecological where we might survive. I can’t tell you much more about that because I don’t know myself—just that we have begun clearing out old stuff . . . so that when we do, IF we do, have to tackle this whole house’s holdings we’ll be somewhat prepared. This

321

is naturally a great sorrow to us, as we’d intended staying here forever . . . but an adventure also—at least in the imagination. [. . .] Are we the savages? . . . or are THEY? Truth is, we’re ALL savages. That’s why colleges don’t hire local artists, really, EVER. The Fiji islander on tenure?—what an idea! . . . he/she would only serve to remind ’em that we’re ALL Fijii islanders. How to save your loft? Maybe the only solution is to give it up, carry the loft in your head. That’s, at least, what I’m facing apropos Home. But then it many not turn out that way for either of us. I keep thinking that The Angels are a long time vacationing in Florida this winter—but then, considering the terrible winter HERE, that’s no surprise . . . and/or it may be they’ve been working like mad all around me just to keep us from total collapse in this, the most terrible social winter in a decade or more. Suffice to say, we’re spiritually intact—“maintaining solid thru an inferno,” as Michael McClure puts it . . . and ALL of that essentially in the mind. How coddled we all are, actually. Our struggles, creativity, sensitivity to the world, etc., all ALL something MOST of the world’s people can’t even dream about. So, lucky us midst these cataclysms. CS to Joseph Berke 11 August 1980

1976–1986

Bruce & I are having a wonderful time and we’ve done four years with barely time to note with astonishment the “impossible” aspirations, the success of the book, the spin of work into the world, the rooted delight here alone where we build, the unexpected currents moving back in from without, certain increments—these also . . . so far are not economic. [. . .] Been working past year on new performance, “DIRTY PICTURES”139 which incorporates/or is based on a series of “interrogations” about very simple child/adolescent sexual events. (I guess I’ll enclose a few)—they are not in themselves material in which the truth gets nailed but are in another plateau—referential to what I call “primary images”—a form of symbolic sub-text of objects; these projected

322

139. Merle Ginsberg wrote: “Carolee Schneemann takes on all of our sexual histories, through confrontation with her own, in her most recent performance piece ‘Dirty Pictures’ . . . subtitled ‘a vinculum, a copulation of domestic and pre-literal erotic artifacts which answers the question: can a lonely impoverished genital/lexicon find happiness in a forgotten mining town?’” See Ginsberg’s “Sex and the Single Artist,” SoHo Weekly News, March 12, 1980.

in series twelve feet high surrounds the interrogation table and function as the symbolic, trigger which takes the simplicity of the specific sexual texts and permits them to move associatively on the stream of object imagery for audience. (It’s easier to show you . . . but . . .) I may propose it to Kustow140 for NT141—the text is so central that it’s a more available form . . . perhaps more in tradition? Still it is outrageous and very funny & painful. CS to Charlotte Moorman 26 September 1980

140. Michael Kustow. 141. National Theatre, London. 142. Schneemann refers to the Annual New York Avant-Garde Festivals organized by Charlotte Moorman. 143. Gerald Marzorati (United States, 1953), writer, editor. 144. Allan Kaprow. 145. Schneemann directed a production of Allan Kaprow’s Push and Pull: A Furniture Comedy for Hans Hofmann (1964) in 1966 for Moorman’s Annual New York Avant-Garde Festival.

1976–1986

There are currently so many distortions of our recent history being declared publicly; it seems to have to do with old notions of power— individualistic, masculine-heroic traditions by which power accrues to those with power. This I always felt was one of your particular gifts— and one which has never been sufficiently appreciated: to establish a community, to have given us all a focused communality, an equity in which we shared, participated, developed a body of mutual concerns, aesthetically, personally.142 Because of this I was distressed by one item in the Marzorati143 “Artful Dodger,” Soho News interview with you this July. The impression in this article is that Kaprow produced the mayhem during the third AG Festival. Allan144 was in California or somewhere and had asked me to direct and invent my own form of his “Push & Pull”145 event; it was my idea to send the audience out to the streets during the intermission between the Cage work and “Push & Pull;” and it was my conception for their participation that they—as I asked them to do—would “go into the streets close by and bring back soft materials, scraps, waste with which to build the ‘Push & Pull’ environment.” As I said for the interview which transpired for The Nation; I had no idea the audience would go berserk, it was not my intention and I developed new techniques in terms of audience activation after this foray. Allan’s notion had been to

323

have materials provided for the audience to draw with or build parts with; I took another direction and the responsibility for its outcome—in so far as I had to hide out for two weeks while you dealt with the legal troubles. I was afraid at the time that if something special developed from my direction of “Push & Pull,” it would directly accrue to Allan—more known, respected, male . . . all of those things which may have promoted his generosity in having me take on his structure for my own realization. But I want to be sure that you remember this circumstance clearly as well as I do. Overall it is a collaboration with you/the arena you made possible. John Duncan to CS146 16 October 1980

1976–1986

HAA 147 showed your film “Fuses” last night. I sat through both screenings. I arranged the films for this series and was glad to be able to get a copy to show. Now I want to tell you that I thought the film was . . . well, it was a moving experience for me. There was such an overwhelming celebration of life and sexual joy. I felt a voyeur’s ecstasy; “Fuses” reminded me of a joy that’s been missing in my life for some time, one that I’d almost stopped believing in. I left feeling that in some way I’d been rescued, been reshown a choice other than a resigned hatred of my need for sex and my paranoid distrust of love. Your feelings about this movie may have changed by now. I hope not; it makes one of the most positive statements I’ve seen beautifully, straightforwardly.

324

146. John Duncan (United States, 1953), artist. Duncan wrote this letter four months after he performed his controversial Blind Date in May 1980, in which Duncan, an artist severely traumatized by parental physical and mental violence, purchased a female cadaver in Tijuana, Mexico, in order to have sex with it. He taped his sex act and later recalled his “indescribable intense self disgust.” A second part of the performance included Duncan undergoing a vasectomy “to make sure,” as he explained, “that the last potent seed I had was spent in a cadaver. . . .I risked the ability to accept myself. I risked the ability to have sex . . . and the ability to love.” Duncan quoted in Louis Mac-Adams, “Sex with the Dead,” Wet 30 (March-April 1981): 60–61. 147. Together Highland Art Agents (composed of Paul McCarthy and John Duncan) and the editor of High Performance Magazine (Linda Burnham) organized the “Public Spirit” performance festival in Los Angeles in May and October 1980. Schneemann’s film was screened at Pasadena Film Forum.

CS to John Duncan 23 October 1980

148. Film Forum, a nonprofit cinema since 1970 in New York. 149. Wilhelm Reich. 150. Alexander Lowen.

1976–1986

Thanks for showing FUSES and for seeing it, really seeing how it is made about what is inside it. The joy & affirmation always seemed so simple to me—but the approach of something else (repressive, suffocating, denying) the sense of the sex/negative erotic denial has been instinctual margin all my life, since childhood. Life was only possible where the joy of the body, the desire for the other was cherished, indulged . . . believed in. My parents did. For each other, with us . . . their sensuous “atmosphere” was the hub on which all value turned, evolved, took integral sense and merged . . . as a principle for anything else— their work, earning money, cooking, raising crops . . . all of it. The message was not duplicity. Of course it is more complicated but that is the thread. So I’m very pleased for your note. When I saw your films at FF148 last spring I really didn’t “know” what to make of them . . . why that sort of pornographic distancing, the exaggeration of denial to heighten feeling, the deflection of direct feeling—all those aspects I can only grasp when I go back to my books—like W. Reich,149 Lowen,150 because it is so hard for me to understand that struggle and when I encounter it personally I’m always outraged, disturbed, frightened somewhat. Fuses and other areas of my work have a messianic alarm motivating their formation; to show, indicate, point towards what you call “another choice” to take the “voyeur’s ecstasy” as one’s own power, complement, recognition. All the terrible taboos, denials in the way . . . these are shocking, obscene and slow death to women certainly (and since the male-sexual objectification of the female is so prevalent it has made sense for women to give themselves to each other as friends and lovers). Which has made my position as a heterosexual (essentially) erotic artist anomalous or problematic in ways I never expected. If my experience of sexuality is not problematic, contradictory then how can my work serve as a model for other women? It’s down to that lately. My feelings have not changed; we all have a piece of the pie and mine has been this positive sexuality. I’m grateful. And I’m grateful for your response. “Thanks” right back!

325

Scott MacDonald to CS 151 1980 or 1981

Loved seeing you over the weekend. I enjoyed the videotape a lot and felt you very in control of it—you bring you very powerfully into everything you do. [. . .] You continually rearrange/rethink/reorder earlier materials and that tendency (in KLM, PL, Up To And Including . . .)152 is an aesthetic emblem (great academic terminology, eh?) and model for that quality in you that refuses to dispose of relationships, or to see them as expendable while at the same time wanting change, excitement, discovery; your work is an attempt to make something new out of a process of sustaining—revivifying—the old, or at least while sustaining, resurrecting the old, though it can’t get really old that way—just different, like a natural ecological process: your films like Conner’s,153 J.J. Murphy’s154 (recent ones—Science Fiction, e.g.) reflect a sort of recycling process, natural process of change—does that make sense? Dick Higgins to CS 10 March 1981

1976–1986

Ever since your performance on Spring Street a few weeks ago I’ve been thinking about it and about your other work which, as you know, I’ve admired for years.155 [figure 52] I wanted to talk with you in Washington, though it got to be too late and you were too tired (too bad for Roger, who wanted to know you in all ways).156 So I’ll write. I think your strategy is wrong at the moment. You aren’t recognizing that you are a master now (in the sense of master-artist, not of a male), that what you have been doing you have tried to do entirely yourself with your body as your instrument. But that instrument itself has changed. You’re a beautiful woman, of course, but the very nature of desire and potential for desire changes as one matures. You’re less a Hollywood desire-object fetish as a physical entity than you once were, so that elements of incongruousness—“the beautiful woman speak-

326

151. Scott MacDonald (United States, 1942), film critic. Schneemann credits MacDonald with “establishing the concept of her three films, Fuses, Plumb Line, and Kitch’s Last Meal as an “autobiographical trilogy.” 152. Kitch’s Last Meal; Plumb Line. 153. Bruce Conner. 154. J.J. Murphy (United States, 1947), filmmaker. 155. Schneemann performed an early version of Fresh Blood—A Dream Morphology (1981–83). 156. Roger Bernard (United States, 1961), poet.

ing”—aren’t assumptions. What you need is, I think, to take a special kind of apprentice, to teach what you know on a one-to-one basis, and to find yourself a beautiful young woman to work with, not necessarily as a lesbian lover, but as a surrogate for yourself in certain performance situations so that you can maintain your masterly objectivity. You need not dominate such a person, of course. I don’t mean to evoke the masculine tradition of power which traditional master-apprentice relationships imply. In your own way, I’m sure, you’d be a good friend and co-developer of your surrogate’s individuality. But when the time for performance came around, such a person would become your stand-in on whom you would then comment and around whom you would wrap your work. The economics (in all senses) would be hard to deal with. Presumably you couldn’t support such a person. But you would have enough to teach this person that perhaps that wouldn’t be a problem. Among the young feminist artists there must be someone who would be physically appropriate—to stand in for yourself twenty years ago, say—and through whom you could work. I’ve done that kind of thing

1976–1986

52. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of the Special Dream Work issue of New Wilderness Letter 10 (September 1981). Photograph of Schneemann’s performance Fresh Blood—A Dream Morphology, 1981, by Ginerva Portlock. Courtesy of New Wilderness Letter.

327

myself, on occasion (notably with Roger). I think it would be a valuable experience for you both, and that it would open up new levels of possibility and potential for yourself. It would be, I think, the logical next expansion past the Spring Street performance. CS to Dick Higgins 11 March 1981

1976–1986

Thank you for the letter in regard to “FRESH BLOOD” it set off tenets waiting to pass through. The interesting aspect of “middle age” is that the “middle” indicates the chance to see or look simultaneously in two directions with equal empathy/identification—the forward and the back posited on PRESENT. And on PRESENCE. Which means that I represent—as I am situated—the wobbling shift of young/old. This has curious effects— many of which I wondered about when I was firmly, chronologically young/younger . . . (precocious) . . . which included: how could a woman dancer I saw with wrinkled knees dare to perform? How come forty plus people in photographs could look very young or very old, or glamorous or then endearingly parental—did the camera lie? Did they have special make-up? Or did the physiognomy go in various directions according to the moment, to the light, to expression? Did these older people still fuck a lot? And if so did they look sexual, appealing, exciting, beautiful to each other? Or? Were they still ecstatic passionate? If desire didn’t diminish were they sure to find lovers? Or not? In particular the women? We know the traditional male with his young woman lover, “mistress” or second-wife. With my history and known dynamics I guessed I’d be horny lusty passionate desiring until I died (and kept close to my heart the reported conversation of Proust with Mme de Noailles157 when she was eighty. P.: Mme, tell me if you can, how does it finally feel to be old enough to be released from the pangs of desire? Mme N.: Darling, I have no idea . . . Perhaps there is someone older you could ask). (My improvisation on an old recollection.) (And I bet it’s better than how it was told to me . . . guess why.) How about Carl Ruggles when he was 84 wanting to go down on me? I was 22 that summer day, in white shorts . . . I was startled and I under-

328

157. Anna Élisabeth de Brancovan, comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (France, 1876–1933), poet.

158. High Performance (Los Angeles, 1978–97). 159. Rachel Rosenthal (Paris, 1926), artist.

1976–1986

stood perfectly . . . the young man I would never know absorbed into our dear friend, the “great man” toothless, half-deaf, widowed . . . It was heart-breaking . . . but it would have been perverse if I had said you’re too old/Jim is just outside changing the tire/I couldn’t because it’s crazy, weird/you’re bald, wrinkled!! Why should sexual age be so narrow, rigid half of life denigrated, disposed of, denied . . . what does that sound like? Exactly like my words for the “denied, denigrated, despised,” or usurped istory of women’s image making. (The whore becomes the auxiliary agent to the male denials of desires, spontaneity, variety . . . his nature/culture has fetishized synthesized controlled . . .) In regard to your suggestion of a “surrogate, an apprentice,” interesting idea. So far I’v not found anyone younger with sufficient erotic energy to carry the imagery; or if she has the energy she puts it into her own work. It seems a shame to forgo the opportunity to perform as an ambivalenterotic. I only have one chance to be middle-aged right? So why not see what that tells? I can be the wrinkled knees I once wished off “the stage” (of life and influence), the double chin, rounded belly, etc. This list of “defeats” was noted in a 1971 diary (see how eager I was to anticipate my own rejections) for a performance work titled “WEAR & TEAR.” In the current issue of HIGH PERFORMANCE 158 I was thrilled (yes) to see Rachel Rosenthal’s159 version of this unknown event, her “Bonsoir Dr. Schon.” She’s 54. That precedence gives me another thirteen years (potentially) in the light. Traditionally middle-aged women do DISAPPEAR except on the arms of their husbands, escorts, sons . . . one wonders where they have been banished to? . . . Was it the hostility of younger artists—fearing their own eventual middle-age—that drove them off? Yes. Definitely. Yes. Just watch what younger artists do socially. With exceptions. The exceptions it’s worth continuing to work for and towards. Yes. Why should my generation disappear? To make room for the next bunch? It’s not tidy. Many women who are older than I started performing later . . . time is material just as our experience is material—no matter how unidealized we may look. Who should take surrogates as

329

1976–1986

you suggest besides me? Joan Jonas? Simone Forti? Yvonne Rainer? Barbara Smith? Mary Beth Edelson? Hannah Wilke? Eleanor Antin? And Alison?160 It’s like Graham161 or someone whose own traditions may exceed them . . . happenings fluxus judson performance art: actionism imply assault on taboos conventions strictures which tie up and deny life force and energy which co-opt the process of the messengers we can open ourselves to. It’s authoritarian fascistic reactionary and compliant to take your wrinkled knees as the threshold for content carried personally physically with immediacy you could hear The Text Louder The body is PART of THE IMAGE.162 Fortunately the pain of self-judgment—the loss of powers granted by the culture to young women as the appropriate carriers of sexual energy, as objects of desire—fortunately along the way those of us who exemplified those powers have had the bad hard questions and antagonisms (and pity) gradually addressed . . . starts VERY early in the culture which gives us a backlog of shocks to build anew on . . . so an early question 1964: if you were fat and self-conscious would you still go out there and perform nude? Answer was: No. Last week question: Answer it’s too hard I think I’ll take off twenty years and go back out when I’m seventy and there’s no ambivalence about the age of the body etc . . . This week two influences, r.r.163 and your letter. If the work communicates to me its need of my body then I put the body where the work says it needs to be. That’s always where the image comes from. Not from a conscious decision, not from an “I want” or “I should” but from the unconscious recognized in its fragile insistence that something pass through me, that I serve it in its full demand or request. It looks like sagging, wrinkling, doubling, spotting may be in for a vogue . . . after all most everything else taboo I’v struggled with/against has shifted and taken an integrity and an influence where it had previously been denied.

330

160. Alison Knowles. 161. Martha Graham (United States, 1894–1991), dancer and choreographer. 162. Schneemann refers to her text and images in Fresh Blood—A Dream Morphology (1981). 163. “r.r.” is unidentifiable, perhaps Robert Rauschenberg.

So I think I may keep working as the physical ideality which I was just lucky to have as material turns into something else. . . .164 Dick Higgins to CS

Gee, I’m older than you—and still a horny bastard. That’s not the point. And I’ve found people as old as sixty beautiful and desirable—and have slept with them, and certainly continue to do so, so that’s not the point either. Yet those two seem to be your points in your letter—that desire continues, that beauty continues. The first point, as I recall, I didn’t take up. I hope as long as life continues in us that we’ll still “desire” (though not in the sense that the Buddhists knock). But the second is important. My point wasn’t that we aren’t beautiful, but that our beauty is qualitatively different as we age. It becomes a matter of the etching of life onto the inchoate blank (which so much of the world perceives as normative sexual beauty). The attractiveness of virgins is that the person desiring them wants to do some of that etching. The attractiveness of sexual knowers is their knowledge—that one can participate in the rites and experiences that the knower has built up. Don’t you see these as rather different ballgames? Thus I wanted to see you take a surrogate for yourself in the inchoate stage, so you can have a dialectic with yourself. And also I think that what I was trying to say was that you seemed not, in your New York piece in March (?) to distinguish between the two polarities of desirability. The virgin is not alive within you and me, though the virgin’s traces remain and frame our knowledge—no more than the knower was alive in us as virgins (and that would be a long way back, for me—I was about ten when I dumped all that virgin business). At moments in your performance you seemed to be presenting yourself not as the knower but as the virgin, and it seemed incongruous. And of course, I was speaking and making my recommendation out of my own experience, since I have used Roger as a surrogate for myself in my pieces of 1979/1980. He’s all sexual potential—not that he doesn’t 164. Higgins’s publishing house, Something Else Press.

1976–1986

19 April 1981

331

1976–1986

sleep around (but only with women, alas)—but the process of digesting, of finding a balance between monogamy and polygamy, of making all the explorations that need to be made—or of experiencing his own aging—that process has hardly begun. He radiates sexuality, yet it all seems like a beginning. Surely it isn’t that hard to find a young woman who works with you, who can do that (at least when she chooses to). Radiating isn’t hard. If you had a young assistant of this sort, you could share or replicate some of your own sexual experiences with her— and the radiation would happen when her own desires became patent through her experience of having followed them up and out. Of course such a performance would be deeply troubling and frightening to most men, even those who imagine they aren’t traditional. Among men only the shamans would be able to follow you—but for yourself, and for women who were really alive during your performances or presentations I think it would be deeply enlightening. It sounds as if you didn’t do as Ruggles hoped. Too bad, since you obviously admired him. Not that one should feel guilty for not having done so—perhaps it wasn’t the right time for that, for your inner self or for his circumstances at the time, I don’t know—but it would have been gracious and poetic had you done so. Roger did it for me, though it wasn’t his trip—I appreciate that very much, and it is a bond between us even though I doubt it will happen more. By the way, Ruggles was a friend of my mother from her Dorset days—but her parents didn’t let her visit him alone. Well, as Albee (of all people!) said, “The tragedy isn’t with the desirer but with the desired.”165 Wisdom from buffoons, right? FRESH BLOOD. Marilyn Harris166—after Alison,167 my great (but inchoate) affair of the 1960’s—wrote a poem called “Chair frais” (“fresh flesh” in French)—which I responded to by making a performance piece using the shadow of a chair as notation, which should be realized sexually—it’s in my foew&ombwhnw book.168 At the time I liked to superimpose structures over my sexual events; physically that is hard for me now, but I’d still like to see it happen. Ah well. If you were here I would offer you a tulip bud.

332

165. Edward Albee (United States, 1928), playwright. 166. Marilyn Harris (United States, 1924–1999), filmmaker. 167. Alison Knowles. 168. Dick Higgins, Foew&ombwhnw: a grammar of the mind and a phenomenology of love and a science of the arts as seen by a stalker of the wild mushroom (New York: Something Else Press, 1969).

CS to Dick Higgins 25 June 1981

Dear DICK— And your note in April letter, responding to mine to yours about “Fresh Blood” (and yr notion of the surrogate); which resistance—on my part—as not authentic to my own experience and the fact, paradoxically, inappropriate or what have you, of the dream material being what the text and morphologies are built on—that is the actual dreaming of my age and moment. This discrepancy in your perception abuts the one about Ruggles as well. OF COURSE I was his lover . . . as I wrote you (it seemed clear): “it would have been perverse if I had said you’re too old/Jim is just outside changing the tire/I couldn’t because it’s crazy/ weird/you’re bald, wrinkled . . .” This is what I subsumed to that instance of desire, hunger built on the friendship, the love and the very discrepancy of our years . . . it was not an erotic situation for me, but something I had to be able to share with him, for him as I felt “the young man I would never know absorbed into the ‘great man’ toothless, half-deaf . . .” 84 . . . yes . . . go down on me . . . Now the idea of the surrogate/assistant troubles me. [. . .] Deluded or not, I have to experience my own materials directly and my physical interactions are central to that and demonstrated within the vortex of attachments/media which can elude, eclipse, point to contrary interpretations—but still remain grounded here in this materia prima . . . used, run down, not so “appropriate” as form of conviction to some “receivers” but to others still authentically itself, and integral for the concreteness. And I’m not conveying experience of a younger woman. It’s as simple as that. The younger women performance artists whose energy I identify with are doing their own works. CS to Deborah Haynes169

You ask a hard question, how do I grapple with loss of creative moments? Limbo is a necessary despair . . . I experience various forms of retreat of image/energy. The centering discipline is to continuously recognize the FACT of these shifts. In the earlier days a wash of utter hopeless meaninglessness, a sea of vacuity sometimes occurred—suicidal in its ferocious blankness (and blotting out of all that usually was vivid, 169. Deborah Haynes (United States, 1949), artist.

1976–1986

18 August 1981

333

compelling). I’m very extreme—tearing around, doing eleven things at once, concentrated, “hearing” instructions, rich dreaming into work, balancing country privacy, city gregariousness . . . the drops are still horrible. My muse, companion, traveling, performing cat was killed the night of return from Europe tour—running to my call. He had crossed the forbidden road to the river—as I had crossed the ocean, leaving him for the first time. I was “out” for several weeks . . . even with the joy return to my man, spaces, seasons . . . nothing could speak. It turns again . . . work on thirty large image exposures of the cat . . . and in dreams he instructs me as to stages of process, new materials!170 But still it’s crazy. I don’t work hardly at all without a coherent, consequential partner, or on the road—simply without a sexual partner hardly function. So, many needs built into bringing work forward. And seemingly contradictory ones between domestic and public activity—need those extremes. I do know having to stay in an isolated space makes production rich and curious—what comes back as context? Artemis171 will return over and over to you. The systems which work through us sometimes demand the abyss, the emptiness. I read a lot of biographies of women and try to dance it out, get drunk, swim, dig weeds . . . wander in department stores, clean out drawers . . . Stan Brakhage to CS 5 May 1982

1976–1986

I continue ill, ups and downs—tho’ generally better, so long as I stick with diet and take naps and conduct my life with quietude . . . thus have canceled all future lecturing and immediate upon that, all involvement with whatever art polotics (punt int’d), old soc. c(1)u( )tcher, etc. ’Bout time, I suppose. Worn out with it long agon.172 Tired unto death, like they say. Do, rather, tell people (as I just did Gordon)173 that I’ve died and gone to heaven. No more complications thou the day itself affords . . . and memories.

334

170. “Cluny Ladder,” “Cluny Washing,” and “Cluny Corpse.” 171. Artemis, daughter of Leto and Zeus, twin of Apollo, and goddess of the wilderness, the hunt, wild animals, and fertility. 172. “Agon” in Greek refers to the foundational conflict in a plot or action, major struggles and interactions of Greek tragedies, and is the root word for “agony.” 173. Gordon Rosenblum (United States, ca. 1933) was a businessman, patron, and high school friend of Stan Brakhage, who filmed Text of Light (1974) over the period of a year in Rosenblum’s office in Denver. See Scott MacDonald’s A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 94.

174. Brakhage refers to Schneemann’s painting Double Portrait of Stan (1959), which included two images within the same frame. It was thought to have been lost, but was later found. 175. Bruce Baillie (United States, 1931), filmmaker. 176. Pasque is a tundra plant, a member of the Ranunculaceae family. 177. Brakhage wrote this letter after being diagnosed with a rare bladder cancer associated with aniline dyes, a dye used by filmmakers. Schneemann remembered: “He was licking his little brush every morning in the café where he would go to drink coffee and paint his film strips. Doctors analyzed his particular cancer cell formation in relation to workers who used aniline dyes in photographic processes. Along with Charlotte Moorman’s breast cancer from the unshielded little TV sets that she would wear on her breasts in performances, and

1976–1986

Enclosed the snaps of your images promised . . . Myrrena having taken ’em with best she could borrow. The first is on 81/2 x 10 drawing paper, pencil and chalk (?) or perhaps soft oil crayol . . . of Jane, of course (done that 1st visit to Bennington, 1959) and now in Jane’s scrapbook of that time. The 2nd was to have been a surprise—portrait, oils, done of me on your visit to us in Gilpin, Colo. early 60s . . . though lost on our return from S.F. mid-60s:174 because we could not afford to pay money for extra luggage on train, Bruce Baillie175 promised next hippie friend driving thru Colo. would bring the rest (we didn’t know what was in that suitcase), which did happen several months later midst usual 60s multi-colored drugged confusion, so that when several things turned up missing we assumed (tho’ we wrote Bruce abt it) lost forever: last several months Jane’s mother kept burning up old wood in the garage woodpile and found, yes, Dog Star Man himself rolled up at the bottom of that historic pile and we have had to stretch the canvas back into shape; but it is all intact and comes to me at this crucial suffering time as a meditation piece of indescribable meaning—there splits of myself now, finally needing to come together to be a whole man? . . . this, midst mid-age crisis, otherwise hopelessly torn-asunder social-hermit being? . . . something like that: and I’ve decided on hermitage and heaven— such as it is on each, but with full accommodation for the sophisticat: I talk to my books, the pasque flowers,176 the thistle that leans toward me, Jane patient Jane (no, but then I, too, am the patient) and the young Brakhages, the birds, animals, all and some few, very few friends. Painting is approx 28″ x 36″. The 3rd (of which Myrrena made a lovely close-up) is 81/2 x 10 also— oils, etc. a collage which has inspired me many years now. All long—overdue, much (too much for words) deserved good luck with your show. Here you always have one: the images move thru our lives.177

335

CS to Stan Brakhage 21 June 1982

1976–1986

Thanks for snapshots of the painting/collage, your good letter. [. . .] You will be delighted with Brakhage Scrapbook;178 launched here from these rooms; it is full of wonders, much success for this work. Bruce did splendid (devoted) design, Layout. My hand/eye in it. Helping him in your production was strange. Not to be represented by a letter there among your leaves of time/invisible, deleted, all those letters, loving struggles, issues we faced. Once you told me you made files for all your important correspondents and give to Jane uncertain items perhaps for her SCRAPBOOK . . . so the feeling of “hosting” here at home the realization of your work—the shadows of something I made lost, denied—spread out in the room next . . . Which laid parallel to exclusion of “Fuses” from vision-pantheon past Anthology sets;179 or as posited during an Art Institute lecture you made two winters ago: “only Noren180 has erotic courage to examine his own sexual life”—as I told you later, I sat there in the lecture audience struck dumb, your reiteration “only Noren” . . . how to reconcile that exclusion/severity with your having had me do the Telluride Erotic Film presentation?

336

the liver cancers of many sculptors who worked with polyurethane, there is a whole category of art material that is toxic. In the early days we did not think that these new wonderful materials could possibly be seriously hurtful.” CS in conversation with the author, 25 August 2006. See also Katy Siegel, David Reed, and Judith Richards, High Times Hard Times: New York Painting, 1960–1975 (New York: DAP, 2004). 178. Stan Brakhage, Brakhage Scrapbook: Collected Writings, 1964–1980, ed. Robert A. Haller (New Paltz, N.Y.: Documentext, 1982). 179. P. Adams Sitney, ed., The Essential Cinema: Essays on Films in the Collection of Anthology Film Archives (New York: Anthology Film Archives and New York University Press, 1975). A “Film Selection Committee” chose the films from the Anthology Film Archives to be discussed in the book; Schneemann’s films were stored by AFA, but not owned and therefore not selected for this book. The committee was composed of James Broughton (poet, filmmaker, dramatist, teacher), Ken Kelman (dramatist and film critic), Peter Kubelka (filmmaker and film theorist), Jonas Mekas (filmmaker, film critic, poet), and P. Adams Sitney (film theoretician). Concerning the “Method of Film Selection,” Sitney wrote: “Anthology film Archives is philosophically oriented toward the pure film, and it takes its stand against the standards of contemporary film criticism. The curriculum it proposes constitutes a film history for a student and aspiring filmmaker who wants to know the medium as an aesthetic endeavor. Within the range of film as an art Anthology Film Archives attempts to leave out none of the most sublime achievements [emphasis in the original]” (p. xi). “Brakhage explained to me,” Schneemann noted, “your films are not really films. He could not explain why and would subsequently change his mind under the influence of his young feminist students.” CS to the author, 25 August 2006. 180. Andrew Noren (United States, 1943), filmmaker, film and newsreel archivist.

Or that the double portrait of you181 has been found in Collum’s182 woodshed . . . (in this moment when my lost works re-emerge) . . . and you and I all pleased; but the parallel cut that you won’t loan it for the retrospective183—it won’t go in the catalogue, cannot join the “conversation” of works among its period . . . (and leads back to trail of works dispersed to Subotnick still unresolved . . .).184 If you have to clean the double portrait—dust I assume—do you know NEVER WATER or sponge . . . use only softest white bread scumble185 . . . call me if you need to clean it . . . water or dampness direct will lift underlying paint layers . . . Take good care of yourself. Stan Brakhage to CS 20 August 1982

181. Double Portrait of Stan (1959). 182. Jane Collum Brakhage Wodening. 183. Schneemann refers to her exhibition at the Max Hutchinson Gallery. See Carolee Schneemann, I. Early Work 1960/1970 (New Paltz, N.Y.: Max Hutchinson Gallery and Documentext, 1982), and Carolee Schneemann, II. Recent Work (New Paltz, N.Y.: Max Hutchinson Gallery and Documentext, 1983). 184. Morton Subotnick (United States, 1933), composer. 185. Schneemann recounts the “scumble” procedure for cleaning a painting: “Take the cheapest, softest, loaf of sliced white bread, pull off the crust, and roll a small lump into a very soft ball about the size of a golf ball. Gently roll the ball over the oil paint surface and an amazing amount of grey dust will accrue to the white bread. It will gradually crumble and fall off as you move it across the surface. After completing this process, take a very fine delicate wide brush and gently dust the remaining crumbs from the paint surface.” CS in conversation with the author, 25 August 2006. Scumble, meaning “to pass lightly over,” is a glazing technique developed in sixteenth-century Venice.

1976–1986

I have taken some time to answer your letter expressing hurt at some of my behavior because I did never intend to hurt you in the first place and wanted, in this answer to your feelings, to be careful not to hurt you further. I care for you, respect you and your work very much, and I wish to be your friend. I do not remember all the charges you made against my treatment of you in the past, and I do not want to refer to the letter (i.e. to ‘stick to the letter’ specifically) because I want to write rather out of my above feelings and these several months’ thought on the matter . . . rather than simply to be answering (with possibly some defensiveness) as if I were in the ‘docket’ of your imagination—I don’t really think I am . . . i.e. I think you know me better than the hurts I have inadvertently given. People do things often for their own innermost reasons and I often

337

1976–1986

can’t understand the self (acting out of no be-seeming reason at all), let alone explain to others; but as you have over the years so much charged me with male chauvinism (even in your book) as motivating my behavior toward you and your art, I have brooded a good deal upon that possibility: I do not think this accusation is fair to me—not because I find myself free of male chauvinism (my upbringing being about standard, in that respect, for little boys of my generation U.S.ence) BUT I think I have adequately demonstrated my sensitivity to that problem (some thanks to you) over the years. I am “on record” (before we met, even) as appreciator, public sponsor, and champion (if you pardon that aspect of chauvinism) of many women writers, film-makers, painters, etc., recognizing Gertrude Stein, THE greatest writer of the 20th century, Marie Menken as THE first film-maker to be intrinsically involved with vision, THE visionary source for film, Joan Mitchell as THE heir and therefore only viable extension of Hofmann’s186 fulcrum, H.D.187 as the greatest epic poet of our time, Maya Deren as mythic centrix of film, Lili Boulanger188 as the source of almost all mid-stream American composers (all who studied under Nadia189 and/or were otherwise influenced by same) . . . to name but a few: and, as you know, think you one of the greatest painters of your generation, having continually represented you as such (argued even with you about it, wishing the continuance of your painting—which is, after all, that aspect of your art I’ve had before my eyes all these years . . . I mean I’ve not had the example of stage activities in these lonely places I’ve lived). I think Norman Mailer is fair ground for chauvinistic attack; and I think I’m not! Aside from aesthetic, I don’t think I’ve behaved with any particularity of chauvinism in my home life either: I don’t think Jane or Brakhage daughters present justifiable image of beaten womanhood to substantiate your continuous suspicion of me . . . quite the opposite. For years people have come to me with stories of your diatribes against me, people puzzled because they have no such picture of me either as teacher or friend: I’ve always shrugged this off with “Oh, it’s an old argument between Carolee and me!”; but now that you write me yourself that you’ve been hurt, I think it time we brought this out into the open and resolved it, if possible.

338

186. Hans Hofmann (Germany, b. 1880, United States, d. 1966), painter, teacher. 187. Hilda Doolittle (United States, b. 1886, Switzerland, d. 1961), poet and novelist. 188. Lili Boulanger (France, 1893–1918), composer and first woman to win the Prix de Rome. 189. Nadia Boulanger (France, 1887–1979), composer, renowned teacher, and first woman to conduct a major American symphony orchestra.

190. P. Adams Sitney. 191. Ken Jacobs (United States, 1933), filmmaker.

1976–1986

As to my lecture praising Andrew Noren’s film (and ignoring “Fuses” in the context), I don’t remember my exact words—i.e. what specificity I was employing to designate his presentation of sexual expression, what “only” I was attributing to his films; but did you notice I excluded my films “Loving” and “Lovemaking,” “Flesh of Morning” and many other films of my making from the same designation which excluded “Fuses”? Were you perhaps being too easily ready to be “hurt” by whatever I said or didn’t say about you or your work? Certainly I have praised you and your work over the years more than you ever thought to do with respect to me. You told me once that “Fuses” would never have been possible without “Thigh Line Lyre Triangular” (a film which, by the way you said you detested when first you saw it—“sloppy painting,” etc.): have you ever credited that film publicly? . . . well, and not that there’s any reason you should; but WHY then do you always feel that I’ve not credited you enough? . . . and, worse yet, that it is because I’m against women artists or somesuch? As to the painting-in-question, your portrait of me—again, I have my very personal reasons for not wanting to part with it, especially not wanting it to be part of a public exhibition: it is a piece of crucial magic in my life at this time and, hopefully, from now on. It came back to me, after much sorrowful sense-of-loss, at a time and in a way which is imperative . . . and at a time, also, when I’m shunning all publicity I can possibly afford to avoid, when I’m trying to so change myself (i.e. get back to irreducible roots of being) that I may continue to live awhile longer, to survive the illness which pulls me down all year. Your painting is a talisman, among many, I return to daily as I sort out the impossible complexities of my life. I would think that would please you; and I think it really does, if you believe me: and if you don’t, then what hope have I in writing to you at all? I have very few friends left these days (MANY who call themselves my friends, but few whom I feel personally acquainted with at all) and these are mostly people who have nothing to do with The Arts; and I have been much used by almost everyone I know and much abused (publicly rejected, for whatever surge of ego it gives P. Adams,190 Hollis Frampton, Kenneth Anger, Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs191 now this summer, etcetera, etcetera,) and I am damn sick of that—had the pleasing notion this morning that I should take out a small ad in The Village

339

1976–1986

Voice and announce to all those who’ve stopped speaking to ME that now I’ve finally decided to stop speaking to THEM: but then I also acknowledge my own culpability in that matter—i.e. that, while no more difficult to get along with than the above mentioned and other artists, I have somehow given the impression to my friends that I was infinite pin-cushion/push-over for their egocentricities (perhaps because I was so constantly bullied as a little fat boy?) . . . and thus can hardly blame them for taking seemingly endless advantage of that: truth is, I’ve come to the natural end of my tolerance of all such. I want my friends to know that I, too, hurt, am easily hurt, have often been hurt in our exchanges . . . and that, from now on, I expect some reciprocity of understanding. I am NOT the god-damn rock-o’gibraltar many have taken me to be. I do not have anywhere near the degree of influence you, and many others, take me to have . . . no where near the amount of money most imagine. Most years our film profits are in-the-red rental-income MORE than offset by costs of replacement prints and new film-making: tho’ I have many more films and all of ’em in distribution, my financial situation isn’t today essentially any different from when you first met me . . . just a larger act to juggle, that’s all. Right now Jane and I are essentially living off a half-time teaching situation at Univ. of Colo. of $18,000 a year, abt 14/15 after taxes, I guess, which would be fine if I just stopped making films . . . so what’s the actual difference between now and when I was working odd jobs here and there all those early years, squeezing a few films out of digs-and-eats money—just that I make many more films (and for that I’m grateful) and that Jane and I have (thanks to the income of the ’60s) been able to pay off our home loans, own our home. As to my influence: I wrote hundreds of letters to foundations, colleges, etc. for artists over the years, and (until abt 5 years ago) not one single person I recommended ever received grant or job from my efforts (no, there’s the exception that Gerald O’ Grady192 took my word on Hollis193 and Paul194 and hired them for Buffalo; and Tom Mapp195 took my recommendations for Luther196 and Landow197 at Chicago: I can’t think of a single other acceptance by institute on my say-so; so that I finally began to warn people they were probably hurting themselves to use me as ref-

340

192. Gerald O’Grady (United States, 1939), founder and director of Center for Media Study, University of Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. 193. Hollis Frampton. 194. Paul Sharits. 195. Thomas Mapp (United States, 1947), artist. 196. Luther Price (also known as Tom Rhoads) (United States, ca. 1960), filmmaker. 197. George Landow (United States, 1940), filmmaker.

198. Gordon Rosenblum.

1976–1986

erence . . . until about 5 years ago when, after all, most of those I’d recommend were established enough in themselves not to really need my recommendation—this lack of influence making me more paranoiac than my own problems over the years, as it is most terrible of all not to be able to help others when you really want to). This is a very much longer letter than I’d intended to write (and does diverge); but, Carolee, it is just that I think you don’t know me as much as I’d like, don’t like me as much as I think you would if you did; and I think you think I’ve withheld help or recognition or influence from you: and that is simply not true. The limited patronage of Gordon198 and the Telluride trip are the only public opportunities I’ve had: there were many other occasions where my recommendations were not accepted. You have not had enough films completed, in the past, for me to bring you as one of the film artists of my Chicago classes; but I was behind the arrangements which brought you there otherwise, for example: there are many such examples; but it has not been part of my nature to make you aware of them—as if to brag or elicit gratitude or some such . . . BUT if you are “hurt” by a sense of lack of help on my part . . . ? You do not need to reply to this letter unless it pleases you; but if you do reply, please try to change something of your image of me enough that I can recognize more than vestiges of myself. I have never knowingly lied to you: that’s part of the problem, I know . . . that I haven’t thought as much of your films as you would wish, that I haven’t shown much interest in the whole field of happenings (which, after all, aren’t anyway available where I live); but then after all, if I haven’t praised all your work as much as you’d like, you can at least know that the recognition I have given is honest and of, from my viewpoint at least, high standards. I’ve occasionally slipped into flattery with others, and quickly or lately had to take it back in one form or another; but I have not often made that mistake with friends: my praise of you, then, would be from the greatest consideration . . . my criticism also—and yours of me, I would suppose (or I wouldn’t be writing this letter); but friendship is no guarantee of right judgment (and that may be the problem right there—that we canNOT judge friends, the scale’s awry with affection, so that any taint of public usage prompts extreme caution, highest criteria, etc.). I dunno (and am exhausted): the ball’s in your court (if you’ll pardon the male chauvinist pun); and perhaps it’s best just to let the matter

341

rest, just see what we stumble into as relationship in old age or somesuch. I’m arranging all my life (and being arranged by illness and disillusion) to endure a very hermetic future. Your path seems oppositely turned at this time. And I hope, with all affection, that that is timed for you in such a way as to be a joy and inspiration in your work. CS to Stan Brakhage 13 October 1982

1976–1986

Time has whirled days of continuous event around the exhibit199 . . . all the work and joy of it . . . followed I’m afraid by a certain predictable— that is everyone predicted it—CRASH . . . due as well to lack of cash and the heightened expectations/risk so that I worked only for the exhibit, took no jobs . . . the work looked wonderful and was SEEN . . . seen with great enthusiasm and care, gallery constantly full . . . for me to peek around from behind the desks and see the works being looked into with as much fullness as I could have hoped for . . . well that was amazing! Jonas200 was delighted—kept reappearing and Hollis201 . . . but no lists . . . it was overwhelming. You would have been pleased, wished it was a geographical possibility for you and Jane . . . something intense for the early friends who had known, held sense of these structures. And it was exhausting finally, being with perhaps a hundred people different every day every hour quick changes of recognition, discussion, interviews . . . now hoping for those reviews which build into collection/sales . . . different threshold than before . . . And wanted to tell you thanks for your letter of August—its generous spirit, directness . . . in the welter of shift, mis-re-apprehension over/ within our years there was one note of yours which I have to protest . . . I have never stated, intended told anyone that Brakhage women are held under the thumb of your art/your creative authority or simple needs . . . to the contrary I’v tried to make clear to people who ask or discuss our lives that yours with Jane was integral to your mutual consequences, being of self with other . . . I suffered in the past from being made to feel that I would be an antagonist, that my life and Jane’s were contradictory rather than interlinked. Anyway the depth of old depth-charges is more than the present can bear . . . I’m happy to be present mutually.

342

199. Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York. 200. Jonas Mekas. 201. Hollis Melton.

CS to Scott MacDonald 19 January 1983

Went to big tight reception for Bob Morris202 at loft/luxurious of Rosalind Krauss,203 and talking to Ingrid204 about the ARTFORUM screw up NO review of Hutchinson exhibit . . . and saw head to head historic dragons of my art apprentice years: Annette Michelson and Leo Steinberg . . . had to slip in to say “Happy New Year” . . . realizing both at early points had told me YOU CAN’T DO THAT about aspects of developing work . . . greeted them such a sharp sweet fragment . . . that configuration I think made each able to suddenly remember how we had known each other as nascent . . . met them through my Quaker school friend who was an au pair to a professor figuring centrally for Leo and Annette . . . staggered back to Ingrid . . . “how were they” she asked . . . “very cordial” I reported . . . “that’s how it is with dragons,” says Ingrid. CS to Udo Kultermann205 10 August 1983

202. Robert Morris. 203. Rosalind E. Krauss (United States, 1940), art historian. 204. Ingrid Sischy. 205. Udo Kultermann. 206. Cluny I. 207. Robert Morris’s Site (1964) performed with Schneemann. 208. Hans Namuth (Germany 1917–90), photographer who photographed Jackson Pollock in the act of painting in 1950 and 1951. 209. This book did not materialize, but Buckberrough wrote “Carolee Schneemann,” Arts Magazine 54, no. 2 (October 1981): 5. 210. Organized by Charlotte Moorman in New York City.

1976–1986

Be sure to send all your letters to me at this address; NYC is like my office but the mail is secure here (and I respond from the country). To meet your current deadline I’m enclosing one regular portrait photo which you can crop (but do leave the MUSE CAT in the frame!);206 one color slide of “SITE”207—for b & w we will have to get prints from Hans Namuth;208 two 8 x 10 b & w still from “FUSES.” (In a month I should have a better selection of stills; Professor Buckberrough from the University of Hartford has a grant to do a book on my paintings/films and will be making stills.)209 Daryl Chin is a brilliant young playwright/critic of a very particular sort; he was as a kid present at all the early Judson performances, Avant-Garde Festivals210 and recently as part of his work created a panel

343

in New York at JAM:211 Alison Knowles, Charlotte Moorman, Simone Forti, Elaine Summers, myself . . . it was a delicious convocation; in deep friendship we discussed the most absurd and trying aspects of our “careers” (in response to current preoccupation with “marketing/product/strategy etc. on the part of new artists). The difficulties and dilemmas of our persistence in the face of official neglect brings me to a request—if it is possible for you to reimburse me for the Xerox and mailing costs incurred sending material to you? I am broke, bottomed out, hugely in debt and unable to pay rent, telephone—all that. (Although I am assured I am on the edge of a real success with the new exhibit of works opening 10 September at Hutchinson Gallery . . .)212 CS to Kristine Stiles 27 December 1983

1976–1986

Pleased to read your Walker piece;213 I’m fuzzed over the issues and the convocations of them there, having another of my convictions/delusions that I had introduced something essential, even unique to performance ART TEXT in ’74 with the seamless text/film/action of UP TO & INCLUDING HER LIMITS . . . then the Cornell letters (done at Walker ’76),214 ABC 215—which WAS dammit very influential, and the current “Fresh Blood—A Dream Morphology”216 which is as important as Meat Joy was in these crests, eddies, declivities of vision-march over

344

211. Just Above Midtown (JAM) was a nonprofit artists’ space, founded by the filmmaker Linda Goode Bryant in 1988. JAM was the first gallery space in New York City to regularly exhibit African American artists and other artists of color. It closed in 1988. 212. “Recent Work,” Schneemann’s second exhibition at the Max Hutchinson Gallery. 213. Schneemann refers to a public lecture Stiles gave, “Event Art in the Sixties: The Humanist Aesthetic,” for a series of lectures that were part of “The 60s: Theories of Reality,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1983. 214. Schneemann performed Moon In A Tree (on Joseph Cornell ) at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1979. 215. Schneemann performed ABC—We Print Anything—In The Cards at Franklin Furnace, New York City, in 1976. 216. Schneemann performed Fresh Blood—A Dream Morphology in 1981 at a number of venues: Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut; Feminist Art Institute, Baltimore Institute of the Arts; University of Oklahoma; Washington Project for the Arts, Washington D.C.; “Gestures and Language” series at East Main Street Gallery, Richmond, Virginia; Sheldon Film Theatre, Lincoln, Nebraska; Antwerpen, Belgium; Internationaal Cultureel Centrum, Gemeentelijke Culturele Dienst, Middelburg, Holland; “Symposium International d’Art Performance Festival,” Lyon, France; “Sex and Language,” International Congress of Psychoanalysis, New York City. In 1983 she performed the piece at the Second Intermedia Performance Festival, University of Iowa.

53. Postcard for “SALVAGED—Altered Everyday Objects: Edward Kienholz, Arman, Robert Rauschenberg, George Brecht, Carolee Schneemann, Jean Tinguely,” P.S. 1, Long Island City, 22 January to 18 March 1984. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

the years . . . anyway Walker organizers never gave my work a sniff and only other artists kept saying “are you in it? Are you going?” . . . you know how that distracts from the present tense of work and so I’v never gotten the full weight of that series (and resisted). I would like to rely once more on your generous grasp and intense weaves of the actual and the invented—how was it?217 How does it advance your overall work structure now? Stan Brakhage to CS

I have been very moved by the image of your collage-drawing on the postcard from Hutchinson Gallery. It has been on the wall near my desk ever since we received it in August. I keep going and sticking my eyes right 217. Schneemann’s response demonstrates frustration at art historical constructions of performance histories in general and her place in them.

1976–1986

19 March 1984

345

up to it—ah, the pleasure of its energy, the HOPE therein such context as the brave sadness of the “torn” woman in the photo, her “leanings” a despair/courage all-in-one (as I’ve come to see her . . . and him: a determination UNable to attend her MORE than to pull BOTH of them ONward— the detritus of their lives a VORTEX centered elsewhere). It is a wonder and (to me) one of the greatest images of your making. [figure 53] CS to Playboy magazine218 21 March 1984

Dear Playboy, Playboy’s Advisor was unable to answer a reader’s question: “Why don’t males have breast nipples?” The reason is because all mammalian embryos are innately female. The sexual differentiation of the male characteristics are activated by fetal endogens during the fifth or sixth week of fetal life. Male sexual characteristics must be acquired. Let’s hope that Playboy will present biological facts as clearly as it presents “sexual” facts. Sincerely, C.S. McPherson219 CS to Pierre Restany 30 March 1984

1976–1986

I have been invited to the Venice Biennale to recreate my studio environment from 1963—with the EYE BODY events to be videoed . . . they will be shipping a huge amount of ungainly old things and we are very thrilled . . . the others in this exhibit section are the good old boys . . . oldenburg rauschenberg red grooms whitman . . . if the budget goes through we will all have this incredible exposure . . . and the chance to work steadily for ten days before the opening . . . 6 June . . .220 The other excitement drops from near branches frozen owl bodies determined claw and fur trying to tell me something . . . balmy few days and tonight one (last) luscious wet heavy SNOW STORM . . . Bruce and I will go out to walk in it while you dream of Algerian winds and startling sun streaks.

346

218. Playboy never published this letter. 219. Schneemann signed this letter with Bruce McPherson’s last name, using her initials as her first name. 220. This opening was canceled.

James Tenney to CS 16 April 1984

I want you to know how very grateful I am for your generous contributions to Soundings 13.221 It was all a wonderful surprise to me when the book arrived in the mail, since Peter222 hadn’t told me exactly what was involved, and I had actually forgotten that some of these things even existed (the letters, and your very fine drawing). Thank you. Needless to say, the whole book is extremely gratifying to me, and it has helped me to see my own earlier “history” in a larger context. It has not only made it easier for me to face my second half-century (looming this August), but almost persuades me to welcome it. I think it’s my friends I have to thank for that, and I am very glad that you have remained such a good friend, after all these years. CS to Thomas McEvilley July 1984

221. Peter Garland, ed., Soundings 13: The Music of James Tenney (Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1984). 222. Peter Garland (United States, 1952), composer, writer, and publisher of Soundings.

1976–1986

our “argument,” little splinters in the grass (or splendors in the glass) . . . is interesting. am i correct? these left over threads, wisps, spinning into view. that knowledge or scholarship may be a neutral fact. that is your claim? the information on the dis-realignment of the denied femaleness of the world—all that information existed and granted research by the early male scholars . . . but my point is that we were kept from this knowledge. women were not even able to get access to university were unable to draw from the resources that every social texture and concentration kept “us” at/in a home serving husband and family or else indentured as a worker for OTHERS’ HUSBANDS AND CHILDREN . . . WRITERS WERE THE EXCEPTION BECAUSE ONE DID NOT HAVE TO LEAVE HOME TO WRITE IN A CORNER OF A ROOM WHERE THE HOUSEHOLD DEMANDS MIGHT STILL BE OVERSEEN. well is there any question in your mind that women had equitable access to universities, libraries, ateliers, salons? and if you believe that why did those few voices of women writers risk censure, dismissal, denigration. I don’t understand why the men who love me or respect my work who live with women in creative equity are fogged in their strength and insight as to the degree and extent of: repression, loathing,

347

denial of most other men . . . I live with the exceptional man among the exceptional men, which only clarifies to my mind that the battle is not between the sexes but is between the psychopathic hierarchies of lifenegative men and the life-positive men. That the essential warfare the battle is NOT between the sexes—it is within the male psyche, between the two extremes of males—the life-negative and the life-positive enacted over, within, in, on and about “our bodies (premises).”223 CS to Sherry Buckberrough224 15 September 1984

1976–1986

Have since Santa Fe endured a most grueling week in which the exclusion of my work from the historic Whitney survey of 1958–64 (titled “Blam!” . . .)225 was challenged by Kaprow, Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen226 . . . a work is going in. This little cunt is fabulously relieved (even grateful) though in the catalogue referred to only as a “dancer”— no physical work will be included, described . . . too late . . . Name will not appear in any of the press material . . . still I may be re-creating a fur installation—my hope—and you’ll be delighted to know Fur Wheel and its adjacent fur doors and fur walls are restored in the loft after a deliriously happy and intense two days . . . preparing for Haskell’s227 visit yesterday morning . . . 8:30 am . . . so while Kaprow has 1,500 tires delivered to the museum, Oldenburg is re-creating an entire street, Whitman a complete environment . . . while all the boys are setting up the big guns I’m still fighting for eight feet across and thirty inches projecting . . . Haskell is not sure if there is room for the fur installation . . . She just phoned . . . there is no room . . . will I stand by . . . come to museum at 5 pm Monday and she will try to arrange a space for the fur installation . . . Apart from shredded nerves, the compunctions of composure, swing from rage and despair to inquiry, consultation, hope, suspended animation, frantic work towards the possibility . . .

348

223. Schneemann refers to Paul Blackburn’s book In, On, Or About the Premises: Being a Small Book of Poems (London: Cape Goliard, 1968). 224. Sherry Buckberrough (United States, 1945), art historian. 225. Barbara Haskell, “Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance, 1958– 1964 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art: 1984). 226. Coosje van Bruggen (Netherlands, 1942), art historian, wife and collaborator of Claes Oldenburg. 227. Barbara Haskell (United States, 1946), curator at the Whitney Museum.

Peter Selz to CS 228 30 December 1984

A few days ago your book, More Than Meat Joy arrived and I’ve been looking at it, reading it and I’m enormously impressed with all the work you’ve done and the writing which is very moving and damn good. And how much you’ve done! And are doing. I was particularly moved by Homerunmuse, which I didn’t know and wish I could have seen. Here you were able to get so many ideas, actions, thoughts, and movements into a single piece. Very few people have done as well. You end the piece with a poem which Rilke229 wrote to Otto Modersohn.230 Many years ago (40?) when I had first come to this country from Germany and not many people knew about Rilke, I translated a number of his poems, some of them were published (some in Stieglitz’s,231 Dorothy Norman’s232 Twice a Year, a fine short-lived literary journal). When I saw the piece in your book, I looked up my old translation of the whole poem and here it is: Where is the man who has the right to own? who can possess which does not keep itself, which only comes to catch itself at times and drops again—just as a child plays ball. For this is guilt, if anything is guilt: not to increase the freedom of a life with all the freedom you can bring to light. For when we love, we have but only that: to leave each other, for that which we hold comes very easy. We do not have to learn it.

228. Peter Howard Selz (Germany, 1919), art historian. 229. Rainer Maria Rilke (Germany, 1875–1926), poet and writer. 230. Otto Modersohn (Germany, 1865–1943), painter. 231. Alfred Stieglitz (United States, 1864–1946), photographer. 232. Dorothy Norman (United States, 1905–97), journalist and poet.

1976–1986

Well it would be good to see you again and have more time together.

349

Sir Lawrence Gowing to CS 233

1976–1986

1985

350

I shall slip into the envelope with these pages the picture of the Duchess of Alba234 pointing to the ground at her feet where the artist’s name is scrawled as if he had thrown himself prostrate before her at her command. If you think it merely masochistic that I like so much the image of a woman in this mode, I answer “Nothing is merely anything.” The tribute that we pay now to woman’s power is the chief, the most needed truth of the epoch. And why else is Goya’s image beautiful except because his admiration and subjection were already true and needed then, and have never ceased to be so since. I am sure that it has often occurred to you, with a realization that was not “merely” narcissistic, that Cayetana, Duchess of Alba was very like you, with her snakey embroidery and black net of lace. Thank you for being so generous as to find time to hear and to meet me when you were so busy. You were I think surprised when I drew you aside and told you that I had been cherishing a fantasy that we might work together. As I said it, I was panting with an excitement that had been with me ever since I knew I might see you. I think you answered “How? . . . with images . . . or words?” and I said “. . . in performance.” “How would it be . . .” I pressed on and then it was you who seemed to let out a slight pant “. . . how if I were to make a scenario for us and offer it to you?” And I think you agreed, so I sat down to write to you— already enjoying your company, already expecting that in one another’s light, we shall realize things we have still no idea of. I have used these seventy pages before to write to a wife, a lover, a prisoner, a priest, a collaborator, a student. I realize that it may already be something of a burden on you that I am writing something so like a love letter. You are certainly very perceptive because there is every sign of you knowing me better than I understand how you could. All these characters among the people I have written to are echoed in you. Your work and your words both prove it. I will just tell you of the fantasy of collaboration that I have been cherishing and invite you to correct it or reject it or fantasize a little yourself as you do in the work and the words that I have seen. [. . .] The work will be both verbal formulations and very likely a physical involvement. So it can be both tape and slide. It is likely to be 233. Sir Lawrence Gowing (Eng­land, 1918–91), painter, art historian. 234. Goya, Portrait of the Duchess of Alba (1797).

1976–1986

private (until we know how it works). But could be public. [. . .] The scenario is a series of 100 questions which I shall offer you and at least try to respond to. You can put the questions in whatever form you like. Change the order if you wish. Alter the wording, change the whole drift as new directions suggest themselves. The questions that I suggest may seem to be quite inadequate. You will insist on quite different inquiries and require the information that you need, so that the investigation becomes your creation and I am indebted to you for revealing me to myself. What kind of question? You may already have thought of 100 of your own. I’ll tell you some of the first that occur to me Can you draw? What does the question mean? Why do children ask it? Try another: Can you dream? What is the difference between the questions? How are they alike? In what sense do you answer them? Can you remember in that same sense? And so on. If the answers do not seem satisfactory, and truthful, and intelligent, and intelligible, and illuminating, they can be repeated. The questioner can insist with whatever pressure is needed, and follow whatever direction suggests itself. The first eight questions are quite promising, don’t you think. I should be glad to have to answer them seriously and publicly but I certainly can’t muster the resolution and the poetry by myself. I don’t want to be free to answer or not. I imagine myself held captive for the investigation, just as an artist is the captive of his subject. I may seem to be inviting you to torture me and if we manage to achieve that seriousness, I think the results will reward us. You will understand, being you, the caliber of the compliment I intend. Perhaps you will prefer me to write the scenario for you to work on with someone else. I should be just as happy. With admiration and love as ever, Lawrence

351

CS to Sir Lawrence Gowing 23 April 1985

Our collaboration . . . now it is given its first wheels . . . the questions pause here—between the slippery notes of this poor typing—and between geographical shifts—this brief week back home in the country and return to Santa Monica on Sunday . . . as if the turn of mind to London, to you, turns this body this typing machine—east, towards the Walkill River—in your direction. [. . .] Trying for the thread between Goya’s Duchess and “can you draw?” . . . can you draw a noose around the head of Cayetana which she escapes, shrinks within to become . . . ? How much blood is in a painted muse? Is this a question to me: “Can you draw?” . . . or do I send it back to you? I draw so that I will not become Goya’s Duchess . . . I draw to raise that hand pointing down down to his signature to her red sashed sexual query: you paint me, you stand me framed as paint tie me in red sash . . . the eyes . . . not imperious . . . not authoritative . . . quizzical . . . a sexual question to the painter . . . gaze her gaze travels up the point of the brush to his eyes which possess her without touch . . . isolated . . . you say he is prostrate at her feet in “admiration and subjection” . . . but he invests, depicts, creates the transmission of curling hair, webs of lace open behind her a tender wilderness . . . In truth beginning to draw at four years old—before language was the desire to possess the duchess. [. . .] No narcissistic identification on my part with the images of male love, desire . . . early insight that to become the fantasy image of male imagination was to lose authority over the means of creating that image . . . my childish misreading of history, the wishful concept of the equity between artists—lover and collaborators . . . head to head . . . eye to eye . . . perhaps you have been one of the rare exceptions in your own life and work . . . you and your wife equally subject/ object, image/image-maker . . . you must tell me if it is so. Malcolm Goldstein to CS

1976–1986

28 May 1985

352

Your words echo in me, burn their way into my consciousness, through my thick hustling skin that has kept me going—fool that I am/have been: yes, there were those of us who respected/valued your work (then in the sixties, as ever now), loved you and your spirit/woman source of images touching your vision into heart. But we were not the

1976–1986

ones who could make things happen for you, support you with funding to keep the paint & supplies available, the food, the rent for the studio . . . I didn’t think about those things then. Now it stares me in the face like an empty cupboard. Now I have dear friends who love me and respect my work. I think of them; that’s important. And my sons enrich my soul beyond words, even unto song. Yet, as you said, we were not the ones that “mattered.” Until you said that, I realize now, I nourished myself in the loving of friends; hustled a dollar here & there to keep payments up-to-date (I always pay my bills on time!). The love and the ability to keep going—always just a little less than expenses demanded—was enough. But the people who “mattered,” who could furnish that which was material (money for supplies, rent, food; material to burn within to nourish the growing visions/our work igniting)—they aren’t there for me now. My timing is off and I am failing at the busyness of music; it’s too busy and the work doesn’t get done (the real work/the music) and the letter writings for this or that concert, to linger me on a bit more, a bit more always like a share-cropping tenant farmer with one foot tied to the mule. Did you know that there was a Goldstein/a violinist who was playing Ives’ violin sonatas (I think in the 20s or 30s); and later stopped music altogether and became a janitor. I wonder how he played? I wonder what kind of job I will locate now. I can’t even think clearly enough to envision what kind of job to look for. Last year, I began dealing with the acceptance of failing. At first, not being hired for enough concerts, etc. had begun eating into me, thinking that the money acknowledgement was equivalent to the value of the work. And I began to question the value of my music. That took a lot of overcoming/learning to separate and accept that it was possible to fail at the business of music and to be “successful” in the visioning of music. What price can be tagged upon a work of art/sound that pushes the air around, invisibly, passes and is over?! When someone asked me how much I charged for a concert once (and this was several years ago), I said, “I don’t know.” A bit naive then. Now I know, but what matters since I can’t get it . . . as much as my rent, food, books, clothing, school for my son, transportation, paper, postage, supplies . . . and perhaps, as that timid soul responded to his maker in heaven when asked what he wanted most, having spent a lifetime trying to hold things together, “perhaps a hot roll with butter.” So now, I look ahead to next year: a desert, with a few date nut trees here & there, and know I’ve failed. The business must close its doors;

353

the landlord doesn’t care about strange songs from a violin that screams and moans and dances gleefully/all in one moment. It passes and he wants his green paper. I’ve failed; the people who “matter” aren’t there. My music is valueless and they won’t pay the rent. And I am angry, with the pain & anger I heard in your voice. All the loved ones in the world cannot pay your rent! I understand now. The hustling is endless, endless. Like a fool, those loved ones buoyed me up (and, of course, college teaching paid the expenses) . . . but all that has become ebb-tide and the beach is lonely. I know, at least now, the value of my work and it is beyond value. It is and simply that it is and will go on singing all the yes of now/the pain & joy that we encompass seems to reach out ever wider & deeper as we live. There is no bounds to it/like a double, triple rainbow. Who can pay for that?! But the rent . . . where are the people of matter to come and ask me to play a concert and pay my needs, without me having to ask, always embarrassed, for the fee?! No, I think it would be better now to withdraw from the battlefield. I know I have lost. I think I will only play music for no money, like in the days of Tone Roads (“there are many roads, you know, along . . .”). A few more concerts, next season, to round out my “career” and then I will play music simply and for a few loved ones. I am tired; my body is tight with rage. But better to withdraw now (get a job) than to lose more (be evicted by the lord of the land). Oh, I am angry, angry . . . My heart. CS to Sam Francis

1976–1986

8 June 1985

354

First time we spoke (with Peter)235 you mentioned the degree of “projection,” culturally extracting the self-image from the visual integrity of the performed works . . . you were so direct and clear about this divisive situation which troubled me for years. Then there was my picking up the Dennis Phillips’ book236 from your table, its falling open to the text correlative for my rope trance “Up To And Including Her Limits,”—(the aspect of nudity so often miscomprehended there) and Dennis’ poem: . . . “if the picture of cord & rope comes into this it’s with a sense of release not bondage as though the twisting structure of rope or cord were a pathway not a prison . . .”! And follows his Wittgenstein reference 235. Peter Selz. 236. Dennis Phillips (United States, 1938), poet, author of The Hero Is Nothing (San Francisco: Kajun Press, 1985).

which underlines an earlier performance piece made to Wittgenstein paragraphs—“Ices Train”237—a strip done on a moving train . . . The other visit to your house you referred to the photographs of the “Fresh Blood” performance—the figure constant within projections of the morphology—as “those large drawings . . . no, not drawing but they look like large drawings . . .” which completely reversed the previous insight about “projection” onto from without . . . which is now obvious . . . I can paint the projections! Wonderful shift in scale enlargement what enters through the body stroke smear rub painting in the dark following the beam of light . . . to re-invest the image source—integrates the various layers of concept. That’s wonderful enough for a few hours talk . . . last week reading Peter’s book on your work—the FACT of light in its essential motivation to your work; which led back to my mantra of the sea foam; ineffable source of transmutation & constancy. This shifted to your appreciation (on visit here) of Cluny’s238 colors—grey & white, piebald . . . my especial delight in his aspect seen through your eyes: white of light, grey of foam or shadow; his incredible multi-toned blue green eyes connection to the ocean vista framed in these windows— edge moving water foam onto sand . . . blue green radiations of sky, vegetation carrying eye to something felt as tactile, as tactile as fur can be . . . My male artists/friends speak about everything in the world but the making/conceiving of work . . . if I seem overly excited or out of whack it is because it’s so exceptional to merge such immediate and essential thoughts . . . just as it is quite astonishing for you to say welcome to the goddesses! As simply as that! CS to Maria Nordman239 10 July 1985

237. Schneemann performed Ices Strip (not “Ices Train”) for the exhibition Ices Festival Train on the train moving from London to Edinburgh, 21 August 1972. The performance is a humorous reference to phrases from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus (New York: Humanities Press, 1961). 238. Schneemann refers to her cat Cluny II (1981–88), the subject of, and collaborator in, her work Infinity Kisses (1981–88). Schneemann believes that Cluny II was reincarnated from Cluny I (1980–81) as a gift from Oscar Kollerström, her former London therapist, who died four years before Cluny II’s birth. See Schneemann’s letter of 11 April 1993 in this ­volume. 239. Maria Nordman (Germany, 1943) artist.

1976–1986

Back in jungle green humid density; fifteen pounds of mail on desk took a week to sort through; working ahead on the installation begun

355

as a small glass model on your floor. Send me a note how Europe work was for you. [. . .] Missing the compact life/work of Santa Monica, the ocean light. Hope will you keep me in mind if you travel away & want to sub-let again in the future; I should be in L.A. for March, April for film retrospective, reading, book show. If you get to NY be sure to visit. CS to Peter Selz 14 August 1985

1976–1986

Keeping a hold of some of the inspiration you generate; building the plexi-glass installation in small glass models;240 and taking the reward of teaching by becoming a student for two weeks in an excellent local class—Binnewater Arts Center241—for silk screen process as aquabase and on fabric . . . learning repeats . . . ANOTHER MUSICALITY AND continuing organizations of photo-captive sources to build “vocabularies” . . . [. . .] The good news is that Whitney Phillip Morris opens “New Tendencies in Kinetic Sculpture”242 show on 11 Oct. and among four artists Oppenheim,243 Aycock,244 Borofsky,245 etc . . . I’ll have “War Mop”246 . . . and hopefully it will comprise the frontispiece to the catalog . . . all a surprise because MAX 247 NEVER said anything except “Oh some curators are snooping around” . . . [figure 54]

356

240. Venus Vectors (1986–88). 241. Binnewater Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York. 242. “Modern Machines: Recent Kinetic Sculpture” was curated by Susan Lubowsky Talbot in 1985 at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, New York City. 243. Dennis Oppenheim (United States, 1938), artist. 244. Alice Aycock (United States, 1946), artist. 245. Jonathan Borofsky (United States, 1942), artist. 246. War Mop inspired Robert C. Morgan to write: “Perhaps the most devastating metaphor in ‘Dark Rooms’ is the television installation ‘War Mop,’ 1985, by Carolee Schneemann. The two components of this installation include a television sitting on the floor showing footage of the bombed-out remains of a Palestinian refugee camp, and a mechanical device behind it holding a rag mop that repeatedly strikes the top of the TV. As with Knecht’s silent negotiation, Schneemann’s ‘War Mop’ needs no rhetoric. The juxtaposition is as violent as Isidore Ducasse’s hypothetical-sewing machine and umbrella on an operating table, but also carries the violence into the factual world of obsession and ideological conflict.” See Morgan’s “Tales from the Dark Side,” Afterimage 15, no.1 (summer 1987): 1. 247. Max Hutchinson, Schneemann’s art dealer at the time.

54. Carolee Schneemann, War Mop, 1983, kinetic sculpture with motorized mop and television monitor with video sequences of the war between Lebanon and Israel in 1982, accompanied by a photocopied artist book with text and illustrations on the war. Photograph by Scott Bowron. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

CS to Martha Roth 7 September 1985

248. Eleanor Antin. 249. Mills College, Oakland, California. 250. Joan Hotchkis (United States, 1927), writer and actress. 251. Cluny II.

1976–1986

A few weeks after your May letter, Suzanne Lacy and I were having drinks (vegetable juice for her I believe) at a party David and Elie Antin248 gave for Moira Roth—leaving UCSD for an endowed chair at Mills249 . . . lots of old friends from early east coast days with long histories as California settlers; underlining my perfect joy living in Santa Monica, teaching at UCLA (“New Forms & Content” in the art department). What bliss. All alone in my friend Joan’s250 palatial apartment— glass crystal silver overlooking the Pacific, her Mercedes left for me to drive! Just my special cat Cluny251 with me in the huge silver & sea shell bed . . . a small pure white empty studio I found twenty blocks away . . . teach, paint, aerobics ocean silver bed . . . and the absolute delight with

357

1976–1986

55. Poster for “Naked: Toward a Visual Culture Symposium,” Naropa Institute and University of Colorado, Boulder, 1985. Design by Alex Sweetman. Courtesy of Alex Sweetman.

358

everything I saw, could do there . . . dailyness of delicious California clichés . . . how very nice everyone was as public, as community! Even the cafeteria at UCLA is delightful! I painted like an angel, no break from unconscious to conscious . . . didn’t cook a meal for three months! (Just ate strawberries, mangos . . . or “entertained” a few friends with a spread of Joan’s family silver and crystal . . . hardly mattered what I put on it to eat . . .) Got home to Bruce once every month and he came out for S.F. Book Fair, met there, back down to paradise . . . driving him north along the pacific coast highway to another radiant expanse of ocean, mountains . . . Plunge out of pacific sky to home was rough; so much stuff in this life to care for! Ten cups and I needed only three; three cats and I needed only one; hundreds of books, needed ten . . . cupboards, closets, dust mounds, vegetables, spider webs, letters, bills, files! . . . Lost the tan, gained ten pounds, the gold streaks faded . . . [. . .] By now I’m very happy again living among the cracks (and dreaming of how to get back to that other ocean). The juggling of jobs— paltry, grants (worth juggling, living broke in anticipation of ), Visiting Artist when I can connect with that possibility . . . and the blind junky determination to follow the work vision; trust it in its increasingly “useless” increments—that is, now I’m burdened with twenty years of caretaking and the space for new thoughts is filled with old explorations— sheer bulk, density. [. . .] Taught one week an intensive on-site environmental sculpture course at Lake Tahoe: the smallest incorporated college in the states. It

was required that we swim each day in the crystal lake. Eight students of various ages (18–70 nice that range), did wonderful work in their familiar outdoor spaces. In Nov. a week as visiting artist, UC Boulder. [figure 55] My motorized “War Mop” going into a fine Whitney show of five artists this Oct; and NEA grant small one to produce a large video installation. [. . .] Bruce’s publishing has had a breakthrough with the NY Times finally taking notice; enclosed review! And now they phone every week; will review two other of his books. We’re hoping for a sales breakthrough as well . . . it’s been arduous, barely sustaining him so far. We are very thrilled with each other; just marked nine years together! Wonderful life with him; devoted, passionate, tender, caring, his enjoyment of routine makes it bright; and the dog, the cats, vivid personalities and loving surround. CS to Janice Crystal Lipzin252 9 September 1985

252. Janice Crystal Lipzin (United States, ca. 1945), filmmaker. 253. Strawberry was Lipzin’s sick cat. 254. Ana Mendieta (Cuba, b. 1948, United States, d. 1985), artist. 255. Carl Andre (United States, 1935), artist.

1976–1986

I truly was thinking so much about you and brave Strawberry253—wondering if any miracles, not having heard from you—but that was day before yesterday, on the crest of Ana’s254 flying out the window to her death, Carl255 arrested for “murder,” put in Rikers Island jail after eight hour interrogation by the police in their apartment . . . two rooms on the 34th floor, Mercer Street . . . their studios elsewhere . . . and Strawberry flew out of my mind as Ana’s body entered. The world gone topsy-turvy for these two friends, renowned each (Carl Andre, Ana Mendieta—in case the news does not move to S.F. before this letter). We know how achieved their works were; how much fierce will, determination, inspiration she was moving with; that they were very happy and fought verbally sparred loved argumentation and drinking too much to heighten issues art politics material feminist Marxist issue . . . she (did you know her?) Cuban, small, delicate, volatile 35 yrs old; he stolid, somber man under the long beard steady new eng­land eyes . . . we loved and struggled with both in different times spaces issues of art address . . . crazy crazy tragedy. [plates 15, 16]

359

CS to Kristine Stiles 11 November 1985

The unhappy truth & consequences which I suspected, feared & stepped back to allow space for—his space of reluctant expression—is that, yes, Bruce needs his own space, sphere apart . . . this subtle unraveling, by Spring he anticipates moving. What sort of new pain is this? Yet familiar . . . the claw, ivy sharp bites along bare neck raised ears, the unstable rumble under my heart or this ceaseless stomach ache . . . nevertheless . . . We are still together with a tremendous span of happiness, passion, work & ordinary ritual, consistently denying rupture. CS to Kristine Stiles 28–29 December 1985

1976–1986

A possible missing link to the impetus to DIAS is the Festival of Free Expression which Jean-Jacques brought in May 64 from our “triumph” in Paris to our debacle in London—there we were attacked by the police; I was thrown under a blanket, pushed into the back of a car by Mark Boyle & Erró to escape the police. I remember we got around the corner from the Victoria Station Parish hall we had flooded with blood and feathers from “Meat Joy” stopping up the sink in the hall . . . bloody feathered water streamed down the aisles; Jean-Jacques and de Noblet caught the rector in the elevator and sent it to the belfry—where he remained for the duration—they locked the elevator . . . the performance of “Meat Joy” was in itself an overwhelming event; the outrage and excitement of the public and press led to great confusion, suppression of issue and a paltry punishing bit of press. [. . .] Nitsch256 and my connections there aesthetic/personal. “Meat Joy” in Paris had front page press in most of the European papers, profusely illustrated—would like to send xeroxes if you want them . . . it was a phenomena: Germany, Italy, France (of course), and later after the NYC performance (Nov. ’64), front page VV;257 interviews NY Times, Tribune . . . on & on. It spread like an eroticizing flash fire. For most of that year the songs in M. J.258 took off on the radio (that may seem crazy but . . .); things began to be called “Meat” . . . this and that, my influence

360

256. Hermann Nitsch. 257. Village Voice. 258. Meat Joy (1964).

259. Michael McClure, Meat Science Essays (1963) (San Francisco: City Light Books, 1966). 260. Yoko Ono. 261. Yayoi Kusama (Japan, 1929), artist. 262. Photographs of Eye Body were first seen in 1964. See Schneemann to JeanJacques Lebel, 1 March 1964, and Schneemann to James Tenney, 16 May 1964, both in Section I of this volume. 263. This commentary is Schneemann’s response to selected drafts of Kristine Stiles’s doctoral dissertation. 264. Jean-Jacques Lebel’s Festival of Free Expression. 265. Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation. 266. Joseph Berke.

1976–1986

having been McClure’s “Meat Science Essays”259 if I have the sequence right. Have we already discussed all this? I’m confused if you have the pieces aligned with the Dialectics or not. My impression had been (and was at the time) that the crazy women opened the territory of transgressions to be recognized—Yoko,260 Kusama,261 myself certainly in ny and that our “body as formal material” paralleled Nitsch and slammed down new tracks. The dates interest me because of the degree of resistance and influence a work like “Eye Body” provoked when those images were first passed around in ’63.262 [. . .] Thinking over [. . .] the elements of “machismo;”263 trying to remember did that inhibit my wish to participate, to beg, borrow money? . . . was I in production those months for Water Light/Water Needle which would come to exemplify a new formalism within randomized movement structures? Did I feel they should—on the basis of “Meat Joy’s” importance/influence—wrest a plane ticket from anarchy? Or was it the remembrance of Jean-Jacques’ initial shock, displeasure, annoyance when I arrived in Paris to participate in the “F of FE”?264 The Male Heroics were immediately threatened by this female artist from whom he expected only the most draining, distracting irrelevance. But bless our macho brothers, when we exceed their dreams and they permit that creative force its scope—and initially he was . . . well the tales can be told when needed. But I might have hesitated hard over the maleness of DIAS—one special magic cunt. It preceded any conceptual analytic modes to move new visions within the belly and sword of male imagination; that struggle has no beginning and no end with my work . . . it may be why the letters and papers are lost; because I sometimes threw everything out that did not support, help, illuminate my work path. For the Dialectics265 you will see Joe’s266 letters left no doubt as to one fierce determined champion and I needed that at least to move into

361

the saturated maleness of “experimental” culture and politics. Going to Paris only happened because Erró insisted it must; he was J. J.’s267 best friend, I was madly infatuated with him—his Icelandic stolidity allowed space for women artists—his wife was an Israeli painter; it was he who convinced J. J. and me, and helped me raise the $250 fare.268 CS to Ping Chong269 8 February 1986

This is to clarify my distress over the imposition of my work “Caged Gloves” on the Applebroog270 piece below it.271 When we spoke on the phone I had not reached Ada who did not find the hanging all right as both you and Claire said.272 Rather she told me she felt “devastated . . . but did not have the energy to pursue this problem, having just hung a major show.” The weight and density of “Caged Gloves,” the fact that it casts shadows onto the smaller Applebroog work directly/symmetrically beneath it destroys the visual integrity of both works. Curators and artists who are familiar with both of our works expressed confusion at the opening and afterwards. Ada was told “Carolee has hung a dark cloud over your head,” and asked “when did you and she become collaborators.” As I mentioned to you, neither I nor Ada have ever had this particular problem—we are in agreement and ask that one or the other of the works be adjusted so that each has its visual integrity. CS to Bruce McPherson 11 April 1986

1976–1986

My impression is I would like to fall in love with you, to be loving you with our original clarity and the deepening of time but there is—in our intimacy—an “arms length” which you extend to block unexamined feelings . . . a mix . . . on the “arms length” hang certain habits which

362

267. Jean-Jacques Lebel. 268. Fare for Schneemann’s round-trip airline ticket to Paris to participate in the first Festival of Free Expression, where she first performed Meat Joy. 269. Ping Chong (Canada, 1946), artist, theater director. 270. Ida Applebroog (United States, 1929), artist. 271. This exhibition, “1986: A Celebration of the Arts,” took place at City Gallery, New York City. 272. Claire, a friend of Ping Chong, otherwise unknown to Schneemann.

signal the closeness where it is blocked . . . perhaps dogs cats dinners food plates bedding washed clothes hung on the line . . . sweet habits . . . what led you on “the quest away” from me/from us remains unexplored and so possible to re-emerge at any time or to under-cut actual change in a present bringing us closer to what brought us together. I believe your stubborn habits of self-sufficiency—where emotions streak, mark, cut, abrade-obscures, deflects the actual. A gentle sort of Hell in which one is never allowed to reformulate the steps to the duet without pulling down the entire stage. I experience a crescendo of resentment parallel to your denial that underlying contradictions can be usefully examined. Your anger towards me rests on a structure of “disappointments” (disavowals) which you produce so that I react in a predictably grasping way from which you can detach yourself. I am not writing about all the ways I surely love you, admire, desire you because: so long as this broken strata is most active, burgeoning, there is no way for the loving continuity to take its active shape. Sir Lawrence Gowing to CS

written in May 1985, taken up again . . . in May 1986

Your crowded letter is one of the most generous forthcoming things I ever remember. The letter works on so many levels at once, it is lucid and emotional, both at the same time [. . .] CS to Henry Sayre273 15 July 1986

273. Henry Sayre (United States, 1948), art historian. 274. Henry Sayre, The Object of Performance: The American Avant-garde since 1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

1976–1986

A quick subjective skid into THE OBJECT OF PERFORMANCE:274 you can imagine what a satisfaction (release from denials, deflections, obfuscations) it is to recognize the lived truths, underlying motives and the communal necessities which wove the history you analyze with such insightful grace & aggression. I can’t tell you how I longed for this grasp, grip; all the essential pieces are there in actual proportion, friction, moment. How did you manage to see these roiling clusters at their geographic edges—is it the remove? Are you like a hawk, an owl, eagle beating your wings to clear the currents—through, down, into?

363

1976–1986

Or resembling rare para-normal phenomena—entering from Colorado, or Oregon—the clarity of purified ozone layers? Or closer to the sun and penetrating rays? Let me just shamelessly record some wisps . . . 1. You have the fullest sight of SITE;275 it will never be seen as a titillating sort of minimalist-salon piece with me as its decorative object . . . again. Thank you for the consciousness of my conscious “role”! [. . .] 2. Growth of performance in relation to protest of Vietnam war; the intercoastal influences; Ronny Davis276 was as much a confirmation at the time as were the Fugs,277 the Weathermen;278 the friends working in chemistry labs bringing us the first Physlo sybim (sp?),279 Acid . . . (the flexible spread of a radical community is absent in current critical history, as Performance Art turns into the performance tart of mtv buck & image lust.) 3. Kristine Stiles’ title is CONTINGENT LIFE AND A RADICAL FIGURATION : starts book with the bombing of Hiroshima & the impossibility of rendering “ontological terror” . . . taking hold of one’s own body—meat/psyche—permutations of lived and depicted figuration . . . (more complex than I can indicate but parallel to your insights . . . so, as I told you, between these two books art history will be re-situated & contextualized!) yes . . .280 4. Did we discuss the training of performers to anticipate police actions against peaceful demonstrations? How I developed sensitization exercises for endangering physical spaces so that crowds could protect themselves, respond appropriately—after the Grand Central “Be In” where the cops used people as battering rams to get through the glass & brass doors . . . and earlier, during the Vietnam War using odd “psychological techniques” to help my friends turn into their worst selves—a weeks “orientation” so by the time they went for their physical they were truly wrecked, incoherent, living their deepest fears . . . (and then

364

275. Robert Morris Site (1964), performed with Carolee Schneemann. 276. Ronny Davis (also known as R. G. Davis) (United States, 1933), actor, political activist, founder and director of R. G. Davis Mime Studio and Troupe in 1959, which in the early 1960s became the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a guerilla theater that Davis directed until 1970. 277. Fugs, rock group founded in 1965. 278. The Weathermen were a small radical and violent revolutionary faction that broke away from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1968. 279. Lysergic acid diethylamide. 280. Stiles’s lecture “Contingent Life and a Radical New Figuration” (1988) was never intended to become a book.

281. Michel Benamou (France, 1929–78), critic and scholar. 282. The conference took place at the Center for Twentieth Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where Benamou served as director (1974–78). 283. Jean-François Lyotard (France, 1924–98), philosopher. 284. Israel Horovitz (United States, 1939), playwright. 285. Ihab Habib Hassan (Egypt, 1925), literary theorist whose gender theories Schneemann protested against. 286. Erving Goffman (Canada, b. 1922, United States, d. 1983), sociologist. 287. Schneemann quotes from Sayre’s The Object of Performance. 288. Paul Blackburn (United States, 1926–71), poet.

1976–1986

re-adjustment days to return to “normal” . . . not one of them was EVER inducted. I did this through college for cigarettes . . .). 5. Benamou281—the most sympathetic struggle; despotic embrace of “real” theater people believing that their recognition of the action artists implied our alignment with them. (Only Benamou could organize a conference282 including Dick Higgins, Ionesco, Lyotard,283 Israel Horovitz,284 Ihab Hassan285—whom I savaged over his astonishing lecture based on gender/myth abuse. And the dirty little man286 who kept insisting the video document of “Up To And Including Her Limits” was a depiction of bondage & repression; I made no headway describing anti-gravitational delight; finally Higgins: “MR. GOFFMAN! . . . THE ROPE IS INNOCENT.” I hadn’t heard of Mr. Goffman, he was confusing perceptions and I asked him to leave the room . . . oh dear . . . and he did . . .) 6. . . . “These documents nevertheless manage to assert themselves as art objects in their own right—at times their ability to materialize seems almost perverse”287 . . . yes yes as if these images transduce their very material & making to situate a will, to become archetypal. Years and years of work are suddenly defined by one image or object. (One photograph in an article or a book can do it.) 7. Blackburn288 is at the center of it for me too. “Up To & Including Her Limits” touches “In, On, Or About The Premises” through which he manifested his death & devotion by appearing in my London kitchen; para-normal tricks which foretold fading of my breakdown, return to usa . . . (solitary work with rope, crayon). Have ’64 tape reading anthology he gave to me—we must play it. Henry this is such wonderful range & connection; every paragraph invites association back toward source and outward to anecdote—as the lived process is, as the shadow dance of emerging essential gesture in its time frame. —A bat just flutters up against this window—

365

1976–1986

Is to say thanks, what a thrill in life time it’s all as we made it and now you’ve seen how it means and said so a grouping of shadows . . . Fondest Regards, Carolee p.s. now I understand Derrida!289 CHAPTER II LETTER I 1. I don’t recall if I told you the text “I Met a Happy Man”290 . . . is a secret communication to Annette Michelson—with whom a long history of “absence;” we were finally at a feminist film festival where my films were featured in a morning session . . . she managed to sleep through, arrive late, sit beside me . . . with a complement on “your perfume” . . . I asked a younger filmmaker friend to both of us how Annette could perpetuate this avoidance over the years. The student told me “there are certain films she just can’t look at . . . etc . . .” Anthony McCall—my husband then—has sometimes been wrongly credited/ blamed as the structuralist filmmaker! 2. Your insights on the historic Olympia clarify the contradictions, projections, constrictions surrounding my use of the body and self. I know that . . . but here’s further proof and dimension socially. This is another area I hope we will one day discuss: the illicit taint to female artists—particularly as sexual associates of Great Men Artists: Krasner,291 E. de K.,292 and back through Valadon293 . . . Lou Andreas Salomé294 . . . Leyster295 . . . “usurped” as you write . . . demoted from an authentic entity. The use of image of the female, the sexual return/re-run and the duplicitous sexual hostility/fascination seeping between depicted “object” and the perception of actual woman . . . and do you take up the further twist that in the hierarchy of formation the female will always be permitted to dance & spin before taking up brush, chisel, concept— male attributes of culture. The femininity of performance you noted -

366

289. Jacques Derrida (Algeria, b. 1930, France, d. 2004), philosopher. 290. This is the title of the text that Schneemann had inserted in her vagina prior to her performance of Interior Scroll (1975), and then slowly withdrew and read during the performance. 291. Lee Krasner (United States, 1908–94), painter, married to Jackson Pollock. 292. Elaine de Kooning (United States, 1918–89), painter, married to Willem de Kooning. 293. Suzanne Valadon (France, 1865–1938), painter, supported herself by modeling for Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. She was also the mother of the painter Maurice Utrillo. 294. Lou Andreas Salomé (Russia, b. 1861, Germany, d. 1937), writer, studied with Freud, friend to Tolstoy, Rilke, and others; refused to marry Nietzsche in 1882. 295. Judith Leyster (Netherlands, 1609–60), painter, teaching, overlooked until feminist scholarship.

3. Is this connected to the cessation of performance by the originating males? They have all gone back to committed objects: Oldenburg, Whitman, Dine (good gravy),296 Grooms,297 Morris,298 Samaras299 . . . (if I had gotten dressed after “Eye Body” and stayed in the studio would I have a teaching job now?). The exceptional female example and parallel fragmentation marginalization are circuitous. 4. Well you handle all this . . . just a delicious irony to compress the good nature of Cage (true) with the acerbic nature of Michelson as hidden provocateur . . . so they emerge arm in arm! And of course Annette does love Yvonne, John loves us all . . . CS to Charlotte Victoria 300 21 July 1986

296. Jim Dine (United States, 1935), artist. 297. Red Grooms (United States, 1937), artist. 298. Robert Morris. 299. Lucas Samaras. 300. Charlotte Victoria (Eng­land, ca. 1934–98), photographer, who documented many of Schneemann’s performances. 301. Schneemann exhibited in 1985 at the Henri Gallery in Washington, D.C. 302. Cluny II. 303. Mary Boone (United States, 1951), founder and director of Mary Boone Gallery.

1976–1986

Life is increasingly wired—with its own incremental donkey steps. I am making some strange works lately; my fame increases as does my poverty; unable to find any teaching jobs for the past six months search; and recent exhibit in D.C. with tremendous focus by critics, collectors, artists, sold nothing.301 But the spaces hold together by juggling; Bruce’s beneficent spirit, and the blessed animals. (Particularly one cat whom I love with all my heart & receive a huge cat love consistent)—Cluny.302 Sent by Oscar Köllerström, resembles him! Gift from beyond. My new discovery is California; I’v been there twice for work; it’s magical city LALA base myself in Santa Monica or Venice so I can swim in the ocean every day & then do the city life runs but its wrenchingly far from home base & Bruce! It’s also why I haven’t set up a tour of London—and the cat Cluny always goes to LALA with me. Had dinner with Anthony McCall last week and that was an enchanting reunion. He has emerged from the cursed love affair with Mary Boone303—which brought out his brittle, snobbish self; this restoration was a great delight, and will bring him back to his deeper creative self. I will love to hear anything about you and life on Langdon Park. Can

367

you send the books sea mail insured? My last packages from ’81 never arrived—books & clothes, stolen I think because I didn’t insure them. Slow is o.k. after all I’v waited ten years! Felt a bit as if I had died; Charlotte304 was the right friend to dispose of the worldly & unworldly goods. The little brown bottle “Cadmium Iodide” is here on my desk with a few sprigs of garden lavender. I love having it back. The dresses are either a riot or still fit & can go to a museum opening! Thank you so much, it’s a lovely gift, return, re-run and just at the right time . . . (I guess Bruce told you Jim Tenney is recovering from lung cancer . . . in so far or long as one “recovers” from that . . . and that his young wife is dying of ovarian cancer . . . they have two babies now . . . Jim has just resolved the painful uncertainty with Alvin Lucier—he & his wife would take the Tenney children who are exquisite . . . one year & three yrs . . . remember Alvin? He’s dear, we were just on a panel together.)305 And Philip Corner just stayed the weekend with us; he is lovers with one of my closest friends—a writer, black historian,306 healer from another loop of connection. In fact this is her typewriter! Traded it to me for a kitten! For Isabelle307 who needed to live with a writer . . . best deal we ever made. CS to Anthony McCall 22 July 1986

1976–1986

It was lovely to visit and have dinner with you. Part of my spirit feels restored. I promise when I meet Annabelle308 to behave and not tell any old London tales—no matter how amusing they really are. Coincidentally packets of my London letters/papers/books from the infamous tea chest are just arriving, via the kindness of Charlotte Victoria.309 The most amazing bits & pieces of our life are scattered about on the floor (can this be sorted?). Renewing the quality of that time is touching—a radiant productive sense. The reason I was convincing you to keep the Boone310 account is that sources of such particular power do not reset themselves; certain achievements cannot be built on directly—their implied structures and

368

304. Charlotte Moorman. 305. Alvin Lucier (United States, 1931), composer. 306. Schneemann has not divulged the name of this woman. 307. Isabelle, the name of the kitten. 308. Annabel Barrett (Eng­land, 19??), artist and wife of Anthony McCall. 309. Charlotte Victoria. 310. Mary Boone Gallery.

connections remain fixed with them. It’s a thought. Perhaps you will wean some degree of personal expectation and sustain the formal work. So hard to support creative time—keep any advantage you have for that. (I’m seeing the pattern you had before of a substantial unit in place from which you wrested your creative focus, force and time. The paint account.) I hope you don’t mind—the deep friendship I feel for you. Sir Lawrence Gowing to CS

‘Casva,’ that is the center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, have asked me to say what my subjects of research will be during my nine months in the U.S. I have told them that one of my subjects will be a study in depth of the purpose and achievement of, and the response to, one present day American artist, possibly not a world famous one but one who is in full production, facing every current problem in full intensity, feeling all the obstacles and exaltation of full creativity, and one whom I greatly admire. It will gradually emerge that I am writing something substantial, with all the obedience to art that I’m capable of, perhaps entitled (if you will accept it, and spare the time to discover all that is to be discovered by the two years working furiously hard on each other—to discover what the power and dimension of art consists in, which in current conditions has to mean the power of a woman . . .) perhaps entitled, I was saying “Form and performance in the living work of Carolee Schneemann.” As I write the whole program stretches out ahead. We know, don’t we, that someone has got to tell, with all the truth that is in him (and her) just what the aesthetic of female power entails. Which will mean telling how its visible beauty is loved and worshipped. You will tell me how I have understood or failed to understand the force of your work. You will watch me get to know it and know you. You will teach me the visual and material language, and we shall chart every step of the way together. The body language as likely as not. You will see why it has to be you. And, I hope and believe why it should be me—if you find me or make me perceptive and articulate enough. You will see that I am begging that the power of art and women’s power shall take me captive and use me. But I think that I am their captive already. Is it a pity that we have wasted so long in coming together? I don’t think so, because I at least should not have been ready

1976–1986

23 July 1986

369

sooner. This great book that may be within our power has to be written by someone who has known the aesthetic of male submission. No more for the moment darling or I shall break your back with the weight of the devotion and the determination that I am unloading on you. I am asking so much generosity and empathy but believe me Carolee I have just as much to give. Nothing will be right for art or for women, or for men with the slightest perceptiveness either, until someone comes forward who can tell the fulfillments of enslavement to women and women’s art. You will have to hold my fanaticism down and teach it obedience. I hate wasting this empty paper on its way to you, so I go on fantasizing. Do you know that confession of Delacroix:311 “If I am not writhing like a snake in the hands of a sorceress I feel cold.” All the best art history is waiting to be written. Send a word that you accept and where we shall meet on 20 September . . . I cast you as a sorceress—what else can an artist be? CS to Sir Lawrence Gowing 15 August 1986

1976–1986

YES—the prospect of working together! The first book I remember smuggling under my coat with desperate visual necessity was written by you. Tonight I open it to pages years ago underlined in drawing pencils—certain of your sentences which will resurface much later within the principles shifting materials from canvas to performance dimensions, or film . . . (how to go-through the frame) “Vermeer’s shadow does not only obscure line, it interrupts and denies it.”312 There is no certainty but today I can imagine a prescient attention to words which provide an aesthetic permission for “Fuses” and “Kitch’s Last Meal”: “The common characteristics of all the painter’s world, the remarkable order which he extracts from the world, his elaborate evasion of its human claims, suggest the immanent possibility of opposite qualities, a fearsome anarchy . . .”313

370

311. Eugène Delacroix (France, 1798–1863), painter. 312. From Sir Lawrence Gowing’s Vermeer (London: Faber and Faber, 1952). 313. Ibid.

That inspiration. Fragments of impact. As last month in D.C. at the Phillips314 (and I hope we can see this together)—in splintering clarity, taken beyond time (reluctant to go to a Museum with those friends toddling around on a Sunday) but there it was: a small Vuillard315 (as they are usually “small”)—optical stokes suffused with light particles interior/exterior of equal beat except for a glaring red triangle—solid, hard edged, bright red. The sort of discrepancy which could lead to an advance but which one paints over in its inappropriate context. But Vuillard did not paint out the hard red triangle; this beam of radiant light abstracted, in dislocation predictive of structures to evolve fifty years after. I remained rooted before this intimate contradiction. And tonight I re-read “In one picture, a little to the left of center is a square of smooth paint, yellow.” Underlined twenty-five years ago—for its saturation of language capable of seizing my hand and eye. And so following a few tracks from the wonderful Lawrence Gowing catalog—to my own work with the body as core, to the recurrent tilt towards arcade, arbor, vector in our works; your beautiful piece on Matisse, the “Harmony in Red”316 full of depth, gathering the influence of his lived and created iconographies where then they lead and blend into your own—it seems to me—your lost “Laying of the Table,” 1939, (the Matisse essay ’68?).317 What can I send you in the meantime? Do you have my “Fresh Blood— A Dream Morphology”? essay and performance notes? For it is central to work of the past five years, and touches on Goddess shadows, lost essences, denied power . . . I enclose it now (in hopes have not already sent it to you). Dear Lawrence, I am flattered, thrilled and hopeful for bringing my work to light under your eyes. CS to James Tenney 28 August 1986

314. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. 315. Edouard Vuillard (France, 1868–1940), painter. 316. Harmony in Red (1908–9). 317. Lawrence Gowing, introduction to Matisse, 1869–1954: A Retrospective Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1968). See also Gowing’s Henri Matisse: 64 Paintings (New York: Doubleday, 1966).

1976–1986

With all the disruption of your daily lives I can’t guess if you’re taking oxidating Vitamins; so here’s some Vitamin C in any case; you can’t get too much and it should give topical relief. A small thing but perhaps

371

powerful. A slightly belated present from Bruce & me enclosed as well! I hope you and Ann are doing well; I haven’t spoken with Norton.318 The Polansky319 issue of Perspectives320 will be splendid. If you have any thoughts on what I might contribute let me know; Larry asked for any visual images of my own, but perhaps the posters for Tone Roads would be interesting? You two are always in our thoughts; we send every wish & prayer for rejuvenated time & space together. CS to Clayton Eshleman 23 September 1986

1976–1986

Just back from a performance festival/Winnipeg ugly as it is vital— one of those lost spaces full in inspired/inspiring community hungry to make art central; best technicians, organization, help . . . did “Fresh Blood—A Dream Morphology,” new version with the ten monitors as echo (their equipment possibilities of scale, image reiteration) and a dream workshop . . . “Dream/ Space/ Object,” which I may have mentioned to you & Caryl; the “thingness” of layering become dream residue, then taken into depiction as object or enactment—simple simple but as high & deep as time available for the group. [. . .] It was wonderful having time to see you both in LALA;321 hope the “Smolinksi Box”322 traveled well, full of light . . . there is another work I’d like to send you; one of the photo sequences of the blood on snow painting from the “Ana Mendieta Homage” series. A shared up-date in presence. Your help in getting me organized for “Owl/Ocean/Table” led to the best conjunction of participants (never mind the size of their cocks/or cunts—you didn’t anticipate complements from the School of

372

318. Larry Norton (United States, 1947), physician, deputy physician-in-chief for breast cancer programs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “In friendship to me,” Schneemann explained, “while in Toronto for a conference, Dr. Norton advised Jim Tenney’s oncologist on his original treatment for lung cancer.” CS in conversation with the author, 25 August 2006, one day after James Tenney died of lung cancer. 319. Larry Polansky (United States, 1954), composer. 320. James Tenney’s “About Changes: Sixty-four Studies for Six Harps,” Perspectives of New Music 25 (winter and summer 1987). 321. Los Angeles. 322. “Julia Smolinski was our neighbor,” Schneemann remembered, “an old peasant from Poland living on a rocky hilltop in Meyersville, New Jersey. She turned this barren hill into orchards and vegetable and flower gardens. One of the controlled burned boxes that I built at the time was inspired by her, and subsequently given to Clayton Eshleman as a gift, which he returned to me.” CS in conversation with the author, 25 August 2006.

56. Carolee Schneemann, Video Rocks, 1987–88, multimedia installation with two hundred hand-cast rocks (cement, glass, ashes, wood), five video monitors, ten Plexiglas rods with ten halogen lights, two-channel video of feet walking on rocks, painting; acrylic on paper (6′ × 9′). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

323. Sulfur (1981–2000), poetry magazine edited by Eshleman at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. 324. Schneemann refers to the beginning of her installation Video Rocks (1986–88). 325. Nancy Rubins (United States, 1952), sculptor. 326. Burnett Miller Gallery, Los Angeles.

1976–1986

Design . . .). Could we trade the Ana piece for an extended Sulfur 323 subscription? ($till between jobs/grants this difficult year.) [. . .] I have been building—since return from LALA—the dream/ vision space I described to you: a floor of rocks like circles (pies, cow pads) . . . inserted at random spaces between the welter of stone circles— nine foot poles, rods, covered in the same rough surface material (cement, saw dust, ground glass, putty, urine)—the poles gouged seam inside where rows of small golden lights emit their glow. [figure 56] There are now almost 75 “stones” “unearthed,” ancient.324 It was at Nancy’s325 exhibit (Miller Burnett)326 that I saw the installation as an actual space . . . perhaps something will come of it—trans-coastal/ trans-spatial.

373

Jane Collum Brakhage Wodening to CS

1976–1986

14 October 1986

374

When you called me “consequential” & I burst into tears, I realized you’d found the precise word I need, used to think I was, miss. Gee Whillakers, you must be psychic or something: makes me shiver all over. I yearn to believe you, dread to believe anything falsely. I stand swaying, clinging hard to the earth with my toes, trying to see “the truth.” Silly pastime, perhaps. Can’t get a perspective on myself. Keep trying on different things—“has-been,” “never-was” “little wifey” “oh; she just makes cheese you know, & eats it,” “middle-aged American housewife” “old biddy,” stuff like that. “Consequential” makes a refreshing change. —THANKS— [. . .] Can’t tell you how important yr note is to me. Everyone writes to Stan to sympathize & encourage him. It’s a rare treat to get one addressed to me. Surely you are secure in the knowledge of your vitality, brilliance, grace, magnetism, incredible humor–wisdom–sense–sensitivity? etc. etc.? I love you too—and I’m sure you know I’ve loved your work always. Jane I’m putting the kiss on the wall— Next morning. The big haunt in our minds, of course, is—is this the beginning of death? Thinking hard, I really don’t think it is. What I think it is is the beginning of OLD AGE—a horribly embarrassing state to contemplate & takes a horrendous adjustment to even prefer over death. Looking at the lives and works of old artists, there seem two ways to go—simple happiness or plunging lonely to the depths of one’s knowledge. No doubt there would be others. But the plunge, the knowledge, excites me. Rembrandt, Bach, Michelangelo, etc.—the greatest took the plunge. And were masters from decades of great work before they become old—so that they could dance masterfully into areas where old people can go. So that makes old age very attractive. Who cares if the men don’t whistle anymore? To be finally free from caring about that wd be a tremendous release of energy & concentration. It would be wonderful if Stan stayed with me. He needs me for reality & I need him for form. But even tho I’ll never master words, the main thing to me is to take that plunge. I want to know!

CS to Sir Lawrence Gowing 14 October 1986

Do you think our friendship can produce many unique & fruitful ironies; a dance of parallel contradictions in which our forms become ever clearer to each other? My position through the work has always been to challenge, deflect, re-direct the projections of male culture & historic imagination. It is within the discrepancies that new meanings can emerge. Your equation of female power/male submission is radical in the shape of your work & life—your vision; but at the same time traditional in the linkage of power/submission to some child-force, a self-revolving quest to re-position adult sexuality—not simply “female power/male submission.” Your self-interrogation piece is wonderful for its truth, exposure, the shock of de-mythification—to both observe & capture, approach & avoidance, the confession & denial which usually are submerged in “normal” deceit, delusion. So dear Lawrence here is my version of self-interrogation: Dirty Pictures, performed in 81, 82. CS to Jane Collum Brakhage Wodening

Many thanks for the wonderful gifts of your writing and the fragrant full feathers (and writing). Wonder of the great full moon two nights ago: luminous flood, filigree shadows—the same on the edge of these close cliffs as below your mountains? The radio mention of huge snowfall in the Rockies. Do you suppose all of life situates rehearsals for the unpredicated courses we will follow; as you mention “getting old” . . . which slowly positions interference and projections towards my authentic impulses— such as to go out & dance (I know all the new “moves”), to make love outside under the ash tree, to wear the transparent flowered yellow dress . . . the world is re-imagining me in its stereotypic constraints . . . all the very ones I fought my way out of—brazened out of—are being re-served on the hands of friends, enemies and lovers. I know/can see how to be a truly mad old lady with wild white hair & long black beatnik stockings but these years in between! Oh dear, some awful “joke” presents itself—“it’s better to love an ec-

1976–1986

20 October 1986

375

1976–1986

static, responsive donkey than an ass of a human;” I feel so strongly the companionship & inspiration of the donkey in your Transformations.327 Parallel to the one being on earth who loves me with total spirit, body & presence, and whom I can love unreservedly in return with no claims and impingement, manipulation, “demands” or loss of self-identity (which crimes men mirror)—my cat Cluny.328 Alone in a chill bed he comes under the covers—lifts them gently with his paw, and gently spreads his small fur body over mine, flattened between my breasts, his triangular head under my ear, paws on my neck. And wakes me in the night with those ardent full-tongue kisses. My heart stops a beat and I ask Who Are You? An extra struggle to work, to focus, concentrate with the man I love pulling away, twisting, confining . . . just fed all the dogs & cats—one missing, of concern because hunting season—small animals—has just begun; the insane men in their little orange jackets invade the pasture to celebrate nature by killing a bit of her. I find your writing majestic—these tales of wisdom and acute observation always braided to a specificity of feeling—so clear, seemingly effortless that one experiences a deep shock of identification, of renewed insight. And I love the actual truth of these tales, the lived-life in them (which is so different in tenor and weight from the mythos and inventions of male imagination) (and yet relating in my mind to Hemingway—the direct voice, pared down). “Of The Unknown” is uncanny & terrifying without ever dramatizing—the simple elements & events are laid out like a pic-nic of frozen moment, a moment so captured by a sinister force that “even the dog didn’t want to get out to take a leak.” (Again this rigid dog, the animal standing for the larger inexpressible layers of meaning.) So, we don’t know what history will make of our “plunge to know”; for me you have a genius to bridge the visible and invisible, the actual and the lost-to-time (as Stan does in his art). Creeley329 is dead wrong to tell you to quit writing! That sounds like another projection from his life—where friends closer to him & Penney than I am now—tell me, all is disheveled & breaking apart . . . because of his consuming need to be taken care of . . . that he insisted that she drop her study of landscape gardening; which this friend she wanted to learn so that she could support them both. (The endless re-patterning

376

327. Jane [Collum, Brakhage] Wodening, From The Book of Legends (New York: Granary Books, 1989). 328. Cluny II. 329. Robert Creeley (United States, 1926–2005), poet and novelist.

57. Carolee Schneemann, Venus Vectors, 1986–88, sculpture and video installation, plexiglass, mylar laserprints (10″ × 22″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

of male attraction/repulsion, separation from and re-invention of the Mother figure . . . we are celebrated & shredded over & over again.) My own work is at a fine moment; a large transparent installation underway for several years is proceeding now; help & avenues of funding seem potential for “Venus Vectors.” [figure 57] Barry Jay Schwartz to CS 330

What lovely romantic subtle letters—your hand-writing has hardly changed. What’s so wonderful about the letters is that they’re love poems. They don’t start “Dear Barry . . .”—They open with things like: “It’s morning—I went out to greet the dawn. The dew clung like clear beads to blades of grass . . .” You’d continue on taking in all the natural unspoiled beauty around you then suddenly describe a feeling that 330. Barry Jay Schwartz (United States, 1930–99), psychiatrist.

1976–1986

27 October 1986

377

1976–1986

was formed as you looked about you and compare it to something we may have shared together: Lord, they were beautiful poems. I think I’ll keep—em! I had a little run-in with Ronnie Laing331 last week. A group of about six of us have been meeting once a month for about 18 years to talk. We knew Ronnie was in town and he accepted our invitation to join us. He arrived drunk, left even more drunk, proceeded to verbally abuse Spurgeon Eng­lish (age 84),332 criticizing him about a paper written in 1964 which Spurgeon knew was “iffy,” then asked him how it felt to be 84 and knowing that he would die soon while the rest of us lived—walked out of the room to take a leak, after leaving the john walked into a different room with a piano, sat down alone and began to play. Spurgeon was deeply hurt (I drove him home so we had time to talk). I dropped the word to the people responsible for his visit to Philly that I thought he’d behaved like a flaming asshole. Evidently he knew it too because his lady companion, Marguerita, when he arrived back where they were staying, took one look at his face and said “My God, what did he do?” I received an apology from R.D. accepted on the condition that he also apologize to Spurgeon. He did, and last Thursday night at a banquet in Spurgeon’s Honor at which Laing was the speaker, Laing was especially demonstratively affectionate: Arm on my shoulder, friendly squeeze of my arm etc. A genius, yes, but a genius who should be spanked once in a while. I think it’s hilarious that Joe Burke, who states in his intro to “Mary Barnes”333 that the only place to learn about treating psychosis in the mid 60’s was with R.D. Laing in London, was contradicted by his guru. Laing said he felt like a freak thinking he could understand and talk to psychotics until he started noticing all the stuff going on in the Baltimore/Chestnut Lodge Area. Hanna Green334—“I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”—was treated at “The Lodge,” The Philly Group at Pennsylvania Hospital (my group) and John Rosen in NYC.335 Sure Rosen is wacky, but he started something hot rolling in 1946. The Bateson Group published the “Double Bind” paper in 1955.336 Poor Joe Burke, went to

378

331. R. D. Laing. 332. Oliver Spurgeon Eng­lish (United States, 1901–93), psychiatrist. 333. See note 373 in the first section of letters (1956–68). 334. Joanne Greenberg (also known as Hanna Green) (United States, 1932), novelist. 335. John N. Rosen (United States, 1909–95), psychiatrist. 336. In 1956, together with the psychoanalyst Don Jackson, the therapist Jay Haley, and the anthropologist John Weakland, Gregory Bateson proposed the “Theory of Schizophrenia,” describing family communication as the source of thought disorders in patients.

London without reading the U.S. Literature or noticing that the Nat’l Inst. of Ment. Health was spending Big Big Bucks in the 50’s and early 60’s on Psychotherapy of Psychosis in grant money. [. . .] A word about the stamps on the envelope (aren’t they fun!?). It was a demonstrated fact that from the inception of the first stamp through the 1920s U.S. stamps, purchased at face value would appreciate at roughly the same rate as money kept in a savings account. So, during the depression, people who’d been stung by loosing everything by banks going out of business if they could afford it would buy sheets of US stamps and stash them. When the Depression ended and now more people could afford to buy stamps in quantity as an investment, and they did. Comes Judgment Day—sell the stamps and reap the profits—whoops, supply and demand, big supply, minimal demand, beside, people posting letters in volume were using Pitney Bowes machines! Result, people had to sell their stamps at 90c or less on the dollar to dealers. The dealers then turn around and sell them to weirdos like me at face value making a quick + easy 10% profit. I buy ’em cause I think they’re fun.337 CS to Barry Jay Schwartz

. . . There you were on the rift of my earlier hallucination . . . so thought “yes . . . still after all something of ESP.” It was a few days ago (triggered by the death of my mother?). That I hadn’t called to tell you . . . or had and forgotten what we said . . . or I intended still to speak with you out of that claustrophobia . . . her preserve . . . escaping with you . . . the vivid intoxication . . . (if she dies then we can as well . . . die). Jim’s lung cancer . . . how bitterly Bruce relayed the information he knew would be . . . excruciating . . . so close . . . (did not take me in his arms) . . . across the table of the North Light “now we will quit smoking” . . . why? At last! That’s great why? [plate 19] “Because Jim Tenney has lung cancer” . . . and tonight the bittersweet waft OF CIGARETTES! and Bruce bent over the sink brushing his teeth with a crazed eye . . . I said I used to tell my mother “I just burnt some old love letters” . . . your letters’ stamps from that very moment Lavender Botticelli Graces dance for 3 cents nostalgia trod under the delicate prance of pointed small feet . . . which reminds me of the sandals you had made for me in Greece (do 337. Schwartz used four historic stamps on the envelope of his letter.

1976–1986

10/11 November 1986

379

1976–1986 380

we always mention them?) . . . one of the first intimate gifts . . . made to measure, free run & binding . . . this other stamp the 1935 “Charter Oak,” cancel circle of ink perfectly centered around the trunk & heavy boughs (in a wonderful brown/magenta) while the Botticelli remains untouched as well as the 4¢ US MAN IN SPACE . . . below your familiar black pen is computer row of marks from some other posting process— the contradictions perfectly balanced it seems between the stamps conveying fifty years of miniaturized aesthetic message, the impulse within your words which bridge to the recent hallucination of mine—speaking to you as rushing along a new york city avenue . . .338 I wish you could see this incredible drench saturation unpredicted filigree of trees . . . window sparkles the cliffs beyond lost in density of snow contours; gone out with the dogs to become deliriously lost in the almost familiar paths, deer tracks, towards the grey cliffs brushed streaked . . . how touched I was by your description of those early letters (usually one faces the shame of youthful . . . what? . . . naiveté . . . same bad spelling?) but your mention of this same immediacy to situate a time & specific space, the force of nature on the moment (and unchanged . . .). [. . .] If we can meet we will discuss R. D. Laing—do you remember my contretemps with him at Dialectics of Liberation? Some of that unfair struggle in my book339 . . . but why such a bitter regard for Joe Berke—it was his innocence which fueled the mercurial connections, associations he forced . . . and for the time one of the uniquely nonsexist men around . . . Laing as I’m sure we’ve told each other—deep Presbyterian patriarchal root from which he could squirm but never depart . . . observe the litter of adored/adoring females/wifes/lovers . . . the quality of the litter, indicates to me the dominance of his sexual ego rule . . . he could never shake it . . . (Asking me at Dialectics when I had 130 people to direct, organize . . . if I’d sit with his exquisite German wife & talk about macramé (sp?) which was her new interest . . . and the heavy elephantine males arranged their next meeting to shape the world) . . . Your letter is so warm, incisive, fluid . . . following on, moving into that interior rush to speak with you; makes me hope that indeed we will have that chance soon again . . . I’m no good listening to tapes really— my desk is geological accusation of projects, transcriptions, descrip338. Schneemann refers to the stamps on Schwartz’s letter of 27 October 1986. 339. See Schneemann’s More Than Meat Joy, pp. 151–57.

tions, applications, recommendations, imprecations . . . everything in the “Personal File” buried over & over & over . . . with the inevitability of this steadily falling snow. Preserving the stamps . . . if not economic after all, a source of great pleasure & appreciation on my part. Barry Jay Schwartz to CS 15 November 1986

340. Joseph Berke.

1976–1986

Oh: a couple comments more on good old R. D. Laing: There really must be some justice in the world. Good old R. D. is about to lose his Medical License in Britain. As tolerant as the Brits are of idiosyncrasy, he pushed it too far. Treating patients when you are falling-down-drunk is a “no-no.” My lack of compassion for Joe Berke:340 Why don’t I just excuse it as naiveté? I gather Joe took his Residency in the US, then went in search of a Guru to teach him about the mysteries of Schizophrenia. If Joe made a statement about “no one knowing how to talk to Schizophrenics” TODAY—I could forget it—if he’d said it in the 1940s—OK—but to say it in the 50s + 60s makes me wonder if he did any reading during his training. Laing was looking to the U.S. for confirmation, ’cus that’s where it was all happening. Baltimore, D.C., Phila, NYC was a beehive of action and research—Laing was isolated and an outcast—but here, the Nat’l Inst. of Ment. Health (read “U.S. Government”) was handing out big bucks then, to fund people willing to talk to Schizophrenics—To be naive is one thing. To be blind, deaf and drunk THEN to write about it is really screwy. Laing is creative, but we’ve got better guys here. Sure, he’s a poet but I see him as a better poet than therapist—that’s enough of my soap-box—you see, the psychotherapy of Schizophrenia is a special area for me.

381

1987–1999 Schneemann’s correspondence remained at the center of her activities throughout the 1990s despite demands from every sector of the art world. She continued to write on topics ranging from art, the culture wars of the two decades, travel, exhibitions, and companionship with old friends to her love life. She was plagued by financial worries, her work remained overlooked by collectors, and no retrospective of her art was forthcoming, even though she was increasingly included in many exhibitions. [figure 58] The present collection closes in 1999 with Schneemann’s letter to Daniel J. Socolow, director of the MacArthur Fellows Program then as now, explaining her unwillingness to comply with his request to write a recommendation for another artist, having been overlooked for the same grant herself. Unusual given her normally generous support of others, this letter divulges Schneemann’s frustration with the conundrum of fame bereft of material comfort after four decades of making original and pioneering art. Yet her correspondence also attests to how Schneemann supported her peers, mentored scholars, and encouraged younger artists, inspiring one hopeful student to write: “Would you help me become a better performance artist?” Schneemann’s letters testify to her intellectual and political commitment to art and society, and demonstrate an insatiable curiosity always alert to new ideas and experimentation in art. Schneemann continued indefatigable in cultivating and sustaining friendships, making new art, and participating in the international art world, despite frequent, serious illness that began in the 1980s. Schneemann’s letters convey how the beauty of nature, solace of animals, and comfort of her eighteenthcentury stone home provided the stable foundations for her prolific creativity, which continued unabated into the twenty-first century.

58. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of Coagula Art Journal 26 (March 1997). Courtesy of Coagula Art Journal. Photograph by Janet Preston.

CS to James Tenney 14 January 1987

1. Sacred Spaces, Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York. 2. Schneemann taught a course related to expanded media.

1987–1999

What about the travel plans? How are you managing with the children, your health and work? Hope it is smooth as can be, and that the New Year brings re-newed happiness, well being. I’v just completed a major piece and if there is some magic fluke (sp?) to bring you towards Syracuse there will be a fine opening party on 6th of February for “Sacred Spaces.”1 We’re fine; enjoying the snowy configurations of deer track, & carcass arrayed by the house—Dog Pride; the cats adorning radiator & wood stove, waiting for the Real blizzard . . . Off to the city to teach the one course at NYU.2

383

Werner Fenz to CS3 3 March 1987

One of the main topics of this year’s styrian4 autumn is ANIMAL ART.5 This project—an exhibition and a symposium—will be presented between September 19th and October 11th 1987 in Graz. Our main intention is to illustrate how the artist is concerned in his work with the living animal. The planned exhibition as well as the accompanying catalogue should enclose a comprehensive as possible documentation too. Therefore it is necessary to collect all reachable materials. As a member of the team of Richard Kriesche,6 who is in charge of this project, I would like to ask you to make photographs (black/white if possible) of your work available to us and to fill in the enclosed questionnaire accurately. We expect your answer until April 15. CS to Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation 22 April 1987

1987–1999

I want you to know how grateful and proud I am to be a recipient of a Gottlieb grant. This award means more to me than any other I’v ever received because it connects directly to the visual roots which are the origin of my conviction and inspiration. In the late 1950s I was fortunate to visit NYC as an art student observing the worlds of art; exhibits by Gottlieb, Guston, de Kooning, Krasner, Pollock, Mitchell remain vivid. It was at these openings that I observed an intimate and intense community of visual issue and interchange. That time of burgeoning new forms and methods with the attendant risk and uncertainty sustains me as a counter force to the current conflicts of tendency, opportunism, commercialism . . . The grant arrived like a life-line on March 14th; on the 15th my electricity was to be turned off, health insurance canceled, loft insurance as well. Trying to produce work was limited to simple graphic process. The

384

3. Werner Fenz (Austria, 1944), art historian and curator. 4. The Duchy of Styria, part of the Holy Roman Empire, was located in southern Austria and northern Slovenia until the Austro-Hungarian dissolution in 1918. Graz, Austria is in this region, which gives its name to the festival. 5. “Steirischer Autumn” is an annual avant-garde festival begun in 1968 and held in Graz. See Animal Art: Steirischer Herbst ’87 (Graz: Steirischer Herbst, 1987). 6. Richard Kriesche (Austria, 1940), artist and media and art theorist.

Gottlieb envelope was a certified one; in a confusion of hope and fear I wondered before opening it: would they send a rejection certified? Blessings for your continued help to creative works, and again my thanks. CS to Peter Selz 6 May 1987

7. Dorothea (Dora) Mosse Panofsky (Russia 1885–1965), Pandora’s Box: The Changing Aspects of a Mythical Symbol (New York: Pantheon Books, 1962). 8. Pandora’s box represents the source of all misfortune. 9. Donald Kuspit, “Louise Bourgeois: Where Angels Fear to Tread,” Artforum 25, no. 7 (March 1987): 115–20.

1987–1999

The key to the star, the vectored arms, the visual cosmology of “Venus Vectors” is of course in the physical translation of the “V”—how the eye pulls it into the body; which is why the walk-around, the encircling of the planes is so essential to the insight of connection between the static and the moving “vocabulary.” And as the layers of association are “winged” in the construction so the levels of meaning are branched within the text. The “vectoring” of meaning moves back to its source. Art Historically “V.V.” offers a counter/contrasting iconographic direction to Panofsky’s7 “Pandora’s Box,” as well as constructing a harmonious unity to contrast the phobic/vulvic terrors of a Klee or a Beckmann “Pandora’s Box.”8 We have inherited a torturous male tradition of vaginal terrors. The conceptual and visual structure of “Venus Vectors” offers the viewer participation in a sacred sexuality; they move around, look into space which is not phallicized, does not reiterate a male realm of projective castration or idealization. Is that what you suggested when you asked “how will the viewer understand the connections?” Do we really only “understand” the male traditions of form and formation—that we assume the masculine determinates of perception itself? For instance the grotesque projections of Kuspit on Bourgeois in the March Artforum, “Where Angels Fear to Tread” (!).9 Here he strips the femaleness of her imagery—its lived source, denies even its androgynous aspect, assigning the core of her imagery as: cock and shit! An essential phallic (Freudian) universe which he claims she subsumes, appropriates with mastery! “Venus Vectors” simply posits a female visual universe of creative variety. It’s nonhierarchical nature, its participatory aspect is noted in the description

385

of the vector images on the panels and in the performance: the human body—organic forms—sacred artifacts—common objects and symbols. Humor, dailyness availability of the sacred within the ordinary, are always an essential leverage in my works. (Irony, comedy, open insight.) CS to Suloni Robertson10 11 August 1987

It’s you who is precious, mysterious . . . we just affect each other strongly . . . I cry when I read your letters to me . . . the beads are so exquisite . . . I want to send you wonderful gifts . . . something I made . . . I used to dart into the hallway to hide my tears overcome by some actions of yours, the unforgettable blood-language installation of the earliest morning . . . the depth, courage of your insights and of that amazing class . . .11 I know how difficult it is to leap over teacher/student . . . all the rest around us but Joe12 made the structures, lowered the hurtles . . . we can be friends together . . . you are always in my heart . . . you don’t have to be a great artist or anything but who you are . . . what I wish for you? . . . as I noted in letter last week . . . be less self-critical, give yourself permission to start at a blind level with some creative discipline you like . . . “like” is enough . . . every little thing demands as much time/energy as anything with imaginative consequence . . . we have to fight for that self-determined space, event . . . and that takes a blind confidence . . . based on? nearly nothing is o.k. for a start of blind confidence . . . Mary Beth Edelson to CS 25 August 1987

1987–1999

I woke up this past week one morning with a completed ritual in my mind. I did not dream it—it was simply fully there.13 The ritual was one that was to be enacted for you as a healing ritual in connection to your break with Bruce and helping to heal that wound. If you would like for

386

10. Suloni Robertson (Kenya, 1969), artist. 11. Schneemann was teaching at the University of Texas at Austin at this time. 12. Joe Robertson, Suloni’s future husband. 13. Mary Beth Edelson requested that a few words in this letter be changed. For the original, see the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–1994, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California.

me to actually perform the ritual for you I would be willing to do that [with seven mutual friends].14 Let me know. I will be back in NYC by Sept. 1st.15 CS to Alan E. Schwarts, D.D.M. 6 October 1987

Thank you for gracing the privilege of Cluny’s death.16 It was the essential way for both of us; he died at 7:30 this morning sleeping pressed beside me as always. I woke up to his sudden cry, stroking him as he twice barred his teeth, kicked out his back legs against the force of death. It seemed I felt his heart beat for a long time through my fingers. His death was as graceful, trusting, and ardent as his life. It seemed to me death was the least of his life finally. We had a remarkable final night. He was too weak to move, we lay on the bed under covers, face to face, candlelight nearby. Cluny refused to close his eyes, instead staring deep into my eyes. I told the stories to him of our adventures together and he would slowly wink at me in response, attentive, conscious. He was an ancient and angelic soul, the most loving being I’ve ever know among creatures or humans. I’m grateful for your knowing what it means, letting it be. Francesco Conz to CS17 30 October 1987

14. Edelson requested this addition. 15. Edelson performed Summer Wounds Healed in Winter, a healing ritual for Schneemann, in her New York City studio in 1987. The seven participants included Elinor Gadon, Hank Gile, Gloria Orenstein, Clive Philpot, Maura Sheehan, Mary Beth Edelson, and Schneemann. Edelson, letter to the author, 28 June 2001. For an illustration of this healing action, see Mary Beth Edelson, Shape Shifter: Seven Mediums (New York: M.B. Edelson, 1990). 16. Cluny I was bitten by a rat and died in Schneemann’s arms. 17. Francesco Conz (Italy, 1935–2010), art collector, particularly of Viennese Action, Fluxus, and Happening artists. 18. Rosanna Chiessi (Italy, ca. 1940), curator and director of Pari and Dispari Agency, Reggio Emilia, Italy.

1987–1999

I have heard from Gino Di Maggio that you will be coming to Italy around January and there are three things I would like to do together with you at that time: I would like to finish definitively the edition. I would like to see if I could buy from you the pieces which (due to my efforts only) have been recuperated and taken, by special Milan town council delivery, from Rosanna Chiessi18 to the place they are now at.

387

My artists’ piano project is almost finalized:19 I have about 20 Fluxus, Zaj20 etc. pieces and this has been promised to various European museums. If you want to take part I could give you the sum of 1,000,000 Lire, as I have done with the other artists, but you should come to Italy with a fully worked-out project which could be immediately carried out here in Italy. Francesco Conz to CS 24 February 1988

1987–1999

I am sorry I am writing only now, but for the past weeks I have had Alison Knowles, Philip Corner and Geoff Hendricks here working on their various projects and, as you can imagine, I have been physically— and psychologically—overwhelmed by the organization and execution of the work. Once everything was finished I then had to start out again on my various trips around Europe to catch up on the work I had had to put aside for the previous weeks. Thank you for the invitation you sent for the show at Emily Harvey.21 I think of you often and am anxious to finish the edition we have begun together.22 Unfortunately, until June I am tied up by work so it would not be wise to come before then. I would suggest you come to Italy in September: this period would be best for me and for Gino Di Maggio. You could stay for three weeks, as Alison has just done; when she left the other day she had finished everything. Your round trip could be paid 1/3 by you, 1/3 by Gino Di Maggio and 1/3 by me, so your expenses would be very small in the end. I am continuing with the piano project: there are now some twenty pieces (by Nam June Paik, George Brecht, Joe Jones, Emmett Williams etc.)23 and I hope to arrive at forty or so. I would offer you a further $1000 when you come to Verona to do a piano piece. Think about it.

388

19. Conz commissioned a series of altered pianos by a number of artists, many of whom were involved with Fluxus, happenings, and Viennese Actionism. 20. ZAJ, founded in Madrid in 1964, was a Spanish avant-garde collective, creating minimalist work at the intersection of music, concrete poetry, and performance; it included composer-musicians Juan Hidalgo, Walter Marchetti, José Luis Castillejo, Ramiro Cortés, Javier Martínez Cuadrado, Tomas Marco, and Eugenio de Vicente. 21. Emily Harvey (United States, b. 1942, Italy, d. 2005), art dealer. 22. This edition of Schneemann’s prints was never realized. 23. Joe Jones (United States, 1926–2005), artist.

CS to Thomas McEvilley 14 March 1988

24. Maura Sheehan (United States, 1954), artist. 25. Schneemann discusses Cluny II in this letter. 26. Schneemann’s account of “Wicca” is worth citing here: “The mother Wicca was given to me as a kitten by the tree surgeon neighbor in whose harness I first experienced the key to the nude version of ‘Up To And Including Her Limits.’ He gave her to me because she physically resembled Kitch. Bruce [McPherson] and I raised this very diffident gray Wicca who grew up imploring me not to expect anything psychic or deeply communicative! Nevertheless, she’d chosen to mate with a big rough feral gray and white guy who hung out under our porch. He would slash at any human hand within contact. For months, I set his bowl down wearing a heavy leather glove. Wicca saw something majestic and loveable in the tom we named ‘Major Gray.’ Wicca would call from the wicker basket upstairs to Major Gray when she was nursing the kittens. I hid behind door observing this stocky tomcat trembling as he entered the overwhelming scents of human habitation. Following Wicca’s calls he fearfully

1987–1999

It’s a joy to talk with you and Maura24 anytime—that strange (party?) where Maura and I were the only women not dressed in black . . . as if even brown/beige were a startling departure from a stylistic propriety, a stylistic belonging? And to talk about the Cluny series “Infinity Kisses.”25 [plate 17] Did we really speak about the Cat replacing/replicating the human lover? And I said “but of course you can’t fuck with a cat” . . . (vodka spun . . .). There is no way to speak of the “erotic cat” without being specific to Cluny, his unique temperament . . . It was he who extended innate expressivity to include a human kiss, an erotic tongue kiss . . . it was Cluny who shifted domestic affection to erotic demonstration . . . In the kitten birth notebook in which I wrote daily observations of developmental differences between the five kittens there is a rather astonished record of the funny looking flat eared kitten reaching to kiss my mouth and thrusting his tiny tongue between my lips, delicate fleeting the scale of instinctual knowledge. These kitten notebooks shamelessly devoted to details almost invisible the observations are accurate—not invented—sustained by subsequent information trivial and miraculous (“Twenty-six days old they have tiny teeth Cluny runs to my call on shaky feet the pillow our place now bending over he plays with my hair the crystal on chain he meows ‘come closer’ put my face to his he licks my lips puts his tiny tongue between my lips tiny bites with tiny teeth (never tongue kissed a kitten before!) other kittens interested contacting but only he makes this claim crawls up edge of pillow curls against my leg falls asleep have to remind him to nurse guide him back to Wicca.”)26

389

So if a pet cat threatens/questions the coherence of a human lover it is in regard to scale, interiority—that threatening parallel in male mythology of cat nature and female sexuality (so have I focused this in some way? The way the really shocking integration of “Eye Body” (serpent image) is the clitoris frontal and erect in a history of invisibility, of excision—look at all the Indian and Oriental erotica—the close-cropped fucking shots are all stylized vulva curve no clits) if the cat represents an extension of the human lover it is as tenderness cherishing trust devotion wordless communion there is no power play the wild is tamed by love and the taming love welcomes admits the wild poignant like Beauty and the Beast the Prince is trapped in a small animal body he can only come back to his beloved as a cat! A domestic cat this hero who died for her so long ago her brother lover her son (Dionysus’ panther to Aphrodite) the ancient totem pressed to her lap between her breasts breathing three heartbeats to one of hers speeded through time.27 CS to Francesco Conz 10 April 1988

1987–1999

I’v been very ill with Hepatitis [A] and lost a month of work. Finally able to organize again. Since I am on an academic schedule here I could not travel until mid July or August; are those possible times for me to complete my “Ice Skating” project with you?28 Will you be in Verona working through the summer? (In June I am in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida.)

390

made his way up the stairs, across the green rug to Wicca in her basket with the 5 kittens. I saw him quivering with delight. Each afternoon, he would sneak in and cat sit while Wicca ran down the stairs and out into the sun and grass. Soon kittens were crawling all over Major Gray, swatting, suckling, batting at his ears as he lay on his side purring like a maniac, his eyes half closed in bliss.” Cluny II was one of the five kittens born to Wicca. Schneemann continued, discussing the birth of Cluny II: “Cluny II was born upstairs in the office closet. As a still-blind kitten, he crawled out from the meowing kittens into my lap, purred, crept up my sweater, put his minute paws on my chin and his tiny cat mouth onto my mouth! The minute tongue reaching between my lips. There was no uncertainty as to which gorgeous gray and white kitten was the return of Cluny I. I can write about these cats endlessly! . . . When Cluny I was killed, I realized that Wicca was pregnant and I prayed over her belly like a traditional patriarch: ‘Oh Wicca, please bring back Cluny to me!’ Tracing the date of the second litter, I realized that the father had to be her adolescent son Cluny I. Because Major Gray had been killed in the road a few months before Cluny II.” CS email to the editor, 10 April 2004. 27. This sentence refers to the death of Cluny I, and the birth of Cluny II. 28. This project resulted in a photographic print edition and a computer collage titled Isis.

It would be ideal to combine my work with you with a visit to Gino in Milan where I will have work to install. Malcolm Goldstein to CS 16 May 1988

A short note, in the midst of all of your hectic activities—to emphasize that it is crucial that we get together to discuss the installation in Miami, since I leave for Vermont on May 26 and we really need to work out details so that I can be clear about what to do to work on my responsibilities with the piece.29 I intend to begin work on it this summer. Francesco Conz to CS 23 May 1988

I am very sorry to hear you have had Hepatitis and lost a month of work. I hope you have now completely recovered and feel your self again. I am afraid I am away for the whole of July. August is no good in Italy: everything is closed down and everybody is away, including Gino Di Maggio I imagine. It is also too hot to work. I hope, then, you can put things off until September which for me, and without a doubt for Gino too, would be most convenient. CS to Malcom Goldstein 8 June 1988

29. Cycladic Imprints. 30. Schneemann was named a master teacher, along with Pauline Oliveros and Diane Ackerman, at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida. 31. Pauline Oliveros. 32. Diane Ackerman (United States, 1956), author and poet.

1987–1999

There is a dog barking in the distance across inlets of silvery water where I am impelled to swim but delayed by . . . finding my high wooden house in the jungle woods30—next to Pauline’s,31 next to Diane Ackerman’s32 . . . the food I now put out every night on the wooden terrace is eaten neatly—the plate is never shifted, calling “kitty . . . kitty” in the hope there might be a domestic cat to attract. The near lakes are rife with crocodiles, snapping turtles, poisonous snakes and purple

391

things called a stunk33 which stings invading white bodies. (The swimming delay was fortuitous.) At the beach you would be horrified to find cars trucks campers all terrain vehicles racing up & down while white bodies on towels or under umbrellas show no concern for being endangered, polluted, aggressed . . . still I will put in your name! because it is possible to work have this support the group is exciting concentrated (Pauline nesting, burnt out from everything else) we keep tucked away between finding the preserve/ocean park and a wild party last night in “my house”—fifteen women, two men, cooking shrimps, dancing illuminated between jungle shadows . . . Wanted to tell you, Bruce and I had an exquisite time . . . reparations to spirit & flesh . . . then I left for these three weeks, while his high school sweetheart who has been haunting his memory—he has brought her back through months of writing— after ten years visits him in nyc this week . . . so its all odd . . . fragments . . . a country neighbor’s daughter brought me a white cat with the sister face of Cluny two days before I left home . . . as if there are profound slivers of renewal . . . no more . . . no less. (My angel-tenants are caring for the new white & grey cat, a female) . . . Don’t know if I can do my own work here . . . the carton of taxes and overdue statements, proposals—that stuff could be cleared away . . . and of course the magical teaching process structured over three weeks . . . a sort of invisible group incubation/cultivation . . . Malcolm Goldstein to CS

1987–1999

26 June 1988

392

The beginning of this month, now ending, was quite full. I was involved in a project—collaboration of mainly Vermont artists (painters, sculptors, video, etc.)—called “Absolute Cow.” I created a montage on tape of cowbells that in the gallery space moved around the room slowly. (Speakers hidden under pianos, draped like cows, and in sculpture pieces of mud & straw cows, etc.) The texture like spring peepers, but the sound (garden-like) of bells clunking, ringing, clanging, etc. I thought it would be an easy project, but it took hours of listening & trying to get the right balance—turned out fine; though at the opening of the show (June 17) the people (hundreds) walked around, talking, looking at the visual work (some fine, some quite Kitsch and some worse)—so I doubt if they “heard” the music but it set up a nice ambi33. Skunk vine (Paederia Foetida), a woody, aggressive, competitive weedy vine.

ance. Later I also “fiddled” (my style of it) and while the bells rang on— people seemed to enjoy it. [. . .] Still trying to clarify my future/place to live . . . saw a coyote! A while ago (second one in two years) and hawks; and yesterday a fantastic storm-wind arching trees as if they were grass! The garden loved it—upcoming bright greens of all varieties and asparagus planted for next year’s eating. Somehow it all teaches me something beyond words and my human-all-to-human thoughts. CS to Malcolm Goldstein 30 June 1988

Your installation of bells sounds so wonderful . . . wonder if we could incorporate it with the violins for Miami . . . shame to have it only once in Vermont; Florida has had cows in its history or donkeys with bells for sure. [. . .] We should get WHITE VIOLINS I was told—raw untreated ones are supposed to be cheap, unfinished . . . ?34 CS to Francesco Conz 31 July 1988

34. Schneemann and Goldstein begin to discuss their collaboration on Cycladic Imprints (1991–93). 35. Fondazione Mudima, Milan, founded by Gino di Maggio. 36. Emily Harvey. 37. Christian Xatrec (Tunisia, 1954), art dealer and Emily Harvey’s third husband.

1987–1999

I AM TRYING TO COORDINATE A EUROPEAN WORK TRIP: I WILL BE PERFORMING A NEW PIECE “CAT SCAN” AT LONDON’S EDGE 88 FESTIVAL on 17 September, then a weeks tour to lecture. If I knew the opening dates for di Maggio’s MUDA35 I would come to Milan to install the “Up To & Including Her Limits” work he intends to purchase, then attend the opening and remain to work with you on the Ice Skate fabric project. I’v recently completed a prototype for that project and sent one version off to Emily36 & Christian37 in France where I hope you will see it. Our version should be enlarged and as you have said one color silkscreened over black & white or deep blue on white ground. This is the only semester time when I will not be teaching (although I have several exhibits and installations to complete October and November) . . . SO HEY LETS DO IT!!!!!!!!

393

CS to Bruce McPherson

1987–1999

12 February 1989

394

my pride heartbreak distrust of the language what lies behind flow of wording fear of your guilt as boomerang, fear of foolishness—all keep me from speaking to you—as if the speaking will be taken as a manipulation to curtail the freedom self-realm you have struggled to . . . to pull from the clamp of our coupled life . . . but what does that matter any more than the thoughts persistently, mine of you . . . they have their own . . . truth? which is I still love you you said “it wasn’t working” so that phrase fills and refills tips over fills and empties what more evidence is required? I understood noted have overfilled his frame he needs to find his fuller dynamic of self filling the frame of his being she thought her craziness was not to accept the fact of change she saw as necessitating tearing apart all they had made with a love she felt as rich full deep consequential absorbing of change she didn’t believe the life they had built could be sacrificed for a greater potentiality she believed in his need to divest his spirit of her filling it she didn’t believe they would replace each other she felt she would endure his betrayals as “journeys” voyages to exercise other aspects of his power and effect when he told her the love affair had brought him back to her she couldn’t believe him they didn’t understand together why he had broken their emotional core how much he needed to be apart from her to know his own energies apart from their life everything became a problem to him she felt like one huge problem he was always trying to solve like the problems on his desk something had changed in him why didn’t she change away from him? she didn’t want to be a source of his confusion resistance she still felt the ingredients of their devotion shared works some essence they are merged would persist as value as a cherished gift so that was crazy everyone told her forget it wherever she goes instead of his photo a note a little note to let go forget it just be etc she sees him in minds eye darting grace in and out of the doors packages in his arms darting up and down stairs instant replay of their life together intrudes precious moments intrude deviously so what it’s two years apart a year before messed up i guess i need you to tell me this is the way it is is right is necessary to get on with it or what you can say if you would add to the sorting strands

Ian Breakwell to CS 38 20 February 1989

38. Ian Breakwell (Great Britain, 1943–2005), artist and filmmaker. 39. Ian Breakwell and Paul Hammond, eds., Seeing in the Dark: A Compendium of Cinemagoing (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1990). 40. Paul Hammond (Eng­land, 1947), writer. 41. Serpents Tail was founded in 1986 as an independent publishing house specializing in experimental writing from Great Britain and United States, by Pete Ayrton (Eng­land, 1943), a lecturer in philosophy at London University in the 1970s. In 1989, London Sunday Times awarded Serpent’s Tail “Small Publisher of the Year” award. 42. “Edge 88,” one of a series of exhibitions under the title of “Edge Biennale,” in Eng­land, founded and directed by Rob La Frenais. 43. Laurie Anderson (United States, 1947), artist.

1987–1999

Belated New Year greetings, I hope this finds you well. I’m delighted to tell you that SEEING IN THE DARK,39 the anthology about cinemagoing which Paul Hammond40 and I are compiling, is going to be published by Serpents Tail in 1990.41 [. . .] We’d like to get some “famous names,” but only the interesting ones. I have remembered your very good observation one evening during EDGE 42 that in America the divisions between the Establishment and the Independents are not so pronounced, and that we might get to the likes of Woody Allen, Coppola, Robert Redford, John Landis, Lily Tomlin etc if we could get to them on a personal basis. Any contacts or addresses which might help in that direction would be invaluable. Also independents such as Brakhage, Yvonne Rainer, Jonas Mekas, Laurie Anderson,43 Jim Dine etc etc, in fact who ever you can think of, indicating where we can mention your name as an introduction. As you know, Serpents Tail is a small publishing house, and we have little in the way of blandishments to offer. No contributor, amateur or professional, famous or unknown, and including the editors will make a bean out of the first printing, it’s still a labour of love. If the book reprints we could consider making a donation to a suitable charity, a cinema restoration fund for example. Everyone whose contribution is included will get a copy of the book, and an invitation (but sadly no air ticket!) to the launch, which we intend to make a special occasion, a treat for all who have so willingly participated.

395

Bruce McPherson to CS 1 March 1989

I’ve found myself thinking over your letter for the past ten days, writing in my head, trying to push myself beyond some simple response or pattern, trying also to re-examine some of my own distrust of the language “that lies behind” (as you say), with the double edge contained in that. Knowing that you’ll be here in just over a week adds an extra urgency to my wanting to reply now, to not seem to have failed to acknowledge and also that you should know the degree of self-examination prompted by your own thoughts. I have replayed scenes many times, have stared across the time of our living together and wondered at my feelings and motivations, and how we got to where we are now. I don’t think there are any simple answers, and no single way to sum up the complexity. In your letter you seem to anticipate so much of what I might have first thought to say, and also you compress the stream of laden emotion/latent emotion in such a way that I find myself marveling at the dance of pain and play in it, though sometimes I don’t understand what you want me to understand by it. I know that it’s been a hard time for you. Not easy for me either. I do believe though that this change was/is necessary, for me, for you, though also that there might be much yet to share, I don’t know what exactly. At root is my belief that I had to change, that I had to be alone, and that we no longer had what we did once have. Neither of us, I think, can be blamed, neither of us betrayed the other, our life went through so many stages and levels, highs and plateaus and valleys, so much shared that none of it can be repudiated; I don’t believe one ever really stops loving someone loved, though the love itself changes form; that’s the case for me now, that I would take nothing in exchange for that part of my life that is also yours, through everything we mean to each other; but it is the future that must be recaptured. CS to Lauren Pratt Tenney 44

1987–1999

27 June 1989

396

It seems I go to RUSSIA July 7–17th; Fuses and me invited to Moscow Film Festival! 40% fare paid and all other expenses . . . I’m in shock over this . . . will probably phone you before you get this letter. [figure 59] 44. Lauren Pratt Tenney (United States, 1954), concert producer and fourth wife of James Tenney, with whom she had a son, Justin Tenney.

59. Carolee Schneemann, “Notes from the Underground: A Feminist Pornographer in Moscow,” Independent: Film and Video Monthly, March 1992, 23. Courtesy of Independent: Film and Video Monthly.

60. Carolee Schneemann, Video Burn, 1992, artist book with text and illustrations, based on Schneemann’s drawing sequence Video Burn, 1987–91. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

1987–1999

Paris was wonderful . . . wonderful . . . by coincidence put on Rue de Seine in hotel next to La Lousianne (where I missed Jim so badly in ’64 thought flesh would dissolve on the staircase holding his letter) . . . so the renewed sounds, cries (diminished) of the street vendors; insane celebratory re-unions and the startling changes of each of us after so many years . . . gorgeous Pommereulle,45 Erró, Jean-Jacques with grey hair! (Hey, we might live to get really OLD!? Like those people we’ve read about) . . . Vostell, Yoko, Charlotte & Frank,46 La Monte47 & Marian.48 (Did beautiful works . . . the Living Theater chair piece in an open courtyard at the Beaux Arts, in complete darkness—but for night sky reflections . . . lovely!) all quite astonishing day by day & wild nights in great affectionate mobs . . . I “repped” myself very well! Will go back for the Film/Video conference in January—Joan Jonas, Valie Export and I will each have an evening to present work within the varied presentations; so I asked

398

45. Daniel Pommereulle (France, 1938–2000), artist. 46. Charlotte Moorman and Frank Pileggi. 47. La Monte Young. 48. Marian Zazeela (United States, 1940), artist.

Fleiss49 would he be interested in showing related drawings, photographic works in conjunction with the Film/Video Congress?50 [figure 60] He said “NO, booked for two years . . . come back” . . . (sure, sure) so I went to the biggest, most beautiful new Gallery showing European performance photographs—mural sized Mühl,51 Nitsch, etc . . . and another gallery . . . they both said yes YES . . . with the other two exhibits underway in NYC I’m dazed with organizing work . . . with also NOT organizing work so I can sit in the studio and LOOK. CS to Maurice Berger 9 September 1989

49. Marcel Fleiss (France, 1934), art dealer and owner of Galerie 1900–2000, Paris. 50. Schneemann and the author have been unable to identify this conference. 51. Otto Mühl. 52. Maurice Berger, Labyrinths: Robert Morris, Minimalism, and the 1960s (New York: Harper and Row, 1989). 53. Robert Morris. 54. Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer, and Lucinda Childs, Waterman Switch (1965). 55. Robert Morris, War (1962–1963). 56. The smash off-Broadway musical Hair opened April 29, 1968. 57. Kenneth Tynan (Eng­land 1927–80), critic and author. 58. Merce Cunningham.

1987–1999

Such rich terrain, provoking plunge of your Labyrinths;52 steady clarification of the variousness and intensity of Bob’s53 works. Hopefully you and I will speak further on aspects of the community of interchange— how charged and conflicted that was . . . my thoughts on “Meat Joy” introducing the forbidden “EROS” of that moment. And my role as a founder of the Judson Dance Theater (not stated in your alignments) as a sort of meta-renegade among the others—the freely eroticising energy of gestural space, motivated expressivity (face, body overcome by actions) . . . the kinetic, entranced body. That “Waterman Switch”54 was forming a dialogue with “Meat Joy” and or a rejoinder—as so much of our work set conversation in material, shape, action. Morris’ “War”55 junk costume must have been an unconscious prototype for my “Noise Bodies” (’65) junk sculpture—sound duet with Tenney. (The range of “Meat Joy” was incredible at the time—“O’Calcutta” and “Hair”56 claimed it as inspiration . . . not proud of this but . . . Tynan57 asked me to compose a sexual vignette for that vaudeville as he first proposed it . . . I refused, expecting something trivial . . .) I’v mentioned Cunningham58 taking an exact prop and sequence from “Chromelodeon” (which

399

he saw) . . . I like these puzzles when they give something overt to trace. And most of all the confluence that produced a confirmation—even in contradictions—between these artists starting out to break it all apart. Jean-Jacques Lebel to CS 14 September 1989

From Giovanni Paolo II59 to Carolee: Hi! Heard you were participating in great 60’s show in Dusseldorf. Great! Me too. I’ll be in N.Y. in second part of October, let’s get together if you are there. Hope all is well with you, Until then XOXO. CS to Kristine Stiles 1 November 1989

1987–1999

There was such a welter of issue, emotion—I wanted to stay for the questions people were asking (or sputtering) after my lecture60 when we were all on our knees packing the slides . . . cats, sex, linguistics, process, perceptions . . . all of that in a flurry. The night before there were two extremely pretty young blondes at the “reception” . . . and one shaking her head was saying to me, “Why couldn’t my mother . . . !” . . . was it, “be like you” . . . “be an artist” . . . “represent for me what your films just did” . . . whatever the incomplete query, the answer—as you know/but those young women may not—there was absolutely no possibility for me to make my work and have a child. I wished I could have told that young woman . . . she was expecting the impossible . . . of her mother. Perhaps this generation will manage the dual roles in the fullness of their totally contradictory demands. You know I did it for my brother and sister when our mother nearly died and that was “enough for this lifetime” . . . and a sub-text is of course the influences guiding me never had children (de Beauvoir, Woolf, Joan Mitchell, Elaine de K, Lou Andreas Salomé); at Bard there were some painters’ kids and they hated DETESTED art and their mothers for making it, for having a deeper purpose and need in conflict with their own demands and needs . . . that was crystal clear. (There will be exceptions . . . so far I

400

59. Lebel’s correspondence is on a postcard picturing Pope John Paul II (who Lebel identified as “Giovanni Paolo II”). 60. Schneemann lectured and showed her film Fuses at Duke University in the fall of 1989.

don’t know of any! (The children of my artist friends represent a high degree of suicides, and also indifference to/avoidance of art)) . . . a subtext to stand on, wobble around on. But I didn’t want that anonymous mother blamed for not taking risks, undermining traditional culture while raising a family! CS to Andrei Codrescu 5 December 1989

I’m very disappointed by your inability to spell my name. This is to request an errata in the next “Corpse.”61 I had just xeroxed your article in Organica, “The Over-Under Educated,” which I will have my classes in transmedia read when I’m back at the University of Texas this Spring.62 Francesco Conz to CS 22 January 1990

Your piano looks very fine, and it has been transformed into a loudspeaker. It is a Grand Piano placed in an upright position without legs, and there is a female form cut-out on the top according to your drawings. It is beautiful, and it was placed just at the main entrance near the piece of La Monte Young.63 CS to Francesco Conz 26 February 1990

61. Exquisite Corpse (1983–97), journal edited by the poet Andrei Codrescu (Romania, 1946), became an online journal in 1997: www.corpse.org. 62. Andrei Codrescu, “The Over-Under Educated,” Organica: A Magazine of Arts and Activism, November 1989. 63. “Pianofortissimo,” the exhibition of all the piano/sculptures that Francesco Conz commissioned, was held at the Fondazione Mudima in Milan in 1990.

1987–1999

Thank you for the photographs of my grand piano. You did a beautiful job in its realization. I am very thrilled with even the scratchy-flamed edge which is done so beautifully. I know how difficult it is to break that edge. [. . .] Could you please hold the money for the piano drawing until I see you in Italy? It’s most helpful that way. I am still in suspense as to delivering work for the avant-garde pavil-

401

ion at the Biennale. (No one has heard from Gino.) Assuming that my participation in Venice will be realized, I should be there to install from the 10th to the 13th of May. (When the work is shipped, how my travel will be paid, where I would stay are all still unknown.) I would like to work with you after the opening of the Biennale, staying in Venice for a week or ten days so that we can finish all our current projects. CS to Martha Roth 24 June 1990

1987–1999

First personal letter written in many months . . . great changes (but not the typist or typewriter . . .) Home after teaching at UT Austin, Texas, January–May—with trips to lectures in Paris, opening exhibits each month . . . May 10th to Venice where I built two large installations for the Biennale UBU Fluxus Pavilion . . . wonderful.64 “We” were all there after so many years . . . Jim Tenney & I did a connected performance through space, lunch ride on Yoko’s yacht; mad, intensive labor and a startling vital, huge exhibit. Then to Verona65 for two weeks to produce new prints, Milan to a Museum . . . all goes well (but NO money still yet . . . the boys are rakkkkking it in . . . hmmmm). Living alone for three years (animals of course) and finally think it’s the only way to be! How odd. Can’t feel connected to the voluptuous intimacy of any partnership. Painless too. Some affectionate, cosmic sex and some plain fucks. I manage everything between house, loft, sub-letting, keeping the five animals alive, cared-for, traveling, producing new work. I’d like to do a piece on non-mothering . . . lots of recent notes which explore that see saw/creative/mother/Doom—my pattern.66 It’s going to be an incredible collection and I’ll send you something fierce & warm. (My reproductive capacity was dedicated to PAINTING . . . which births film, event, installation, video . . . whatever else but that’s the umbilicus I would have meant behind the “film generation.”)

402

64. Achille Bonito Oliva, Ubi Fluxus Ibi Motus, 1990–1962 (Milan: Mazzotta, 1990). 65. Schneemann went to Verona to make the Isis prints for Francesco Conz. 66. Schneemann’s essay “Anti-Demeter (The More I Give the More You Steal—The More You Give the More I Need)” appeared in Maureen T. Reddy, Martha Roth, and Amy Sheldon, eds., Mother Journeys: Feminists Write about Mothering (Minneapolis: Spinsters’ Ink, 1994).

CS to Joanna Frueh 22 August 1990

It’s hard to say how much I admired your writing on Hannah’s67 work, since being excised or absent as precedence astonished me (as an historical question on the re-introduction of the female nude after its exhaustion & dematerialization . . .).68 Still, I’d like you to see this recent essay on censorship which may be in the CAA Journal.69 Our sensual passion-as-experience to build conceptual and structural insights binds us. CS to Kate Millett 23 August 1990

67. Hannah Wilke. 68. Arlene Raven, Joanna Frueh, Cassandra Langer, eds., Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1988). 69. Schneemann refers to the College Art Association’s publication Art Journal. See Aviva Rahmani, “A Conversation on Censorship with Carolee Schneemann,” M/E/A/N/I/N/G 6 (November 1989): 3–7; see also Aviva Rahmani and Barbara Zucker, “Censorship and the Moscow Film Festival,” Enclitic 19, no. 1 (summer 1989): 79–88, 95. 70. Kate Millett, The Loony-Bin Trip (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990). 71. Schneemann refers to her years in London, 1970–72.

1987–1999

Reading Loony-Bin70 is like sitting down with a ton of T-N-T on my lap . . . here in the deep silence of my old house, hard won, hard, passionately fought for; the delicious shapes of cats turning unexpectedly in space, on objects. Returned, restored here after times of loss, exile . . . the flip-out years in which we passed each other. To have had you in my dank Belsize park flat, sipping whisky in front of the feeble coal fire when I was barely functional71 . . . those years . . . to have been one nonjudgmental friend with you . . . companionable, present, not-betraying in the welter of contradictory perceptions . . . In the book, your unique grace, strength, erotic clarity . . . and the painful revelations of the fragile fault lines on which we build . . . the barely predictable surge of our works . . . witches tearing down the curtains, breaking down the doors of the demonic death fathers . . . even as today they prepare to unleash their next mass paroxysm, jerk-off of death over possession of essence . . . a plan so long in the hopper that Walter Gutman (that early supporter of Judson) told me at lunch (a luxury he liked to provide) a few years before he died, 1977 that he was heavy of heart, bitter to anticipate the next great war already planned by his

403

banking associates . . . what their demand and assertion over the Arab oil fields would ignite . . . The tracks of our art years; both having ideal equity of partner, losing that core of love and work; and then the question of why this tumultuous descent overtook so many of the women we know whose art has transformed . . . Yvonne Rainer, Jill Johnston, Diane Wakoski,72 Mary Beth Edelson, Marcia Hafif 73 . . . and in this comforting drench of rain, dense greenery the recollections are fragmentary but the surety of our being broken apart, giving up need, giving up the expectation to fulfill our capacity to bond and merge . . . What do you think about that as pattern in our historical moment? CS to Corinne Robins74 10 December 1990

1987–1999

I’m bewildered by your recent statement in M/E/A/N/I/N/G that my works “of the late 60s are almost concurrent with Wilke’s own early pieces.”75 “Eye Body” which introduced the nude as an extension of installation was 1963; “Meat Joy,” my erotic rite, was 1964. It was hard enough struggling on my own without now being obliterated by my sisters-in-art. This is not a competition to redress the suppressions of male cultural form. Historic dates and events require respect and honest inclusion. Hannah—among many other younger women—expressed the importance of my being “the first female artist to use her nude body,” and how inspiring those early actions were. Striking out this precedence is exactly an inversion of male culture’s excision, (castration) of a feminist principle and source. Since you are among the originating feminist historians this denial of my work has long been a source of bewilderment; you don’t have to “like” it, but why exclude these significant works? I’m enclosing a few extracts from my book More Than Meat Joy; I hope they will find a way into your vision of our shared, lived history.

404

72. Diane Wakoski (United States, 1937), poet. 73. Marcia Hafif (United States, 1929), artist. 74. Corinne Robins [United States, (1934), art historian. 75. Corinne Robins, “Why We Need ‘Bad Girls’ Rather than ‘Good’ Ones!” M/E/A/N/I/N/G 8 (November 1990): 43–48.

CS to Francesco Conz 15 December 1990

We have to discuss prices of the projects, objects. But remember please NOTHING OF MINE SELLS FOR $100. NOTHING not pubic hair nail clippings blood stains vaginal smears socks old letters torn notes NOTHING it is demeaning incorrect a major artist looks like a shopkeeper with nonsense on sale . . . And nothing of the smallest concentration or discussion has left my studio for under a thousand dollars for several years . . . that is basic for my time, attention, history, vision, struggle, commitment . . . you have many artists, many projects but I grind every inch out of this one organism . . . my collectors don’t imagine any one would sell something of mine for $100. I’m counting on your help and reflection. My prices will be parallel to Nitsch’s soon, now, in the immediate future . . . why not?? CS to David Ireland 76 16 April 1991

76. David Ireland (United States, 1930–2009), artist. 77. Schneemann confused David Ireland with the artist Patrick Ireland, also known as Brian O’Doherty, author of Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space (Santa Monica: Lapis Press, 1976). 78. Five hundred Capp Street is both the artist David Ireland’s address and the title of a continuing site-specific installation.

1987–1999

I’ve been hoping to meet you for years—this last miss was a close one (as was North Carolina a few years ago). Please excuse my intrusion of Patrick on your Ireland:77 I do know your work, following various articles and admiring the stubborn thingness given full voice. It was wonderful just to peer in at the hall and stairs of 500 Capp Street.78 My work in San Francisco was gratifying; I found a very responsive and smart group of people. Now back East, and struggling again—unable to proceed with my work applying for jobs and grants. I’m hoping you can advise me or refer this letter on concerning possibilities to work in the Bay Area. I especially want to develop a “California” installation based on a gestural morphology of frond and wave.

405

61. Carolee Schneemann, Cycladic Imprints, 1988–92, performance and multimedia installation with 17 motorized violins, 360 slides, 2 dissolve units, 4 synchronized projectors projecting continuous images of Cycladic sculptures, stringed instruments, and human torsos over a painted wall; sound loop duration, 15 minutes. Quadraphonic sound collage by Malcolm Goldstein. Photograph by Ben Blackwell. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

CS to Francesco Conz 7 May 1991

1987–1999

I’ve just had a very successful installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in a cathedral-like gallery, my projections were 22 feet high by 36 feet across, surrounding the 15 motorized violins. The sound of the moving violin motors meshed with an audio tape by Malcolm Goldstein on which he had edited 18 tracks of cross-cultural violin sounds, “Cycladic Imprints.” [figures 61, 62] [. . .] Between the museum show and Bush’s depraved war,79 everyones’ schedules got changed. Can you bring me over to work with you in mid-August (teaching work begins in September of ’91)?

406

79. The reference is to the 1991 Gulf War, during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.

62. Kenneth Baker, “Slide Art Out of Shadows,” San Francisco Chronicle, 7 March 1991, E3. Review of Schneemann’s Cycladic Imprints, 1988–92. Permission by San Francisco Chronicle. Photograph by Ben Blackwell. Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

[Duke University Press does not hold electronic rights to this image. To view it, please refer to the print version of this title.]

David Ireland to CS 8 May 1991

I too am sorry that we did not meet while you were in San Francisco doing your brilliant work. I feel very stupid for it. As for Patrick,80 I do at times take bows for him if the work is good. Otherwise a complete disclaimer. You do of course, belong here in terms of your work. There is a vocabulary already established that means one has not to explain what they are doing. I think this area is a stronghold for on-going conceptual approach to sculpture. The same kind of work in New York tends to get cleaned up to suit the galleries and then loses something. Even I find that I tend to do something a little different for New York to accommodate the obvious situation. One can of course, hold out and perhaps suffer something only reserved for the very young. I wish that I could say something to you that would encourage your effort to come here, at least for a while. I should think that teaching at the Art Institute here would be a good starter for you. Sharon Grace81 or Doug Hall82 would be the people to contact. As for the other places that interest you, I am completely outside of the Exploratorium.83 I don’t know any of those people for no real reason. I find them very suited for artists who want to make mechanical objects. I think they have lots of brains for that. As for residency at Capp Street or the Headlands,84 I am not on a board or panel of any sort at either of these places, however as a courtesy I tend to hear about who is being considered. You would be most welcome to use my name as a reference if you think it might help. If You do this let me know and I will make some personal comment to the appropriate people. Don’t count on it being a shoo-in as I have missed before. CS to Kristine Stiles 28 May 1991

1987–1999

I’v just finished a large dirt painting85—ten feet by twelve feet . . . the subtle layering a time consuming event compressed—in this instance—

408

80. Patrick Ireland. 81. Sharon Grace (United States, 1943), artist. 82. Doug Hall (United States, 1944), artist. 83. Exploratorium: the Museum of Science, Art, and Human Perception in San Francisco. 84. Headlands Center for the Arts, founded in 1982. 85. This is one of many works belonging to the multimedia installation Video Rocks (1987–88).

86. An unresponsive art dealer from New York who visited Schneemann’s New York studio. 87. The theme of “Documenta 9,” 1992, was “Museum of 100 Days”; Jan Hoet, its chief curator, described the exhibition as one of “locations” based “solely on the artist and his work.”

1987–1999

from weeks or months into four days. Out under the fragrant blossoms of apple, black locust—the final luminous days layering translucent dirt, webs of subtly individuated bud, leaf. Then crumpled into a deadpapoose bundle dragged onto the bus to be hung in the loft as linking floor “rocks,” wall “dust paintings” (over five years of them now). Felt: the missing link out of five years of materials—almost in clear association would surely be a source of wonder to the gallery dealer who arrived to see works (after a year of serpentine arrangements . . . do you know what is involved in getting a nyc dealer to see work??????). Perhaps it was a good visit. I can’t tell. She took one catalogue and said she’d be in touch. My visual, sensual delight with the huge dirt painting was insufficient ballast to counter an ambivalent response to thirty years of works compressed in an edited current-time presentation.86 And after all these experiences in thickening art-skin went nutty back to shelter of dark house, night moon, wide eyed cats, dog groaning welcome, oils of the city smothering skin. (Suicidal edge & all that -) The wonder of the house still catches my breath. There is no lover or mate within; ghosts of that bliss, conviviality soften like Beuys’ vectors of fat shrinking in the shadowed corners. The house is off the tax-rolls (not up for auction) with saving grace of small s.f. production money. No job, no income, no savings, no health insurance; still I have just decided not to fly out to Sacramento for the tenure track position; it is three courses a semester and the chairship for three years!!!! Is this dumb? Security? Dislocation? . . . foolish or wise? The sense is to try to make this base work—I’v struggled to maintain it for 26 years—more years than my age when I found or was claimed by this monument! [. . .] The theme of Documenta is The Body87 . . . therefore all the NYC Bodyworks in progress . . . funded by galleries, collectors . . . Acconci, Oppenheim (certainly no more “impossible” than my arena) . . . but there has always been a stabilizing investment in these guys—no matter how they cry “poverty” “insufficiency” . . . they get new works done and works which cost up into the $60,000 $90,000 range—which is where investors feel “real” . . . not with a pile of hand made rocks or a sheet of glimmering dirt? Yes, I was A HAPPY ARTIST for five weeks. You ask how it feels to have “the culture notice and acknowl-

409

edge” me????? it feels NUTS. I’v been noticed acknowledged ripped off taken apart usurped slurped up displaced disavowed avowed tokenized celebrated . . . but NEVER FUNDED. I feel crippled being behind in work, unable to realize projects . . . Jourdan Arpelle88 who once worked for Max Hutchinson is trading a work for counseling . . . my kicked-dog attitude, my despair and false confidence when on display (its true to my heart/art true to my being) . . . she’s found a role as guide to artists . . . and that’s a paid job! [. . .] Bruce couldn’t stick it. I still believe there was a RE-PAIR for us. He refused because it wasn’t worth it to him. There is no vague promise of some new fulfillment over the horizon that softens this wound. CS to Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein89 19 July 1991

1987–1999

Stephen Jay Gould, in his review of Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud by Thomas Laqueur, justifiably deplores Freud’s “absurd theory that ‘mature’ female sexuality must shift the site of orgasm from the clitoris to the ‘relatively insensitive vagina.’”90 But Gould replicates Freud’s suppression of female sexuality by denying women’s varied orgasmic capacity. Vaginal orgasm is vividly distinct from clitoral orgasm. Vaginal orgasm occurs within the vaginal canal, triggered by the propulsive momentum of the penis. This is the orgasm described as “coming together.” Female sexuality continues to evade homologous male models in our orgasmic diversity—clitoral, vaginal, and combinations of these; and obviously by our generative capacity—menstruation, pregnancy, birthing, breast feeding. Though not all women experience vaginal orgasm, for those who do a “relatively insensitive vagina” is as preposterous a physiological misrepresentation as the medieval conviction that a normal clitoris was a teat for suckling familiars, proof of witchcraft, punishable by burning at the stake.

410

88. Jourdan Arpelle-Ziegler (United States, ca. 1945), artist, art consultant. 89. Robert B. Silvers (United States, 1929) and Barbara Zimmerman Epstein (United States, 1928–2006), founding co-editors of the New York Review of Books, which did not print Schneemann’s letter. 90. Thomas Walter Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990). See Stephen Jay Gould’s review, “The Birth of the Two-Sex World,” New York Review of Books, 13 June 13 1991, 11–13.

CS to Lauren Pratt Tenney 16 August 1991

91. “Iron City Flux” and “Fluxus Deluxe,” two exhibitions at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. 92. Malcolm Goldstein collaborated with Schneemann on Cycladic Imprints (1988). 93. Ben Patterson (United States, 1935), artist; Yoshi Wada (Japan, 1943), artist; Eric Anderson (Norway, 1943), artist. 94. Walter/McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco. 95. Artists of Conscience, 16 Years of Social and Political Commentary, Alternative Museum, New York. 96. Schneemann performed Skewed Beams at Aspects of Performance: A Festival of Performance Art, Canadian Centre of the Arts at Owen Sound, 1991. 97. Veve A. Clark, Millicent Hodson, and Catrina Neiman, Legend of Maya Deren: A Documentary Biography and Collected Works (New York: Anthology Film Archives, 1985). 98. Jay Murphy (United States, 1959), poet, critic. 99. This book became Schneemann’s Imaging Her Erotics: Carolee Schneemann: Essays, Interviews (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002). 100. The article never was published.

1987–1999

Exhibits piled up just in case I saw a moment to sit down . . . “Fluxus Deluxe” opens at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts/Mellon Institute,91 12 October with “Cycladic Imprints”92 in another formation (four artists each with own gallery—Ben Patterson, Yoshi Wada, Eric Anderson and me);93 then solo exhibit at Art Institute of San Francisco, McBean Gallery;94 “Scroll Paintings with Exploded T.V.” . . . large show of all the big dirt paintings opens 19 October–16 November . . . “War Mop” goes into Alternative Museum new space inaugural opening “Artists of Conscience” November 6—January 6.95 Let’s see, in my spare time teaching courses in film “Projection/Exposure,” graduate seminar and something else I can’t remember. And then the Ottawa performance festival November 8, 9, 10;96 I’ll do “Ask the Goddess” there (and also for a performance night for the “Fluxus Deluxe” in Pittsburgh) . . . [figure 63] Then there are books being written about my work hoorah—just as you said into the truth=smoke last month “I’m not going to write about your work” . . . Catrina Nieman97 who did the Maya Deren Biographical volumes wants to edit my writing on Dream and Film; Jay Murphy98 of Red Bass wants to edit all the lectures!99 Bless them and we can sigh with relief!!!!!! Murphy is doing a feature article for ARTS Magazine on the installation pieces of the past ten years100 . . . he’ll start with ABC . . . so I’m delighted. The Art Institute also wants me to make a small artists book with them, and a new print edition from Key Gallery (Richmond, Virginia) has just been published—a “Cycladic Collage” . . . would you like to have one? Let me know.

411

CS to Frank Pileggi 4 December 1991

Thinking of you and Charlotte101 . . . that the avant-garde is US and will always be US . . . the force field of exchange risk adventure situated by Charlotte’s unique will, vision, and grace merged with your own. After US—post avant-garde, post-modern . . . where ever our group’s work takes focus and influence Charlotte’s life will be central. I will miss her in the flesh; her Southern clarion call, insisting that we join together and shape event as time. Her absolute determination and clarity of purpose, admitted chaos, uncertainty, inspiration and the co-mingling of group process which anticipates the only meaningful direction for the future. All this you saw and built together. I thank you Frank with a full heart, for your devotion, caring and sacrifice to Charlotte’s prolonged illness. It’s tragic that so much of your shared energies became enveloped in the struggle with cancer—to remain active among us, our works and celebrations . . . as long as was possible. Heroic example. I hope now you will breathe into a released time; her pain is over . . . you have a renewed space, a welcome back among us. I’m back East in the loft by January 8th and look forward to being with you then. If there is anything I can do let me know. CS to Dorothea Rockburne102 17 March 1992

101. Charlotte Moorman. 102. Dorothea Rockburne (Canada, 1932), artist. 103. Robert Morris. 104. Robert Morris, Site (1964), performance with Carolee Schneemann posing as Olympia from Manet’s Olympia (1863).

(opposite) 63. Carolee Schneemann, Unexpectedly Research, 1992, laser prints on board with text, and found images from art history paired with photographs of performances by Schneemann from 1962 to 1982 (4 panels, each 32″ × 40″). Courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

1987–1999

Your insistence that Bob103 and I maintain, re-position our history with “Site”104 (for his Guggenheim retrospective) confirmed my disturbance at re-doing the work with younger, “new” people who indeed would be “performers”—taught the actions which Bob evolved from/against our own original collaboration. But to get at my sense of research and decontextualization—coherent with my own body of work—Bob would be on the little shelf with a velvet collar around his neck while I lifted, moved the heavy 6′ x 8′ x 2″ plywood rectangles.

413

The experiment in being immobilized and historicized by Bob, was one of several approaches to “collaboration” with men artist friends, in which my own meanings, energies were held captive, or diverted to some unlikely representation during the 1960s. The question of where the painting existed, the shift of rectangle as perceptual, functional unit being moved about in space while a cultural Ikon was present and “actual” in clear referent frozen to the historical frame—these questions are again inside out . . . It was always ironic, shocking to find I had become some sort of erotic “object.” My question to myself was always: can I re-inhabit this construction; can my meanings penetrate someone else’s depiction? How do I establish the contrary FORCE FIELD? Was I a form of historical embeddedness to be opened, revealed, re-situated by Bob’s vision? . . . an Ikonic piece of the male imagination moving across making its chess moves with my body in hand? CS to Kristine Stiles

1987–1999

11 June 1992

414

A recent painful dislocation adheres with art historical texts in which the principles of my early body work are used to valorize other women artists—who often founded their own physical courage through my initiating example—while at the same time these texts denigrate or exclude examination of my work. I can consider “Fuses” (1965) not simply as a film but in its revelatory cultural erotic intrusion—a vision (message) of genital sexuality and female pleasure which vitalized and agitated the art world. Its sumptuous admixture of RAGE and Ecstasy confronted our “dissociative society”—to enter the energy of my rage is to understand the energy of its structure and Fuses’ persuasive influence. Or “Eye Body” in its insistence to penetrate separations of body/material/artist . . . so I identify absolutely with your issues of “destruction as negotiation,” and the body “at the center of the discourse”105 . . . and identify inter-connections with the women artists you align in Race and Sex in Fluxus Events and wonder that your categories exclude our lived interaction in that historical moment . . . (as cut out, sliced away from my generative context as “Fuses” is shredded, cut . . . or “Eye Body” spilled, stained, frontal in defiant permission). (Kubota’s performance 105. Schneemann chides Stiles for not citing her work in Stiles’s essay “Survival Ethos and Destruction Art,” Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture 14, no. 2 (spring 1992): 74–102.

in “Snows” . . . undressing Charlotte for her first nude appearance at Judson Hall; exhibits with Kate, Alison, appearance for Yoko, collaborations with Hendricks, Kaprow . . . Cage, Tone Roads seeping to and from Fluxus)106 which the Happenings group never dreamt would absorb us! . . . that is, become fractured, Fluxus broken apart and dominant in its parallel and contentious principles. I can even imagine the value of situating the notoriety of “Meat Joy” as a sort of force field which helped Fluxus define what it (or George)107 would exclude. Perhaps you’ve seen George’s excommunication directive in regard to my work? 65? 66? (I didn’t travel to DIAS—invited but lacking funds.) But my performance “Round House” for the Dialectics of Liberation (ten months after DIAS) “threatened” the conference with its own “textual and expository exegesis” enacted in paradigmatic shifts of screamed text (their own), abduction of conference participants (in a horse drawn cart) . . . enactments by my troupe of sixty volunteers from the conference as action-performers . . . a collective social process which transformed, blitzed, materialized, sensualized the week of theoretical posturing, questioning and misogynist authority. “Fuses” was projected within a sequence of grappling, wrestling each other into bales of shredded paper. (The attorney for the Dialectics of Liberation assured me before the event that it was likely I would be arrested and he would not defend me—“sex” was indefensible and he had Metzger, Sharkey to worry about.)108 I raise this event because of your description, DIAS as: “expanding the languages of destruction art. It was for instance the prototype for the conference entitled The Dialectics of Liberation.”

106. Shigeko Kubota; Charlotte Moorman; Kate Millett; Alison Knowles; Yoko Ono; Geoffrey Hendricks. 107. George Maciunas. 108. Gustav Metzger; John Sharkey. 109. Niki de Saint Phalle (France, 1930–2002), artist. 110. Gina Pane (France, 1939–1990), artist.

1987–1999

I think it’s significant that Joe Berke brought me to the Dialectics to tear into it, to shred its “idealistic terms of liberation.” (All the quotes are from your text and I hope not too disjointed.) An identification with your section “. . . women have not been exempt from the destruction of materials, including the surfaces of their own bodies . . .” I felt association to your descriptions (“Eye Body”!), of Saint Phalle,109 Pane,110 Ono. The exploding boxes which preoccupied me from 1962 . . . sister objects of danger . . . filled with adhesive, glass,

415

1987–1999

kerosene, straw, set on fire, clamped shut . . . exploding into form . . . do you remember them? fire and the smashing hammer on glass; the “performed” materials to physicalize process, spectator and object . . . and the performance “Lateral Splay” from 1963 encodes this violence, threat to the bodies hurtling through space to impact on each other . . . “to repossess and recover a sense of the concreteness of personal experience.” (And I believed YOU were my “witness . . . upon which survival depends.”)111 “Communicating codes of the visual arts were transformed in the presentation of the body. . . . “. . . ‘the more significant an event, the less likely it is to be studied’” ... I am bewildered by a note (p. 35 of manuscript) “As Schneemann was connected to all these events, so too was Jon Hendricks” . . . Jon organized (as you know) “12 Evenings;” I built the Electric Fan of Viet Nam atrocity images and the Torture channel of atrocity images, culminating in a blind-folded journey for the audience . . . It’s important to me that “Push and Pull” was not “staged” . . . it was bedlam, mayhem, Judson Hall was wrecked . . . the suppressed wish/ nightmare of an audience asked TO BUILD, WHO DESTROYED . . . (More Than Meat Joy describes it . . . Charlotte and I both had to “go into hiding” for a week . . .) I am grateful for a chance to address these areas; I hope there is discussion for us. I was thinking about your footnote on Valie Export “Removed from Fluxus yet related”; wondering about my own years of participation in Fluxus—overtly/implicitly at other times via heading “Happenings” . . . (as in Köln Museum “Happenings/Fluxus”) . . . why European Flux structures admit, and usa exclude? even as my gallery is Fluxus Gallery; di Maggio,112 Conz113 include; my Fluxus tours in U.K., events, photo series, scores . . . don’t they maintain historic connection? Why can all of these Flux associated works be excised, ignored? . . . Kristine, I’m enclosing Xeroxes of the Flux work—most of which you have knowledge of . . . but it may re-align in your thoughts with my experience of a lived history and its affinities. (We started together . . . look at Living Theater “Environment for Sounds and Motions” ’62 . . . Higgins, Corner, Knowles, La Monte114 . . . I lit the events with a flash-

416

111. Schneemann quotes from Stiles’s “Survival Ethos and Destruction Art.” 112. Gino Di Maggio (Italy, ca. 1935), Fluxus and happening collector. 113. Francesco Conz. 114. La Monte Young (United States, 1935), artist, poet, composer.

light from the audience (as I just read Beuys did once); this is my historic community. There is no other dick,115 alison,116 philip,117 jon,118 geoff,119 charlotte sister in arms yoko. CS to Rebecca Schneider 120 27 July 1992

I’m rereading our June interview . . . to feel better.121 [. . .] I really cherish the interpolations in our text . . . they are touching, back to the reality around two women talking (and the words to Furrow)122 . . . because the heart of the text is so tough, pained, deep cut, brilliant, probing . . . and then they go to the bank! Sweet. Can you keep it? [. . .] Here are a few additions. I want eventually to add some neglected aspects of our discussion: 1) the pleasure of bliss! of being come into, wetness, suffusion/counter to the pollution idea . . . and the aesthetics of circumcision—2) how pretty the penis is clearly shaped . . . all more paradoxes for our stew. 3) Why I cannot be a real lesbian—? CS to Mirek Rogala 123 17 November 1992

115. Dick Higgins. 116. Alison Knowles. 117. Philip Corner. 118. Jon Hendricks. 119. Geoffrey Hendricks. 120. Rebecca Schneider (United States, 1959), theater historian. 121. See Rebecca Schneider’s writing on Schneemann in The Explicit Body in Performance (London: Routledge, 1997). 122. Furrow, one of Schneemann’s cats. 123. Miroslaw Rogala (Poland, 1954), multimedia artist. 124. Schneemann and Rogala collaborated on Instructions Per Second, a multichannel video installation first exhibited at Multimediale 4, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany, 1993.

1987–1999

I just got Guggenheim reference for you—you did not ask me in advance! I’m an applicant in the same category & cannot write a reference. I’v asked them to ask you for a replacement— What a wild rush into production; it was a good meshing. My total admiration for your tenacity, building the puzzle of “Instructions” contents.124 The editing of that amazing footage: structure, rhythms, equivalences, durations . . . where the images take voice—challenging,

417

difficult and I felt we got closer to the underlying dynamics of our collaboration. I think it will be crucial for you to research further on the implications of the body—how it is contextualized (dreaded expression but . . .) the clarifications of the female body in a suppressive history which mechanizes, glamorizes, means we have to have a shared historical analysis—and that this must be an underlying thread to working together . . . A quote from that troublesome historian Camille Paglia125 is to the point (writing about a cultural historian Halperin)126 in regard to my objections on the red mannequin: “he treats his material and readers in exactly the way he claims society treats the body—as a mannequin without its own animal energy or internal process.” So the juxtaposition of lived actions in which the use of my own body contradicts cultural expectations, and confronts immobilizing historical traditions will be confrontational with the glamorous effects of computer generated torsos . . . they may iconically resemble the ancient goddess figurines but they do not carry that symbolic religious/sacred iconic charge. My question to you is: can the computer generated imagery carry forward the tactility, presence, formal vitality of the archaic figures—if we want to use them as a bridge to the wonderful animations you have made of my actions from the still photos? There are two books which would link and deepen our pursuit: “Idols of Perversity” by Bram Dijkstra127 (in the art library? heavily illustrated, history of feminine depiction in 19th century painting) and Susan Griffin’s “Pornography and Silence” . . .128 I think you’d like them both and find fruitful tracks back into our imagery. CS to Amelia Jones 129 22 November 1992

1987–1999

I hope you will offer me this opportunity to respond to some interpolations around my work which need clarification. What disturbs me is: I was fighting for my life . . . for you to begin with Bob Morris’s Site is to participate in cultural “castration” which both

418

125. Camille Paglia (United States, 1947), critic. 126. David M. Halperin (United States, 1952), critic. 127. Bram Dijkstra (United States, 1938), scholar. See his Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 128. Susan Griffin (United States, 1943), critic. 129. Amelia Jones (United States, 1961), art historian.

1987–1999

REMOVES THE ORIGINATING BRUSH FROM MY HAND and inverts the scope of influence of my early performed works . . . which precedes Site. I NEVER “hung out with the ‘boys’”—that is a strange deformation of my confrontational position . . . I had one partner/lover with whom I could balance the tremendous risks of chopping, shattering, clawing through the surface and frame of my culture. The intensity and determination of this early consciousness deserves regard and respect. I think it is properly aligned in More Than Meat Joy—and your mention of the toughness of the early notes would mitigate against being “a girl with the boys” . . . my “cunt mascot” is a fiercer irony. And I NEVER had a “career”—an obsessed visionary who drew before speaking and never ever for a moment in my life did I imagine I could exist without making images . . . never, no matter what resistance. I was NOT “a willing object” . . . I sure hope our brief discussion in NYC will resituate the sense of dread and aesthetic optimism with which I collaborated with a very few close associates (not lovers either, because James Tenney participated in my erotic exploration of lived imagery—confirming, willing and insightful . . . for thirteen years. Some personal history is critical.). So too the fact that FUSES was being viewed in 1965, Meat Joy was 64, the root of body art, EYE BODY with that quotable essay “on being both image and image-maker” is 1963 . . . I was very young but not dumbly pulling bodies out of hats. (And not submerged by and within male culture.) So I would hope a careful reading of the NOTES AS PROLOGUE/Meat Joy Score would give a sense of its RIGOROUS CONSTRUCTION . . . it is all explained there . . . the very exACTing parameters for duration, lights, sound, materials into which performers would move, having trained together for MONTHS . . . so that spontaneity and risk were not “purely” celebratory (my work is never “purely” anything: paradox, contradiction, a balance of RAGE & JOY inform my means & methods)—there is a dark thread of sexual tension, violence in abandon; I do not “orchestrate” . . . it is something else not that . . . not “sexualized acts” but an EROTIC RITE . . . (and NOT THE DUMB BIMBO IDEA OF 60’S JERK OFF PLEASURE WE WERE FIGHTING TO PUT THE BODY ALIVE IN A DENYING SUPPRESSIVE RIGID ARTIFICIAL CULTURE AND THE idea of “the 60’s” as dumb naïve jerk off time . . . innocent, forget it) . . . the stately musicality the formal LINE moving within the chaotic (at times) RHYTHMS of the work are completely compacted in your description, so the work is not recognizable to me. (And the

419

1987–1999

politics of an Erotic-Ethics being influence, an activism must be addressed.) I hope this is not some terrible intrusion on the shape of your process . . . it must be a daunting risk but I hope in best faith to share this re-analysis. It is backwards to say I situate myself as an “Olympian object” and bridge then to my “later reformulation” . . . they got their bodies from my exAMPLE TO start with . . . please. Irony, reflection, confrontation and the structural principles of a life as a painter make this range of work rigorous. The performance will NEVER BE UNDERSTOOD until the painting-constructions are addressed as bedrock. My work belongs in the deep historic context of your opening chapter—the issues you describe there are EXACTLY those which drove, motivated, . . . merging with the forbidden feminine will, my authorial body . . . here is the reason these images—as image—persist in culture, attract consideration and incredible misunderstanding. Focillon,130 D’Arcy Thompson,131 Bachelard,132 Cézanne above all— following the broken line, the shift of plane as foreground to where the body enters with energy of eye . . . these I hope will be layers for our future discussions. And finally Amelia some thoughts around “Interior Scroll” which I’d love to link in with your Pound133 quote “wobbly vagina” . . . such a friendly obscenity . . . It’s surprising how disturbed I found myself by your description of “Interior Scroll” involving “long wads of paper out of her vagina” . . . wads . . . Feelings of the sanctity, power, ecstatic strength and delicacy of the vagina rose in stupendous opposition to the idea of “WADS” . . . (wads of toilet paper, wads of blood soaked rags . . . wads . . .) the delicate precision of folding, oiling a narrow coil of thin paper . . . I could never imagine performing with a shoved in wad! The narrow strip—again the extensions of exquisite sensation in motion between interiority/exteriority (as you clearly note) but the action—as all of my actions—originates with a drawing . . . the line . . . the fragile persistence of line moving into space . . . Cézanne’s broken line over and over, and in order to find the ecstatic surety of what the body shows me, tells me, in order to trust the lines of communication I would assume anyone seeing even the photos would feel something akin to awe pleasure

420

130. Henri Focillon (France, 1881–1943), art historian. Schneemann was influenced by Focillon’s The Life of Forms in Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942). 131. D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (Scotland, 1860–1948), scholar. 132. Gaston Bachelard (France, 1884–1962), philosopher. 133. Ezra Pound.

sensitive approach wet wet chamber . . . (I was shocked by “wads” . . .) the center of bliss is cunt for me . . . I treat it with great reverence . . . It’s also crucial to the image that the scroll unravels in one smooth unbroken line—not unrolling—this is very important to me, it’s structural and psychological and physiological in impact . . . (& there’s an origami of folding involved). Well your essay is provoking; I agree deeply with the parenthetical fields within which you situate your current thoughts on my work— the historic introduction is brilliant, outrageous and the history of confrontational event—Benglis/Morris/Bourgeois134 in particular, carry through an accuracy of definition shifting in cultural time—then to right now . . . coheres. Ann McCoy to CS 135 8 January 1993

Carolee Honey—I hate to break it to ya—animal kissing in bed has been done before. However/yours deep kissing/, this looks more like—a— peck. I also have my suspicions that this dame, oh how painted she looks, is using bird seed on the tongue to entice as opposed to pure Eros. Should a peck be applied to the petals of the lower regions I wouldn’t want to be around—ouch. With the other two birds it’s too voyeuristic anyway—Love to you + your pussycats—slurp slurp—McCoy Davi Det Hompson to CS 136 10 January 1993

134. Linda Benglis (United States, 1941), artist. 135. Ann McCoy (United States, 1940), artist. McCoy refers to the image on the reverse side of her postcard, which shows a woman in bed with a white dove that is sitting on her breasts attempting to kiss her; two more white doves sit above on the headboard and watch. 136. Davi Det Hompson (also known as David E. Thompson) (United States 1939–96), artist and poet. 137. Carl Heyward, “Interview—Carolee Schneemann,” Art Papers 17, no. 1 (1993). 138. Ferdinand Leopolder (Germany, ca. 1945), producer of artist exhibitions.

1987–1999

Art Papers, with your interview, dropped into my mailbox this week.137 I laughed when I was reminded that you did “Dirty Pictures.” A show of my paintings just opened titled, “Clean Paintings.” Well, I didn’t want to cause any trouble. Not me. I internalize all of my desires. Ferdinand Leopolder138 is visiting. He came to install the “Nine is a

421

Four Letter Word” set in an art center near here.139 I went to Cologne last month, saw the prints at Buchholz,140 talked to Hundertmark141 and others, visited the Art Fair. Cliff Baldwin142 and I did a small project while we were there together. Hope to go back in the near future. It’s a fun city for artists. You remember the Richmond broker you stayed with so many years ago and borrowed his pajamas. I told you he had left his boring wife and was probably thinking about you and all of the money he would like to spend on your career. Well, he got married again, so there went your chance to be a luvley person in Richmond. By the way, I think you were too kind to Karen Finley143 in your comments. Everything she does or says about why she does it strikes me as being dumb as a bag of hammers. Her time will pass. In the meantime, the new year’s sun will shine on you. I can feel good days coming for all of us. CS to Jane Collum Brakhage Wodening 4 April 1993

1987–1999

Here is a little page of bird life and death—of my friend Hannah Wilke—a Goddess of the birds positioned in her New York City Loft. (A difficult, contentious, brilliant, complaining, competitive, brilliant, courageous artist of the body.) With so much intense snow, ice and now flooding—the Wallkill River has poured out over its banks . . . roads cut off, bridges undermined . . . the best flooding since 1977—when the pouring rains and thawing snows then FROZE so great chunks of ice piled, glittered where roads were thought to be! and what ecstatic snapshots I have of Bruce and me clambering on the chunks of ice—a crazy Cubist spill. The best flood since 1977 and in the Newspapers it is the “Worst Flood in fifty years” . . . I am only concerned about the tadpoles, the peepers whose staccato sighs and chirps would normally be nights weave of sound now, just now in Winter’s thaw to spring. A few nights ago, late dusk, the house huge magical dark . . . a flutter high in the black locust silhouetted in the deep blue night sky there from the

422

139. Key Gallery, Richmond, Virginia. 140. Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, Germany. 141. Edition and Galerie Hundertmark, founded by Armin Hundertmark in Berlin in 1970, moved to Cologne in 1979 and to Gran Canaria, Spain, in 2003. 142. Cliff Baldwin (United States, 1960), artist and filmmaker. 143. Karen Finley (United States, 1956), artist.

shape of a huge “folded umbrella” I heard the five low deep hoots and from the opposite black locust a responding five low hoots . . . two great Owls hooted from either side of the path to my house and I stood with the trembling awe and joy . . . tremulous as when on my bike down the old rail bed behind the house, taking a break from research on the Horned God, Halloween, and a bevy of Horned God coincidences and there suddenly in the field among the Does was a great Stag . . . a huge glorious utterly male full grown stag with branching antlers a crown four feet high above his head like trees reaching up to the sky and I slipped off of the bike as a worshipper, knees in the gravel of my familiar path. He stayed poised there in wide field at the foot of the cliffs, the deer gracefully bent around him eating grasses and then was gone, disappeared as deer do the great weight surge of them uplifted, suddenly once again invisible. The two great Horned Owls opened their umbrella wings, flapped loudly, fluttered and flew to the East. In the West the Venus star lit up. The cats of course are on either side of me as I type. [. . .] When I saw Stan in Boulder he spoke about his archives at Buffalo. I reminded him of the burning of my letters—which Bruce and I had hoped to have copies of for MORE THAN MEAT JOY . . . and he was shocked and said he didn’t remember that any of my letters had been burnt . . . but I remembered that he had told me/Bruce that he had to clear out many things which had troubled him in some way and my letters were among such things and that he had had you burn them . . . so what can you tell me of this? [. . .] (And as you may know or not? during the invasion of my house and the robbery of 1971 all of Stan’s letters to me and yours and any copies of mine were stolen . . . it was a rich trove of perhaps seventy letters filled with very passionate young issues of the rest of our lives!) CS to David Ireland

What are your travel dates to Maine? Do you think we might hold a bit of time together? I could fly to S.F. the 15th or 16th of July; (Arcata teaching 21st—26th);144 then to S.F. until the 31st. I’v always had such a feeling of “full affinity” to be near you & your work. It’s Easter Sunday: desperate birds, blizzards, freezing rains, floods, 144. Schneemann was teaching at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California.

1987–1999

11 April 1993

423

thaw all turned into a haze—pink, green, luminous skies. Then the 3 frantic NYC days of art striving, weekly. Hope & trust your Carpenter Santa Fe brings good success. Is there a catalogue? Here’s a little new print for you & fondly. CS to Karen Wentworth145 11 April 1993

This year for the first time in my life I sold a large work to a major museum—the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art bought “Infinity Kisses”—one hundred and seventy color prints on linen paper of my cat Cluny kissing me mouth to mouth; self shot without any lighting or focus control—just reaching for the small 35mm camera during the morning rituals of his life . . . this cat who was once killed and returned to me by Oscar . . .146 I might have told you this . . . when the kitten was reborn Cluny, crawling out of the basket—still blind, creeping on bird feet to my legs, into my lap where he rolled over on his back, purred and let his feet tremble raised up; then turning he crawled up my shirt between my breasts to touch his mouth to my mouth. It seemed too much a miracle for Cluny to come back to me. But soon I had a dream where Oscar appeared clearly, saying “MY dear ACCIDENTS DO Happen, I was very sorry that you lost your little cat . . . it was not a great thing for me to do . . . to bring him back.” CS to Stephanie Stebich and Rebecca Solnit 147 15 April 1993

1987–1999

Thank you for your request to use the snake image from my performance “Eye Body” in your essay for the book documenting the exhibition Landscape as Metaphor.148 Landscape and the animal in its relationship to the suppressed feminine in my culture and archaic archetypes has been an underlying iconography in my work for the past

424

145. Karen Wentworth (United States, ca. 1935), professional dancer and actress, writer, yoga teacher, and specialist in the Alexander Technique. 146. Dr. Oscar Köllerström. 147. Stephanie A. Stebich (United States, 1966), curator and museum director; Rebecca Solnit (United States, 1961), writer. 148. Martin Friedman et al., Visions of America: Landscape as Metaphor in the Late Twentieth Century, [essays by Neil Harris, Martin Friedman, John Beardsley, Lucinda Furlong, Rebecca Solnit, John R. Stilgoe, Michael Kelly, Michael Tarantino, Weinberg, and Jon Yau] (Denver: Denver Art Museum and Columbus, Ohio: Columbus Museum of Art, 1994).

1987–1999

thirty years. In my origins as a landscape painter, the implications of Cézanne’s structuring of space colluded with de Kooning’s dematerialization of the fixed picture plane. At this early juncture, figurations of the historic nude and the changing position of the viewer opened a perceptual slippage into time as motion to provide a physical motive: (here my body entered sculptural space as an active and activating form). My use of the body in conjunction with my early painting-constructions and the development of my Kinetic Theater in the later 1960s both visually and physically vitalized a conceptual and “painterly” space. Reference to the optical layers, overlapping planes and dense tonalities of landscape continued as influences. There is a wide range of works in which landscape formed my central metaphor. I’m enclosing slides and xeroxes to give you some sense of these pieces. A few slides of the early painting-constructions and performances are particularly focused on interpenetrations of landscape and figuration. “Eye Body” (1963—slides 1–6) is the earliest documented work using my body as part of “36 Transformative Actions;” in one sequence two garden snakes appear. In addition to the garden snakes, the enclosed slides reference my use of fur as central to “Eye Body” and to the installation in this first studio (an abandoned fur-cutter’s loft). Slides of these “Fur Landscapes” are from 1962–1963 (slides 7–9). Earlier transition works in which the planes of landscape are broken and extended by materials such as fabric, glass, eggshells, wood and paint are indicated by slides 10–12. Performance works between 1965 and 1968 use film, slide projections and sound scores to introduce or insist on the displacement of landscape. Enclosed are xeroxes of “Ghost Rev,” and “Water Light/Water Needle” (slides 13 and 14)—which includes an outdoor version performed within a rigging of ropes and trees. I choreographed actions with nude performers in a lake on the abandoned Havermeyer estate in Mahwah, New Jersey. “Illinois Central” is built on imagery of the tree as a vertical key linking the destruction of the Vietnamese landscape with the open plains of Illinois (photocopies included). (The photographer, Art Sinsabaugh made seventy landscape slides for this work.) “Up To and Including Her Limits” (slides 15–20) takes the delineation of horizon as rope (“Water Light/Water Needle”) into a solo activation: suspended first in a tree surgeon’s harness the anti-gravitational trance-like state of suspension developed into a film and video installation with performance (1973–1978). My film “Fuses” (1965—slides 21

425

and 22), now an “erotic classic” was self-shot as film-maker and participant in lovemaking. Here the erotic bodies are in continuous dissolution within landscape as site and texture, and the hand painting of the film. During the 1970’s I made a series of Body Works in Landscape for camera interacting with physical elements (slides 23–25). In 1985 a triptych composed of eleven series of paintings and photographs in homage to Ana Mendieta was made (“Homage to Ana Mendieta”—slides 26–30). I created a sequence of paintings in the snow using blood, syrup and ashes. In the photographic series which documents this outdoor work my hands are active in an image relay of reaching and falling. These paintings are combined with the photographs to form a 12′ high triptych. The most recent displacement of landscape is “Video Rocks” (1989– 1990—slides 31–35) an installation composed of 200 “hand-made” rocks which resemble Monet’s “Water Lilies,” flat breads, or cow manure. [plate 18] The eye follows the actual rocks across thirty feet to a bank of monitors in which video loops are intercut of feet walking back and forth across the virtual rocks. Beyond the immediate horizon, a great lake shimmers. Shirin Neshat to CS149 16 April 1993

1987–1999

I was very moved by your note and I thank you for passing me some more hands of Fatimeh! As you can guess, it is very difficult to find feminine symbolism within the Islamic culture, and the hand is one of the only ones. In my exhibition at Franklin Furnace, I was simply attempting to highlight the spiritual strength of middle eastern women within the masculine Islamic culture. It is really wonderful to find women artists like yourself to relate and connect to symbolism that are beyond borders or specific cultural identities. Your work has always had a special place for me. I would very much like to meet you and hear about your new projects sometime.

426

149. Shirin Neshat (Iran, 1957), artist and filmmaker.

David Ireland to CS 3 August 1993

150. Ireland refers to his summer teaching. 151. Robert Ryman (United States, 1930), artist. 152. Kiki Smith (United States, 1954), artist. 153. Jo Harvey Allen (United States, 1943), filmmaker. 154. Susan Ingraham (United States, 1964), photographer.

1987–1999

I have your letter, which I have read many times of May 25th. It’s nice having the kitty pictures on the reverse too. Many thanks. It is such a shame that we did not get together while you were in San Francisco. I guess it was frantic for both of us. Now I am ready to start my third week here at Art Camp and already I am feeling the time slip away.150 The “company” has provided me with a car as of yesterday and at best it would be considered a klunker. I drove it yesterday and today very cautiously and doubt that it would make any long distance. There is really only two weekends left for me as I go to Seattle on the 20th of August for the weekend. Then back to S.F. Carolee, I am very anxious to spend some time with you and see your 1750 home. And of course Kit Kats too. Maybe the Fall would work better? Right now I think I may be going to pittsburgh, anchorage, alaska and perhaps Sicily depending on some expected mail when I get home. I even thought about going to n.y.c. to see the Rebecca Horn show and I think the Ryman151 show will be up. So it might happen in the Fall. This is not a bad place. We (faculty) do studio visits two days a week and while it does not always work that way, we are supposed to be off the remaining five days. I think they want us in our studios setting an example. I’m not a very good one because I’m here on a vacation and not into the studio too much. Kiki Smith152 is here and good fun as are some others. A few good students make it worthwhile as well. One particular student has caught my attention, and I think she should be in performance art, and I would like to steer her in the right direction. I was talking with her about certain people (Jo Harvey Allen)153 and she said, how about Carolee Schneemann? So I pounced on the opportunity to say that I knew you. She loves your work. SUSAN INGRAHAM 154 I don’t know much about her other then to see her impromptu and know that she likes costumes.

427

64. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of Musicworks: The Journal of Sound Exploration 56 (1993). Courtesy of Musicworks. Photograph by Anna Korotki, courtesy of Carolee Schneemann.

I’m not sure exactly what you could do for Susan other than to tell her when you are working and doing installations, and suggest others that she might look at. Carolee, please let me know when you are doing something that I might see, and apart from that, just when might be a good time in terms of your schedule for us to get together. Malcolm Goldstein to CS

1987–1999

30 October 1993

428

Hello Dear Carolee! Just back from weeks of touring in Europe—exhausted but now beginning another 3 weeks—(ending in Japan! four the first time). [figure 64] Received Music Works 56 with your article and our work brought together again—marvelous! And when shall we do more together? I hope all is going well for you. Montreal is nice but still a question whether I stay or not . . . ?!?! With much love for you, Malcolm

CS to Bonnie Marranca 16 November 1993

Can you make sure the photos and slide that were used in Performance Art Journal 44 get back to ME right away.155 I sent you a few unique copies and I need to get dupes made. I’m just back from 4 “exciting days” in Chicago—lecturing at the Art Institute of Chicago, editing video, and visiting Johannes.156 Museum Fluxus openings—fêted in Flux Family. High anticipation to work with Kristine when she gets back from Vietnam. I can’t thank you enough for your vision and support of my work over all these years—it’s especially wonderful to have made our contributions in parallel time and intention. James Schaeffer to CS 157 2 February 1994

155. PAJ : A Journal of Performance and Art. 156. Johannes Birringer (German, 1953), theater director, critic. 157. James Schaeffer (United States, 1954), engineer, musician, and Schneemann’s partner from 1989 to 2004. 158. Alexander Lowen. 159. Carlos Castañeda.

1987–1999

Sometimes I’m exhilarated by the challenge of figuring something out, sometimes I’m tired out by it. The key variable responsible for the difference may well be personal energy level. Theorists from Lowen158 to Castañeda159 have said as much. Probably the reason that “retreat” seems to hover always in my mind is an intuition that if I had a deeper rest from all the “input,” I could recover a certain sensitivity and verve that I once had. But it doesn’t seem to be in the cards—as I’m dealing them right now. I just need to make the best of it (which means doing better than I am right now!). When I think of you, I think of the momentum you have in the world, in your career, as an individual living by “carpe diem.” I’m really impressed—not by the fame part, that’s never been that big for me (remember I’ve spent a little time on the stage, too, and I know I’m human)—impressed by your competent drive and focus in being an ­artist. When I ask myself what I feel for you, respect, admiration, friendship, caring and love come up. I’m darn near in awe of your strength, and amazed by your ability to overcome and/or utilize fear. How strong

429

is the love part? It’s hard to say—and yet that’s always the underlying, critical, issue, isn’t it? It’s an odd thing about humans (or so I think) that obsessing about anything else is considered unhealthy, but obsessing about love is considered healthy (at least in Western countries—not so much Eastern). And I go along with that too! One of the highest things about humans is their self-consciousness; one of the highest things about self-consciousness is the possibility of “selves-consciousness,” or two consciousnesses connected in some deep fashion. I’ve always been a Romantic at heart (probably seems absurd to say it); or at least I’ve always exalted the heroic and Transcendent. Is that Romantic? Well, anyway, to be continued. CS to Minnette Lehmann160 14 February 1994

1987–1999

I’ve been working with a photograph of Barbara161 for the projection installation “Mortal Coils”—the details are enclosed.162 [figure 65] It’s a photograph from a mutual friend—Carol Volk, taken at a party— Barbara smiling with a glass in her hand. I’m hoping you can provide me with another photograph, (slide, black and white photo, etc.)—all the images are rephotographed as described in the press release; I’d like to have more than one image of Barbara to move with. At the edge of the projection installation I plan to have a still photograph of each of the friends and a very brief personal history for each one. I want to include their birth date, death date, cause of death; descriptions of their work and achievements written by family, friends, obituary or myself. Can you send everything about Barbara which you’d like me to think

430

160. Minnette Lehmann (United States, 1928), video artist, photographer. 161. Barbara Lehmann (United States, 1956–93), artist. 162. The installation Mortal Coils was a memorial to fifteen of Schneemann’s friends who died: Alf Bold, John Cage, Frank Pileggi, John Caldwell, Lejaren Hiller, Derek Jarman, Juan Downey, Marjorie Keller, Barbara Lehmann, Peter Moore, Charlotte Moorman, David Rattray, Joe Jones, Paul Sharits, and Hannah Wilke. Schneemann has noted: “Mortal Coils” is a true history of the American Avant-garde, a certain kind of avant-garde: Cage dies of an aneurism at 79; Wilke of lymphoma at 52; Jones of heart attack at 59; John Caldwell heart attack at 51; Peter Moore heart attack 61; David Rattray brain tumor at 57; Juan Downey of cancer at 53; Paul Sharits suicide at 50; Lehmann unexplained at 37; Keller unexplained at 43; Lejaren Hiller Alzheimer’s disease at 69, Charlotte Moorman breast cancer at 59, and so on. You can’t hold them in place, the ghosts. If I’m good maybe they’ll come visit me.” CS to the author, 5 June 1994.

65. Carolee Schneemann, Mortal Coils, 1994–95, multimedia installation with four slide projector units and motorized mirror systems, seventeen motorized manila ropes suspended and revolving from ceiling units, and “In Memorium,” a wall scroll text by Schneemann. Photograph by Melissa Moreton. Courtesy of Melissa Moreton and Carolee Schneemann.

about for the descriptive wall. The joy in this work has been that I get to keep company with friends whose memory is precious and who, in this configuration, form a ceremonial friendship which I can extend. I hope this work will be of some comfort to you and Herbert—both the idea of it and the actual piece—when you can see it in NY around the time of Barbara’s memorial. CS to Bob Riley 163 14 February 1994

I’m so grateful for the photograph of John.164 It works incredibly well in projection—and the more details I photograph of him the more handsome and present he becomes. The joy in this difficult work is that I get to keep company with friends whose memory is precious and who, in this configuration, form a ceremonial friendship which I can extend. [. . .] Lately I’ve been overcome with a borderless melancholy. Almost everyone I love, male and female—is HIV positive. Every time anyone gets a cold, it is a huge worry. [. . .] I was at Mary Lucier’s 50th birthday party last week—Helene Aylon,165 Mary and I somehow came to the topic of the most inspiring visionary curators for our work, and all of them were you. CS to P. Adams Sitney 22 February 1994

1987–1999

Dear dear P. Adams . . . My heart is with you this must be the most awful letter I’v ever tried to write . . . all the times with Margie166 were wonderful . . . it seemed we drove she drove with Coleen167 and me back and forth to Binghamton to show my films to stay here in the old whispering house they brought me contraptions to reel film on there is a big joyous messy file of our letters . . . before she fell in love with you

432

163. Robert Riley (United States 1945), curator. 164. John Caldwell (United States, 1941–93), curator. 165. Helène Aylon (United States, 1931), artist. 166. Marjorie Keller (United States, 1951–94), filmmaker. 167. Colleen Fizgibbon.

. . . years after you smoked cigars and drank whisky with me in the blue Belsize basement flat . . . before the incredible lightness delight of Margie there were only wondrous delighting times with Margie to regret anything about Margie is an incredulous position forced now brutally senseless to regret my fall retrospective films she was determined to show the paintings and photographic works as well we are all bereft bereft futile whisps words sorrow joins us with you all the friends with you with you  the little girls her films Carolee CS to Lauren Pratt Tenney 3 April 1994

168. Melissa Moreton. 169. Schneemann received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for the year 1993– 94. 170. Michael was a friend of Melissa Moreton. 171. James Schaeffer.

1987–1999

Typing on your old typewriter . . . but it is NEXT TO the Epson computer. 1. Melissa168 miraculous assistant, and I tackle the streams of incipient chaos flowing over this desk . . . she has changed my life as you did; an unstinting devotion, intelligence, pleasure in difficult problems to be solved, and her range of capacities perfectly attuned to what my range of work demands . . . Many things are flourishing where before it was pure struggle. 2. Because of the Guggenheim169 I’v been able to pay Melissa. 3. Because of Melissa I am efficient. She’s at the computer as we organize slides, statements, invoices, proposals, applications . . . 4. Which has influenced my capacity to sell my work! 5. For the first time in my life I am SELLING WORK . . . not a great deal . . . it started with your insisting that we go to Boston—how many years ago? Powerful good continues from that “folly” of yours . . . with Melissa and Michael170 I had tremendous back-up for production demands of “Mortal Coils;” and Jim171 did the mechanics/kinetics. 6. It’s the most beauti-

433

1987–1999

ful, fulfilling work . . . spirit, guidance of my dead at every juncture . . . everyone says it is “moving,” they are “moved” and of course the ropes are moving, the images are moving . . . My sort of psychic mechanics . . . primitive but flawless in this configuring. (I mean the technology is pretty simple; systems I designed or “conjured” are more truly how each element came to be.) Of course I know Rebecca Horn’s172 work very well; met her early on—late 60’s as two young women of matched promise . . . but you see how much consistent support she has had from government, museums, commissions . . . she had only to dream to be given help . . . her huge retrospective last year at the Guggenheim . . . with all my admiration, reverence for her vision, envy was surely mixed there to imagine how parallel our metaphors and means would be indeed, had I ever had financial backing to make what I saw to make . . .173 7. BUT! all these books, articles, PH.D’s and the complexity, richness of my body of work which can feed a tribe of gazelles, a stampede of elephants, a brace of wild turkeys . . . 8. Re-issue of More Than Meat Joy being discussed by John Hopkins;174 who/which is bringing out those chapbooks175 (did I already tell you that?) on Meredith Monk, Rachel Rosenthal, and my work—Kristine176 will write the main text. Then my book of essays edited by Jay Murphy is wanted badly by MIT Press but our agent Diane Clever is keeping several possibilities afloat for now . . . !!! It’s all very exciting, gratifying despite being censored . . . yet again on my delightful, disturbing, outrageous article: “Enter . . . Vulva” . . . written for the Lusitania177 issue “Vulva Morphics” and rejected by Martim Avelliz after guest editor Lillian Lennox approved—was thrilled with it . . . GROAN . . . yet again, felt like I had been stabbed in the guts . . . finally got him to ramble on about the excision of Vulva’s speaking . . .

434

172. Rebecca Horn (Germany, 1944), artist. 173. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. 174. Johns Hopkins University Press. 175. Chapbook is a generic term for a genre of pocket-sized booklets, popular from the sixteenth century through to the later part of the nineteenth. 176. Kristine Stiles. The project I was to edit was scrapped when Schneemann and Murphy received a contract from MIT Press for a similar book already well progressed. Their book eventually transmogrified into Schneemann’s Imaging Her Erotics, and my book became the present work. 177. Lusitania: A Journal of Reflection and Oceanography (New York, 1988–93).

178. James Schaeffer. 179. Peter Norton (United States, 1943), American software publisher and philanthropist. 180. Portrait Partials (1970), self-shot photo-grid by Schneemann and the artist John Lifton. 181. Bruce McPherson. 182. Erica Blumenfeld (United States, 1961), museum professional and Bruce McPherson’s wife.

1987–1999

to say “it was a bit too much on the side of complaining about the male gender” . . . uhuh . . . Meanwhile the male gender has turned extraordinarily sweet, ardent . . . the lovers are falling out of trees at me feet! No one is more surprised than this old thing . . . I’v been so amazed to be desired, to be the source of happiness and delight (I might even look ten years younger than I already look ten years younger . . . glowing in the leaves). Jim178 is in wonderful growth, strengthening . . . reaching goals, even as a student getting all A’s . . . applying for scholarships to Engineering schools; seeing his own gifts and effectiveness as actual, actualizing in the “world” and so we have deepened, sweetened value of each other. Vesper is my angel being; enormous force of personality—humorous, witty, socially demonstrative . . . have you ever seen a cat host a party of humans? This one does it . . . and in bed, his amorous devotions provide inspiration for heterosexual aspirations . . . Vesper under the covers, his head nestled on my chin, paws around my neck . . . we sleep embraced so for eight hours . . . little sighs back and forth. He so touches my heart. [. . .] Peter Norton179 has purchased an early photographic grid (Lifton & C.S. body parts)180 for Museum of Modern Art NY . . . $7500 after the $500—discount given museum purchases??? It’s a custom . . . they consult with their trustees to buy the works they want for the collection . . . did you know that’s how it works? I’m coming so late to all of this but ready to catch on . . . I’v got a price list! Yes . . . for the works, and for what I do . . . it’s fun . . . you get an instinct to push, negotiate, pull out the plugs . . . Bruce181 and Erica’s182 baby due June 1st (cesarean) . . . he’s rebuilt his house . . . still hard, to talk with him is to feel admiration of him, the roots of past desire, shadows of affinity. Whereas with Tenney I’m chomping at the bit to ask how “his forgetter is doing?” To tell you both Brakhage called with a reverential report on “Plumb Line,” “VietFlakes” . . . and even! “Fuses” . . . “Now most extraordinary attempt to express sex through film” . . . it’s great to live long enough for changes longed for . . . I love to be walking through a museum in Berlin with you

435

. . . perhaps an arcade of shops where Walter Benjamin walked . . . but the DAAD 183 does not enchant me . . . my resistance to setting out alone . . . once more dislocated . . . the anxieties over home, lover, attachments which have no binding but myself in guardian position . . . It’s so much effort to learn another new place; to try not to drink and smoke in the European manner . . . am I thinking about the wrong things? Every time I leave my house some ruin sets in and demands daunting efforts all over and over again . . . but we’ll see. Interest from Europe is certainly in place now. Hubert Klocker184 from Vienna is mounting an exhibit of my work and Otto Mühl’s at the Chicago Art Fair . . . end of April. Around then I’ll also perform a new piece based on “Enter . . . Vulva” for a PS1 Festival “Boudoir”185 . . . most of all “Mortal Coils” . . . a year of work, changeful concentration communion with my dead . . . the risk of bringing them into projection beam and how they guided the process to give me revelation, a desired outcome, anguish and joy to have been able to spend all these months looking at their faces, re-shooting them, bringing forward details in increasing enlargements; and finally the incredible good luck of being told I could do whatever I wanted with the color xerox machine in New Paltz so long as I didn’t need anyone to help me!!! With Derek Jarmen’s186 face he/I managed to get the machine to lay down rivulets of color stripes! (And “rivulets” has been one of the formal properties to emerge . . .) CS to Victoria Vesna 187 20 April 1994

1987–1999

I want you to know I am drenched with blessings . . . drenched . . . a dazzling day . . . my heart a froth of luminous sky, twittering birds, my hands digging earth, trenching manure in circles around my ancient apple trees . . . no termites in the annex . . . the dread neighbors gone for the day . . . bliss of being exactly where I only want to be . . . home . . . the work of all my past years ready to blossom once again . . . the blessings of my dead in “Mortal Coils” spark this sacred space (and Jim

436

183. German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, DAAD). 184. Hubert Klocker (Austria, 1955), art historian. 185. Enter. . . . Vulva was shown in “Boudoir-In-Exile,” a series at the Institute for Contemporary Art/PS 1 Museum, New York City, 29 April 1994. 186. Derek Jarman (Eng­land, 1942–94), filmmaker. 187. Victoria Vesna (United States, 1959), artist.

has opened some new rhapsodic threshold for us to enter . . .)188 stealing an hour from deadlines—exhibits, class final, photos due, filing, bills, letters . . . and a new performance next week for PS1 “Enter . . . Vulva” . . . delaying all of that and trotting barefoot to the mail box . . . thrilled to find your packet with a cat shape in foreign papers, your sweet note . . . a notice from the Jung society on a “Paracelsus and Alchemy” conference, a pamphlet from my friends, neighbors at Center for Symbolic Studies189 . . . unwrapping your cat gift and at that moment . . . Vesper rushes past me to the near shrub with a long copper head snake dangling between his lips!!!!! He’s in danger with the audacious gift! In a second I’v leapt up and shaken the snake from his clamped muzzle . . . I sweep Vesper and Griggio190 inside holding my cat gift at the same time . . . And this morning I sorted Video tapes; arranging a special section of all the work we’v done together . . . so my Goddess I’v been invoking your sweet powers . . . seeing you blown so far from the destruction of your original geography. My dead have taken me to the other side of grief . . . just a circle around, back home to the space of spirits ready to stream, to enter . . . some new epiphanies through film . . . do come East so we can tell our tales? Will Santa Barbara bring me West? Fred Hatt to CS 191 3 May 1994

188. James Schaeffer. 189. Center for Symbolic Studies, Tillson, New York. 190. Vesper and Griggio, Schneemann’s cats. 191. Fred Hatt (United States, 1943), artist. 192. Hatt refers to a version of Schneemann’s performance Vulva’s Morphia (1992). 193. Indra Sinha, The Great book of Tantra: Translations and Images from the Classic Indian Texts with Commentary (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1993).

1987–1999

I was very sorry to have to leave before the end of your performance last Friday at “Boudoir,” but had an important appointment. It was very daring of you to try to speak for vulva in an uncontrolled public setting.192 It is vital for artists to undertake the representation of sexuality, as we all suffer from civilization’s relegation of this, our most direct point of access to the sacred, to the gutter and the closet. According to “The Great Book of Tantra” by Indra Sinha,193 the Sanskrit “Kund” or “Kunt” means a spring, well, fount or basin of water consecrated to some holy purpose or person. Besides being related to

437

the Eng­lish word “cunt.” It is the root of “Kundalini,” the transformative energy which lies dormant at the base of the spine in most people, and whose arousal is the evolution of the spirit to fully integrated power. This power, symbolized by a female serpent, opens, illuminates, and connects all the energy centers, and opens a vertical channel connecting one to both earth power and sky power. Within the human being, male or female, it is essentially vulva power, or sexual energy, awakened. Malcolm Goldstein to CS 15 May 1994

I send you some photocopies of these wonderful ladies of Malta. (They are part of a book The Temples of Malta with marvelous photographs by Sigrid Neubert.)194 If I find any of these “erdmutter,” I will bring them (alas; replicas) back with me for you. (Also a photo of a phallus/symbol, etc. here.) As for me, its part of an on-going quest: balance of water & stone, hard and soft, like yin/yang—within me and living. Brian O’Doherty to CS195 3 June 1994

1987–1999

There is little pleasure—in fact, none at all—in telling a person whose work one respects that their application was unsuccessful. Why? Apart from the obvious reason (talent should be rewarded), I know the passion with which you and your colleagues pursue a vision in the face of the disappointments that your profession offers. I regret that the Endowment196 is numbered among those disappoints on this occasion. I am always concerned that this negative result does not compromise in any way the fundamental fact: that you are, as I have often said, known and honored for your work among the staff here. So the purpose of this letter is to exhort you, as a distinguished maker with a formidable history, not to let this decision alter your course by one degree, or erode your confidence a whit. [. . . .] I’ve said before that excellence in our culture seems to be pun-

438

194. Malcolm’s goddess research for Cycladic Imprints is from a rare German publication: Sigrid Neubert, Die Tempel von Malta (Bergisch Gladbach: Gustav Lübbe Verlag, 1988). 195. Brian O’Doherty (also known as Patrick Ireland) (Ireland, 1935), artist and critic. 196. National Endowment for the Arts.

ished as much as rewarded, and this is doubly true in the arts where the vision expressed is unique, often uncomfortable, and unabashedly demands the audience’s time. If we are not to be homogenized mindlessly in the media mixmaster, that vision—that is, your vision—is indispensable. Each artwork of conscience, as Harold Rosenberg197 used to say, helps the culture take a step further on the road to where it should be. Of all artists, media artists take this charge most seriously. I hope you will try us again. CS to Stan Brakhage 7 July 1994

I’ve tried to reach you by phone for several months! Months flying notes—between leaves (the leaves/returns of a few teaching trips). To thank you for your words to me on my films which mean so much to hear from you . . . our visual bond as deep as any in my history and vital always, illuminating, as your work is always to me . . . to and deep in. All the more crazed that my Masters have disappeared delaying prints of Fuses, Plumb Line for your library. Is there a deadline/sort of to have them in hand . . . I’m tracing desperately (and hypnosis will be next): cumbersome because all Film and Video have been transferred to video last year . . . (new videos of “Fuses” to replace the murky poor Mystic Fire) then the films (prints, out-takes, old studies, rough edits . . .) went to MoMA on permanent loan—to protect them and this mass of reels is off in some Penna storage place . . . Then I receive a letter from a library in Toronto that Anthology has sold them a print of Fuses . . . how is that possible? They have only three old archival weary prints for study? So all this is being traced, unraveled. I apologize while wondering if I’m being tormented by evanescent brain cells waving good-bye clutching the expensive, beautifully timed 1991 masters under their arms!!!! CS to Carol Bergé

In those years, the 1970s, the battles may have been the same one—in various ways—it is the loss of the precedence of the women. The battle was not to be given another version constructed from male history— 197. Harold Rosenberg (United States, 1906–78), critic.

1987–1999

8 June 1994

439

even the permissive one which invites me at the expense of the violence to my predecessors. [. . .] I am in those letters trying to position the realm of meanings which are either deflected or RE-POSSESSED by the men, the close friends, because of the intellectual respect and the love I believe they will understand and make inroads into shifts, deep changes in the consciousness of male culture which they exemplify. [. . .] Either I pulled the “rainbow of dead women” into my active time or I would be obliterated. CS to Ursula Krinzinger 198 15 July 1994

1987–1999

I’m very busy—the world is finally catching up with the resourceful influence of my work and I would be so pleased if Galerie Krinzinger would be part of what is happening now. I’ll enclose a recent exhibit schedule rather than describe all that I’m working on. [. . .] In Chicago we discussed your interest in “Mortal Coils”—and I would love to see it at your gallery: because the space is perfect for it, because of the long potential of our relationship and because we would be working with the spirit and presence of the dead who were so close to both of us. I will be in Paris in October to install photographic grids and the large kinetic construction “Four Fur Cutting Boards” at the Pompidou’s “Hors Limites”199—and I’m wondering if there is a gallery in Paris with which you might want to collaborate on bringing “Mortal Coils” to Europe in ’94 or ’95. Caroline Bourgeois200 is very interested in my work; do you have any relationship to her? In any case, this is a suggestion and at the same time, I will be writing to Hubert Klocker and Julius Hummel201 to bring them up to date and to see if they have developed proposals for my work.

440

198. Ursula Krinzinger (Austria, ca. 1940), director of Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, did not agree to have her letters to Schneemann appear in this volume. They may be found in the Carolee Schneemann papers 1959–94, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angles, California. 199. Jean de Loisy, ed., Hors limites: L’art et la vie, 1952–1994. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1994. 200. Caroline Bourgeois (United States, ca. 1945), gallery dealer. 201. Julius Hummel (Austria, 1940), gallery dealer, Galerie Julius Hummel.

CS to Larry Rinder 202 1 November 1994

I have asked my collaborator Maria Beatty203 to send you a rough cut of the video tape we are currently editing, Interior Scroll—The Cave, 1993. I restructured the original solo action of “Interior Scroll” as a group event for six women performing it in a huge nearby cave last summer. As you know the text extracted from the vagina addresses structuralist film principals. Voices reading the scroll text will form a layered sound component within the final video edit. It is important that I mention this because the spoken text contextualizes startling close-ups of the interior of my vagina and my mouth, filmed by Maria Beatty. Interior Scroll—The Cave shifts current gender politics through a shared aesthetic vision—one that is sharpened by the sexual dynamic of a lesbian dominatrix and a heterosexual feminist in collaboration (“Self ” and “Other”). Please propose this videotape in its completed version (by December 1994) to your curators, Steve Seid204 and Kathy Geritz.205 I also enclose some reviews of my 1965 “notorious” erotic film, “Fuses” as an early work which anticipates some issues of the film program (“Couple”). Joseph Berke to CS 6 November 1994

202. Lawrence R. Rinder (United States, 1961), curator. 203. Maria Beatty (Venezuela, 1961), filmmaker. 204. Steve Seid (United States, 1948), video curator. 205. Kathy Geritz (United States, 1957), film curator. 206. Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992). Sogyal Rinpoche (Tibet, 1962), a Tibetan Buddhist monk, was recognized by Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, one of the spiritual masters of the twentieth century, as the incarnation of Lerab Lingpa Tertön Sogyal, a teacher to the thirteenth Dalai Lama.

1987–1999

Wow. I looked at the print of Fur Wheel and I immediately felt frightened for it resembles an enormous Tarantula. Then I read about your recent work, Mortal Coils. That seems wonderful, beautiful, poignant, evocative, spiritual, embracing. I am reminded of the great book by S. Rinpoche, The Book of Living and Dying.206 Have you read it?

441

Malcolm Goldstein to CS

1987–1999

26 November 1994

442

The work in Europe was, as usual, wonderful and already my next March tour is together. I’m trying to limit tours to one month now, but it’s hard since so much more is possible there and yet my body gets worn down faster than 10 years ago. C’est la vie! I love the work & the traveling too . . . how to establish a balance between motion & stillness (and is it even possible?!) [. . .] I think some man should write about age—body change process (like for men); we need this too, as there are numerous books for women. The joyous celebration of our living as, also, the amazing fragility of it all, which becomes apparent (the huge spectrum of feeling/experience) more & more as we sustain upon this earth. When I was in Germany in June I performed a piece to my radio piece “between (two) spaces”—me, two chairs and a blackboard—a 40 minute improvisation of moving me/it all to establish ever changing spaces and also with quiet sitting and listening, while the audience also watched & listened to the radio piece . . . a kind of performance piece with a quiet intensity. There was a video made of it, which I watched yesterday and it delighted me. Also a video was made of me performing my solo violin piece, “Ishi/‘man waxati’ Soundings.” I don’t have the chance often to see myself like this—when I’m playing I’m into the sound and flow of the music/energy—and so when I saw “me” I was quite astonished! And then I had a chance to see what I do to realize all of those sounds, and the line that was spun out ( just like the flow of brook pouring between rocks & trees & dirt, that I talked about so much! Truly.). And with the dance of my gesture and energy as one within the sound . . . Again I was delighted (full of light)! (I don’t mean to sound full of ego—but I must say that watching (and listening to) this violinist gave me a strong experience and, with afterthoughts, much pleasure.) And so we go on . . . I think if I could sleep less and keep doing all the projects—that surge up within me—that would be marvelous. But, being human, I must accept that I can only do so much. (What is the span of life?) I’m thinking of applying for a grant to live in Japan, maybe 3 months (but then I also want to arrange for certain concerts in Germany at the same time! Spring 1996—maybe 3 months is too much?! and this & that . . . so much to do.) And at the same time I’m very concerned about the leaving of world politics more & more to reactionary/negative ways and feel

the need to do something (what?) to sustain a more positive open-tolife energy—and this, not only with my work (and which reaches relatively few people—ah, the business of the music/art world which feeds people the same “top” 40 over & over and in endless variations, while their minds beat to a common drummer! and with a little push they might follow the leader over the edge of the cliff!)—but also with some overt political activities . . . (how?) (Who are the bankers that are guiding the political scene from behind closed doors? The recent elections in USA are frightening—but also I see it in Europe, too—alas . . .) But, being an American, as I say to the Europeans, we are an optimistic people. And so I need to find my place & to do what & how—and sustain my work in all & as part of all of this. Yes?! An endless tightrope show of balances—and on & on– CS to Lisa Cheng Gallagher 16 December 1994

207. Schneemann refers to the book Mary Ann Caws edited, Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind: Selected Diaries, Letters, and File (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993). 208. Mary Ann Caws (United States, 1933), art historian.

1987–1999

Consumed devoured chewed up detoured deflected vampiric piles of useful demands needs requests no time to even shower some days this is crazy . . . struggling undertow to get to studio and pulled away by letters cards AIDS DHL alarms hungers UPS American Airlines . . . shots in the woods . . . and your very interesting material also in file or a pile on the floor (which once a week with great persistence gets CLEARED). [. . .] Any way I’ve been hoping to answer your letters and wish you would grab a university phone and telephone one Sunday night. [. . .] 1) The figure in plate 249 and reproduced in Caws p. 367 is a complete misunderstanding.207 [. . .] It is NOT me and anyone who looked at my body in photos could see . . . it IS female with hair and legs and about there the resemblance stops. [. . .] Mary Ann208 got it wrong . . . that is a photo from an early set of nudes Joseph sent to me in exchange (or as a conversation) for the nudes I sent him of “Eye Body” (1963) . . . 2) You are a keen detective and I encourage you to use your sense of merging fact/history/research with a sharpened instinct. . . . 3) It seems to be there are too many works of J.C. floating around and many without the tender exploratory firm invocation. Mysterious

443

conjunction of elements. [. . .] I am particularly suspicious of that #249 you enclosed as xerox among others . . . it “smells wrong” . . . its too cute and seems assembled without Joseph’s inquiry into affinities . . . an undertow, a current he worked within– 4) “Andromeda” is definitely the period of my closest correspondence & visits with Joseph . . . thanks so much for the Ribera searches. . . . 5) Barbara Wersba209 was an exquisite girl ahead of me at Bard, with long floating golden hair and a fierce self-containment (I imagine she grew up to Love women most of all?) and among the “offerings” of exceptional beauty I could suggest to Joseph. 6) Did my nude photos of the 1960s influence Joseph’s approach to the female nude as I thought they did at that time? RE: our nude drawing lessons . . . the slow introduction of an eros concept into our friendship . . . tho I’m not in repro. group you sent. 7) Big money big art world thieves/deceptions . . . You are in the perfect position as an honest scholar to explore and turn over some very odd Cornell rocks. CS to Jan Peacock 210 28 December 1994

1987–1999

I was just taking a shower and thinking about being gathered together around your large pastel and smaller sculptures . . . These works invite depth hallucinations invisible transmogrifications to emerge to begin to reveal unconscious connections: there is no disparity between luminous subtle images and the materials through which they come into being . . . they are not so much “made” as stroked, rubbed, invoked through the layered time processes. Their depth and conviction are a result of the process . . . So I take an opposite tack to the eager ideas to combine the white sculpture with the dark silky depth of the pastels . . . the reason you have them so close may not be to include or make a border, but to concentrate on the differences . . . to keep examining the bleached bone white plaster configured dimensionally by turning fingers: rolling, roping, pushing convexity, concavity into small fixed fantasy shapes. They are pleasing to touch for the eye to traverse. For my thoughts, the com-

444

209. Barbara Wersba (United States, 1932), writer whom Schneemann introduced to Joseph Cornell. 210. Jan Peacock (Canada, 1955), artist.

bination of disparate materials and image substance will require the kind of interpenetration which the “broken” stained cat sculptures take to unexpected energy and coherence . . . these “friezes,” sculptures change existing formal properties and are able to carry the mysterious tonal depth, the sense of emergent form from the pastels into actual dimensionalities . . . but there the cutting apart the re-configuring introduces the tension of form captured and escaping, of the dormant search to articulate a “thing,” discovering both object & the motions of its change and transformation as sculpture . . . (it is not decorative as a border could be around a pastel). You’ll find a way to astonish—your viewers—and the voices, visual commands, which subvert the obvious and reach further through you to us. CS to Hubert Klocker 10 March 1995

Dull, tight, stricken little flyers—Perhaps the worst thing about the Kunstraum . . .211 I think it might take a great deal of your very significant diplomatic skills to get my flyer close to what I want. I know some of the books you have done and I will trust the final adaptations to your eye. But I have to insist on the vertical format for the inside and back cover . . . the meaning of the ropes must be established graphically. Look over these pages before you meet the designer (the designs for Kunstraum which you sent me are so rigid I imagine this is a very stubborn designer). Anything you can do to make the flyer cover slightly more alive will be appreciated . . . my rough collage is deceptive . . . the type should be red and black and more formal than my cut-outs seem to indicate . . . elegant but bold with a real deep red—not orange . . . CS to Mirek Rogala

This might be one of the last letters on the old computer. I would fax you on that wonderful new conveyance—except for the enclosed color xeroxs from last summer. Your beard looks especially shapely, and the overexposure is always good for me. The images of our drawings as you 211. In 1995, Herbert Klocker curated an exhibition of Schneemann’s installations (Mortal Coils and Up To And Including Her Limits) at the Kunstraum in Vienna.

1987–1999

11 July 1995

445

printed them out are full of special possibilities. I also enclose copies of the sketches for installations we were thinking about . . . I’ll be showing our tape and playing the new sound to a few friends and curators this Thursday at the loft in New York (Chris Straayer will be there).212 Our work was so productive unraveling and meshing layers of meaning with a lot of the blind implications which are tough and wonderful the way our works separately and together can be. CS to Giancarlo Politi 213 26 July 1995

PLEASE SEND ME THE ART DIARY 214 FOR 1995 . . . for once I didn’t rip it off from someone else . . . I PAID GOOD DOLLARS . . . and NEVER got my copy . . . I’ll hope for your response . . . or send this to the office person who neglects orders . . . Enclosed is the canceled check copy. CS to Marie-Laure Bernadac 215 15 August 1995

1987–1999

The “Vulva’s Morphia” grid has developed since we last communicated; the height has increased slightly to accommodate the framing of the individual prints. [figure 66] The image units are now in color (subtly layered with a dot grid which refers both to the enlarged Ben Day dot of printing,216 and the luminous pixels of television. I hope you will like it! Each image has evolved through 4 or 5 print processes, so the production has also increased in expense. Payment of the invoice for the black and white photographs which compose “Vulva’s Morphia” for the catalog would be most welcome. Among my requests is an increasing need to attend the opening of “Féminin/Masculin.” Is there any possibility that your budget could provide me with a ticket to Paris and back? It would also be very helpful for me to assist at the installation. The installation is comprised of 6 units of horizontal photographs (11 inches high x 58 inches wide), with a running bar of text below each

446

212. Chris Straayer (United States, ca. 1960), film theorist. 213. Giancarlo Politi (Italy, 1937), publisher, editor, and founder in 1967 of Flash Art magazine. 214. The Art Diary (Milan, 1989–). 215. Marie-Laure Bernadac (France, ca. 1950), curator, art historian. 216. Benjamin Day invented Benday dots in the early 1900s, using a half-tone screen dot pattern to enable various tones and density to a print.

66. Carolee Schneemann, Vulva’s Morphia, 1992, performative lecture at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Photograph © Barbara Yoshida.

unit (2 inches high x 58 inches wide). The photographic images are each framed in Plexiglas and hung from a wooden bar attached to the wall. Two fans will be positioned to move air across the surface of the frames, moving them slightly on their posts. One additional smaller unit of image and text sits above main grouping as a heading. Should I supply the two small electric fans (which will be positioned to give a slight motion to the framed images) and have you convert them electrically?; the fans are simple and I know your great team of technicians at the Pompidou.217 Or would you prefer to provide two small French electric fans following my description of them? CS to Hubert Klocker 21 August 1995

The wave of recognition continues. I need your advice on how to use this for sales and deepening representation. I think you have a good chance now to propose the purchase of “Up To And Including Her Limits” to Brougher218 at MOCA. I have also received a very cordial note from Martin Kunz.219 Are you continuing contact with the Kunsthalle, New York, and with DIA? Geoffrey Hendricks to CS 12 October 1995

1987–1999

Thanks so much for your participation in the Al Hansen Memorial. Your slides, the Viking horns, the toilet paper all brought those special qualities of Al into the event. Beautiful. I was happy at how the whole memorial came together and pleased I could bring the image of love into the happening with my marriage to Sur.220 Last weekend I got up to Montreal and met my new in-laws. I think Al would have been pleased.

448

217. The Centre Georges Pompidou, designed by the Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, opened in the Les Halles district of Paris in 1976. 218. Kerry Brougher (United States, 1952), curator. 219. Martin Kunz (Switzerland, 1947), curator. 220. Rodney Sur (Canada, 195)], critic, curator.

CS to Peter Schjeldahl 221 18 October 1995

I was very taken by your “The Age of Ouch” (Village Voice, March). The issues raised by this article—and the long history of your influential and inspiring writing—brought me to consider certain fissures of interpretation. For instance, parallel and contradictory performance motives between “narcissistic display” and the incorporation of the body as an extension of plastic, malleable materials where “self-loss” invites a transcendent dissolution. And your reference to Freud made me wonder if Gina Pane’s222 self-tortures would yield to both Feminist and Freudian interpretations of replication of a primary injury? And could my use of the body—both solo and group—establish implications of unexpected pleasure? CS to Rosalind Krauss223 18 October 1995

221. Peter Schjeldahl (United States, 1942), artist, critic. 222. Gina Pane. 223. Krauss did not respond to Schneemann’s letter. 224. The title of the exhibition “Féminin-Masculin: Le sexe de l’art,” 1995, was derived from Jean-Luc Godard’s film Masculin féminin (1966).

1987–1999

I am leaving tomorrow to install a new work at the Centre Pompidou for the exhibit “Féminin/Masculin.”224 This letter is with some haste, because I’ve been meaning to send you some material on my work for quite a while. Curators at the Pompidou have given me a rather imprecise description of an exhibit you are preparing on issues of facture between materials and forms. They suggested that I write you—that my work might be relevant to your current preparations. I’m enclosing background material which brings forward formal aspects of my installations and objects, which were often missed in the welter of post-modern issues and deflected by the drama of my performative actions. The scope of my work from the past 25 years is being redressed with 15 current and future museum exhibitions (1995–1997). These exhibits include installations using diverse materials (motorized objects, film projection, video monitors). My idea remains that the key to all my work evolves from a painterly concentration on Cézanne’s broken line. It would be most welcome if any of this is of interest to you. Let me know if there will be an opportunity to discuss the range of my work.

449

CS to Kerry Brougher

1987–1999

22 November 1995

450

I was glad to have a chance to read your introduction for “Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film Since 1945.” It unexpectedly raised many issues regarding my work, I suppose triggered by not being among those artists mentioned in the overall description. I felt a sort of aggressive despair that I would have to offer you some underlying affiliations which might not be obvious, but which for me had to do with the simple naming of so many artists who originally found their permissions and material territory because my early work offered precedence. Certainly it was a confluence, but you have opened apertures to this “Hall of Mirrors” and I want to clarify my own history in it. 1) “Fuses,” 1965 Are any of the writers in the catalogue considering “Fuses” for its shameless exploration of a personal erotics in which the women artist is both subject and camera-eye? That there is no heroicizing, glamorizing camera operator (male) to configure the moving intimacy of participation and authority. “Fuses” occupies its unique historical position because it is my camera-eye through which viewers enter both my body and an eroticized film time. As a painter, I exchange my inscribing brush for my penetrating lens—as a painter, I turn the film into a second skin which is painted, baked, torn, glued, stroked and layered. (All this related to your presentation of “Up To and Including Her Limits.”) “Fuses” also breaks into the mirror/lens which for so long suppressed any depiction of “normal” heterosexual pleasure; in both assuming and depicting my own pleasure, in filming a domestic penis I transgressed film culture and all its underlying fantasies of terror, castration, domination and confabulation. It’s hard to believe it has taken thirty years (!) for feminist critical theory to finally address “Fuses.” (Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body, Routledge 1996; and Amelia Jones—also forthcoming—I’m sure you’re familiar with the consequential earlier essays on my films by Scott MacDonald, Gene Youngblood and David James.) 2) Friendship and interchange of film/painting with Brakhage “Fuses” was inspired by Stan’s films and was made in response to “Window Water Baby Moving;” one motive was to position the absent lovefuck, to restore primacy to the female body—apart from a male vision and framing. In the late 1950s/early 1960s the gifts and powers of the feminine were only held by mirrors of male projection.

3) Friendship and interchange of painting/film with Brakhage “Fuses” was also made in contrary response to two early works of Stan’s—filmed in the cottage in Vermont where James Tenney and I lived while we were still students. At this time, Stan was influenced by my painting, by my insistence that Surrealistic film metaphor would have to be nourished by direct observation of natural forms and that film process must be cognizant of the work of Pollock and De Kooning to fulfill its own visuality. Last month, I was very moved when Brakhage told the audience at his MoMA retrospective of my early paintings and their influence on his current painting on film. 4) “Ghost Rev,” November 1965. New Cinema Festival–Cinemateque, New York Enclosed is a description of this work (from More Than Meat Joy). My intention was to reincorporate the motion of film time into a live interaction with painting, for painting to repossess the optical surface/ screen of the moving film. 5) “Plumb Line,” 1968 “Plumb Line” is a film being filmed as it is being painted on—a film which is being re-filmed as its projected images moved on a screen which is set on fire: the materiality of the film both undermined and reclaimed. I hope that our discussion will continue (it would be interesting to talk with you about narcissism and the film as mirror); for now these notes might enhance my inclusion in the richness and complexity with which you have built “The Hall of Mirrors.” CS to Chancellor Franz Vranitzky 225 29 November 1995

225. Franz Vranitzky (Austria, 1939), chancellor of Austria from 1986 until 1997.

1987–1999

This is an urgent request from an artist in the United States to request a stay of Otto Mühl’s prison term. In the past Otto Mühl and I have been involved in shared exhibits and projects throughout Europe. He is a great and influential artist—perhaps because of and in spite of the excesses of his philosophy. It is my fervent hope that he be allowed to live out the rest of his days with his family and with careful medical attention.

451

CS to Ursula Krinzinger 29 November 1995

You have nine groups of important works of mine. I provided these works on consignment with you, with the understanding that Galerie Krinzinger, in its fullest capacity, would represent this selection of silkscreens, photographs, posters, collage, and xerox wallpaper. Our understanding was that you would undertake the sale of these works to appropriate collectors—private or museum. You also assured me of your enthusiastic intention to build an exhibit including the nine groups of works brought to you in April. I have never heard from you again. My letters and faxes have had no response from you. I have no reason to believe you are doing anything with these works for the benefit of my career. It’s essential that all these works be returned to me. They are needed for upcoming exhibits in the United States and Canada. I must hear from you within two weeks. Jane Hammond to CS 226 1996

I just wanted you to know how thrilled I was to hear the new Museum is giving you a retrospective. I can’t wait to see it. Good luck with all the planning. CS to Hubert Klocker

1987–1999

1 January 1996

452

For now I am hard at work on a new research/installation . . . on cells, pathologies, cancer. I have lymphoma and although I feel fine absolutely fine and look “really healthy”—everyone says—such are the mysteries of this disease—it is overwhelming at times—there has been and will be more surgery involved. My schedule remains usually the same. I’ll be preparing these new materials for a solo exhibit this May with Elga Wimmer;227 expanding all forms of the new work for a solo exhibit at the New Museum in 1997. I have to raise funds immediately both for treatment and for the new work—printing Cat Scans, MRI and blow-ups from the Rococo church 226. Jane Hammond (United States, 1950), artist. 227. Elga Wimmer PCC Gallery, New York.

outside of Vienna—a surrealistic mannerist frieze of witches being impaled by angels in bondage! It’s so wild, is key to the cancer range (do you know the church Valie took me to see?).228 I need $12,000 in the next month to pay for the treatment which I believe will be of most help (and auxiliary treatments now which are keeping me in good energy); Kristine is helping to place some works, and a few collectors also. But all of this is in confidence. I HAVE TOLD almost NO friends—only the people I have to work with in case I can’t keep up ordinary schedules . . . so please keep this between ourselves. Can you organize sales of the “Eye Body” set or the other prints? My trouble with Ursula is simply that she has a lot of my work, we made plans and I never heard a word since last March—no response to letters, faxes until Dec; wrote her finally that I could not continue unless there was some commitment. CS to Ursula Krinzinger 17 January 1996

228. Valie Export. 229. This print edition was never realized.

1987–1999

Thank you for writing to me at last. I’m sorry you were upset but I had written and faxed you in August, in June, in March and had never had any response and I don’t even know if you saw my installations in Vienna at the Kunstraum. As I wrote you in August, I have work in 11 major museum exhibits for 1995–1996—I sent you the list and I hoped this would be helpful to my working with you. I have never heard from Bonn, so I have written that off, but my main concern is—how can you and I proceed? You have all the materials necessary to organize the special edition of “Correspondence Course,”229 which you originally proposed to me. My questions are: What else do you need from me to move forward with this edition? Are you still planning to exhibit my work? Will you put me on the gallery mailing list? Will you let me know when you are coming to NY?

453

James Schaeffer to CS 25 January 1996

I’m sending white waves of healing energy to wash over you. I want you wet and healthy. James Schaeffer to CS 230 29 January 1996

Greetings Senorita! Que Pasa? How are you doing? Things are steady here at the house. School started today—it’s okay. I got word that I won the essay contest; will raise glasses of carrot-celery in commemoration when you are back. Wish I could hug you now, and comfort you. Looking forward to your being back home where my arms can wrap around you—rather than these wispy words. I’m sending some good, good, good, good vibrations (listen carefully for the remix . . . to you). Be well. CS to James Schaeffer 30 January 1996

1987–1999

Things are looking up today here in Camp Vegetable. I’v seen my first cat! Big, old, orange asleep on a roof top section. Linda Weintraub231 called all encouragement; earlier, Hans reached me. Then your presence & our talk last night so asked healing dreams; dreams of busy home—in the kitchen, driving, gloomy day I cherished as subtle atmosphere. It’s odd how deeply helpful are your calls, letters. [. . .] I finally can imagine being home & gobbling you up; or offering every millimeter of my flesh for your examination, delectation. (It’s hard not to confuse the body with food here in pure protein deprivation.) And dreams are little filaments to shift the awful sense of distance, displacement, uncertainty. So I think of getting off the plane & seeing you so tall & focused in a crowd of little Ulster County winter

454

230. Faxed to Schneemann at CHIPSA Medical Center in Tijuana, Mexico, founded by Max Gerson (Germany, 1881–1959), physician who pioneered radical therapy to cure heart disease, kidney failure, and cancer. See Gerson’s A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 Cases (New York: Whittier Books, 1958). 231. Linda Weintraub (United States, 1942), critic and curator.

friends & families. And what a perfect mesh of fantasy, imaging & possibility it will be to find you real, actual, holding me! Joseph Berke to CS 11 February 1996

My progeny are banging at the door of artistic and professional success. Well, Joshua232 is currently doing his PhD at Harvard Med School in neuroscience. More particularly, and following in his Dad’s footsteps, he is licensed to use Cocaine (in experimentations on brain function). He is also trying to figure out why L-DOPA233 stops being effective in treating Parkinsonism after a few years go by. But that is not why I write. You have been a great influence on my daughter Debbie234 who is studying sculpture at the Byam Shore School here.235 She is especially interested in performance art and wants to meet YOU. She will be in Phily and NYC in mid April. Will you be in New York? Can you please meet with her and share some of your creative magic (aka tricks of the trade) with her? Can you introduce her around? This is her first big trip to the Great Apple and she wants to dance, have fun, go wild and see everything and everyone that’s worth doing and meeting. CS to Kristine Stiles 19 March 1996

232. Joshua D. Berke (Eng­land, 1970), neuroscientist. 233. Levodopa (L-DOPA) is a derivative of the amino acid tyrosine and operates in Parkinson’s disease to stimulate dopamine production. 234. Deborah Berke (Eng­land, 1975), event organizer. 235. Byam Shaw School of Art, London. 236. Edward A. Shanken (United States, 1964), art historian.

1987–1999

I want you to know my blood work is improving steadily—that means the immune system is strengthened! And my heart is full of the loving presence of you and Eddie236—being there with me when the dark shadow was pulled over me/out of my skin and bones—that we have this threshold among many others. There were several death apparitions—startling, now blended into a wavering recent past as my strength becomes grounded again . . . So I will NOT be leaving you, leaving . . . here (as you know I need thirty years just to clear up the stuff on my desk) . . .

455

1987–1999 456

It’s a regret that I can’t write concentrated, clear letters now—I wanted to embrace your lovely and vulnerable two yellow pages . . . somehow the measurements of Plats WBC CD8 CD 8/DR, the subtle invisible dance of prostaglandin chemistry, mutagen clearance, the inhibiting of cycloxcgenase and lipo-oxygenase in the polymorphonulcear leukocytes;237 then the cyclic routines/regime . . . I’v told you the three hour preparations each morning . . . (It’s really fussy & hard— the gathering needle in 250ths than switch to injecting needle & slow release . . .). I give a pretty swift injection by now (not too swift . . . 30 second count); grinding grains, grinding coffee, five quarts of coffee for the enemas, juice extractions, sort the thirty tablets, herbal extractions, meditation, acupuncture, visualization, Yoga; conferences with surgeons, immunologists, Gerson center . . . Blessings of this moment in time and my incredible will which have led me to practitioners whom I believe in, whose work all my research & physical improvement confirms. And the changes in my body . . . which as Dr. S. commented “is your laboratory, you observe it clearly with an awareness that is quite remarkable for us—the practitioners.” That was rather thrilling to be told . . . I wish I could write about these past four months; the certainty and some intuitive compass . . . the exhibit in May at Wimmer is titled “Known and Unknown” . . . before I knew what it could consist of, before I was diagnosed with two cancers! I wish you could see with me now the cell blow-ups, the mechanical “eye”/lens of the copy machine which penetrates the configuring surface of ben day dot, of pixel to become forms of cells themselves . . . what incredible pleasure this brings me standing over my favorite one armed bandit machine on 23rd St, feeding it $5-bills, touching its controls . . . like a surgeon of the glassy intractable screen computer skin —238 On the bicycle down to the river (are the old letters flowing? as a sheltering immersion . . . welter of works . . .) wide farm fields across the swirling Wallkill are dotted with huge long necked Canadian geese reassuring squawks echo across water brown swift moving north; the squawks echo in the night, my house. Down by the flats—fields leading to town—embellished with fat droplets of snow which on approach become terns,239 gulls thick as blossoms. Migratory spring birds as ever indent grey/browns of muddy March soon slowly luminous, not the 237. This letter refers to the treatments Schneemann received at CHIPSA. 238. Schneemann refers to a laser-printing machine. 239. The Arctic Tern is a small bird that makes the longest migration of any bird.

greening but that diaphanous haze of tone which I anticipate hope will be prolonged as it was last spring. (And I am no longer evanescent skinny as on return, luminous and frail, the bones grasped by air; I fatten new cells.) CS to Shigeko Kubota 21 May 1996

I say a prayer each morning for Nam June240—dearest friend & inspiration. I want us to be strong to make more amazing work & share together in health & happiness! This is the hardest work together you will bring healing. I love you both & treasure our long history; overlapping, parallel. Your new landscape/video is so beautiful & brings painting to electronic space. If I can help in any way call me! Amelia Jones to CS 10 June 1996

240. Nam June Paik. 241. “Art and Film since 1945: Hall of Mirrors,” curated by Kerry Brougher and Russell Ferguson at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1996. Schneemann was represented in this exhibition with Up To And Including Her Limits. 242. Jones refers to Schneemann’s Up To And Including Her Limits. 243. Jan Turner and Craig Krull curated Action/Performance & the Photograph, at the Turner/Krull Gallery, Los Angeles, 1993. 244. Jones refers to the video installation Hysterical (1995) by Douglas Gordon (Scotland, 1966), artist.

1987–1999

I FINALLY saw the Hall of Mirrors show (this has been a hellish spring and I’ve only just finished teaching).241 Naturally, I found your piece one of the highlights of the show;242 I have always liked that piece (the large b/w photo that you used to document it for the Turner/Krull Performance and the Photograph243 show is one of my favorite body art photographs), and this was a particularly compelling documentation/invocation of it. I was struck by the fact that you were one of the only artists in the entire, huge show who addressed the body and issues of corporeality (the compelling [first name?] Gordon piece about hysteria being the other exception).244 [. . .] And, finally, your feminism was a breath of fresh air in a show that (predictably) glossed over all such complexities of politics and points of view (one brief wall text about the “male gaze” wasn’t enough for me!). I did enjoy the show just for its sheer ambition and scope (and the film clips are fun). But your piece was a solid

457

anchor (or perhaps, more fittingly, a luscious, labile core of multiplicitous possible meanings) that, in fact, exposed the somewhat shallow fetishization of the apparatus in the rest of the show. Thank you. David Joselit to CS 245 26 June 1996

I wanted to thank you for generously sharing your time and work with me last week in New York. I left feeling particularly intrigued by your constructions, and their relationship to the later work. This connection made me think of a relatively clumsy, but nonetheless interesting juxtaposition of Bruce Conner’s films and sculptures at the “Art and Film” show at LA MOCA (I forgot if you said you had actually seen the exhibition).246 CS to Amelia Jones 13 July 1996

1987–1999

Can’t believe I’v been intending to answer your letter since June 10th, and to tell you how much your estimation of the installation meant to me. I’v suggested you to be on a panel evolving around my work at the New Museum “Future Bodies/Unfinished Narratives,” a panel with—so far—Bob Riley, Dan Cameron;247 on Thursday Jan. 16th. The catch is— the usual—they could not pay travel & your schedule might not bring you to NYC at that time. But let me know. We will find a way to work together more—that is my hope. (The catalogue essays were assigned by Dan Cameron; & then McPherson chose Cottingham for the re-issue of More Than Meat Joy. I just wanted to let you know your writing is crucial in clarifying & deepening the issues which form my own motive.)248

458

245. David Joselit (United States, 1959), art historian. 246. “Art and Film since 1945: Hall of Mirrors.” 247. Dan Cameron (United States, 1956), curator of Schneemann’s 1996 exhibition “Up To And Including Her Limits” at the New Museum, New York City. 248. Laura Cottingham (United States, 1963), artist.

CS to Jane Collum Brakhage Wodening 29 July 1996

My health demands privacy AND I CANNOT TOLERATE RUMORS . . . being an example . . . Stan was a great leak (via Jim and Lauren?)249 [. . .] The Gerson Institute is classic alternative cancer treatment—one has to go to the clinic . . . it is expensive . . . all the alternative treatment research hospitals are in Mexico, the Bahamas (or in San Diego described as “Spas”). It is ILLEGAL to provide alternative therapies in the USA . . . One starts at the library and reads . . . there is no way for me to help except by healing and doing my work . . . if I’m dead next year that is . . . not a promising example and I CANNOT KNOW I can only follow what I must do . . . it is NO BODY’S CONCERN (unless I reach to them purposefully). Summer is tumbling fast into anticipated autumn; it’s been so wet the vegetable seeds drowned and the grass is glorious verdant; the deer changed habitation requirements; now eating all humble and glorious garden flowers . . . Portulaca to the roots! No distaste for human urine, red pepper, home dogs . . . we’re all spreading particles of human shit against Bambi predators. Masses of work—it’s good; Jim250 is splendid and Vesper is still an inspiring voyager for psychic bonds renewed by cat and human. Blessings on your wild creatures and you, dear wild writer. CS to Linda Kauffman 251 5 August 1996

249. James Tenney; Lauren Pratt Tenney. 250. James Schaeffer. 251. Linda S. Kauffman (United States, 1949), writer. 252. Schneemann read and commented on Kauffman’s Bad Girls and Sick Boys: Fantasies in Contemporary Art and Culture in manuscript form before the University of California Press published it in 1998.

1987–1999

It was good to hear from you and get a sense of Bad Girls And Sick Boys252 richly developing. I am desperately preparing slides, photos, statements, paintings for the curator of the New Museum who arrives tomorrow. My retrospective with them opens on November 21st. [. . .] I want to respond to your questions, and also question a few details in your essay which I like enormously—please don’t be daunted by my pile of comments. [. . .] You note that “Interior Scroll” evokes “bonds and bondage.” My

459

1987–1999 460

work never did and never will deal with S & M. My erotic motives have encountered endless cultural resistance without tipping into fetishization—which is not my subject. A reference to “bonds and bondage” is formally anomalous: the piece of paper which I extract is delicate, frail. It may startle people’s senses but it can not, even metaphorically, tie them down. Of course you will build your own associations and insights, but I hope, based on holding connection to my intentions. [. . .] You describe “Meat Joy” as a performance of “frolicking, naked humans.” In 1964, it was illegal to be naked in public: in the photos you can see we wore tiny feather-covered bikinis. “Meat Joy” was a rigorous erotic rite. All action evolved through the intense, concentrated group energy structured over weeks of rehearsals. As the director, focusing subtle interrelationships in which both absolute concentration and spontaneity were demanded of each participant, there could be no “frolicking.” (Perhaps in some future time, men and women will “frolic” as they may have done long ago in ritual celebration; but in 1964—as in 1994—the dark suppressive confusions can not be penetrated by “frolic’s” ghosts.) For we are ghosts, I am convinced. Thanks to ghost work! [. . .] It seems as if you quote me saying the men were “mere acolytes.” No acolytes are “mere;” especially men who renew, vivify and support the sacred erotic. My work celebrates the male, is inspired by men who seek equity with passion and grace; whose affinity with the ancient sacral is—as ever—full of risk. (It’s possible that in conversation I would have used the word “mere,” to give emphasis to a female Godhead fully occupying the imagination and daily reverence of an ancient cultural model which very few of us today can visualize.) You touch on these complex layerings when you describe the “Freudian typographies,” the permutations of the double curve of the violin, the human torso, the open vulva with a vivid clarity so readers can feel the living history of it. And while I’m delighted by your recognition of the humor which occurs in my work, I take exception to the idea that the motorized violins of “Cycladic Imprints” might seem to mimic sexual intercourse. Other people have commented on that, but it doesn’t remind me of any fucking I ever experienced! So many of these perceptual issues have to admit ambiguity. [. . .] There is a confusion between my Super 8 diary film (1973–1976) “Kitch’s Last Meal,” and the photographic wall “Infinity Kisses” (1981– 86). The cat in my self-shot, color slide sequence of 78 images, “Infinity

Kisses,” was Cluny; Kitch died in 1976, so I’m confused as to what video text you quote from. [. . .] Finally, your essay on Annie Sprinkle253 begins with an unfavorable comparison to me. We are close friends and I admire and respect her work in all the ways that you do. CS to James Tenney 12 August 1996

Thought you might like to see this Ives program.254 It was right around your birthday. Following my reductive system you’re about 55 this year (that’s two twenty-seven year olds in one body).255 Happy Birthday. The Colorado Quintet is sublime, The Ruth Crawford String Quartet256 has veils, shards, pinnacles of sound pulled, cutting space & their Ives 1st String Quartet—as Ruggles might have called it “sublime.” Then “Angels” & “Amores” had vital, subtle, sonorous performances. Ives— now beloved—remains difficult; lots of bravura (sp?) pounding on the surface. What a privilege (& torment) to have learnt to hear from you & Ruggles. [. . .] Oh & of course these concerts are at Bard! So I can go pee in my old dorm during intermissions . . . many ghosts! Jan Peacock to CS 28 August 1996

253. Annie Sprinkle (United States, 1955), artist. 254. Charles Ives, String Quartet No. 1 (1896). 255. Tenney was born in 1934. Schneemann refers to her “reductive system” for altering birth dates, a system that only she and Tenney knew. 256. Ruth Crawford Seeger (United States, 1901–53), composer.

1987–1999

Marveling once again at how alive and how completely your words live inside your voice. For me, that is where the work comes to rest—in your voice, your mouth, your body. The other women’s bodies and voices are like a Greek chorus—and so the return to the cave seems mythic and inevitable.

461

Meiling Cheng to CS 257 11 September 1996

I am thinking of our first meeting in Los Angeles downtown, when you peeled the apples with your strong fingers. The meeting was very dear to me. I was fascinated by your stories about the cats, Cluny and Vesper, and your deep love. I shared your melancholy when you remembered the men who entered your life, stayed for a few years, and left for other worlds. I could imagine your house in the woods, with a swing in the yard, and your studio where hungry mice randomly dissolved your art sculptures with their urine. It was quite an experience for me—meeting you. I’m working hard—reading all kinds of things I can get my hands on about performance art and taking time away from that reading to prepare for the two courses that I have to teach in the fall at USC. My moods vary between great excitement, confusion, fear, and mostly anxiety. Teaching is no longer a straining task for me; it’s actually enjoyable; but the need to be prolific is—to publish in order not to perish. I recognized the situation of time crisis, of pure practicality; but I also feel the need to respect my own limits, my desire to learn. It seems that the academic schedule practiced in this country is a century faster than what is required by my own biological time to mature as a writer, a thinker, an artist. There is so much to learn; so much I’ve already missed because of my own cultural location and my late point of initiation into the specific artistic culture where my mind yearns to inhabit. I feel very lonely in my pursuit. Although I’ve spent lots of time talking about what I just discovered with my husband Nonchi Wang,258 I have no other friend against whom I can bound my ideas and continue a dialogue. My friends are all very busy. I wish I could beam myself into your woods from time to time, finding sustenance from your dense and beautiful mind, the body in your mind. RoseLee Goldberg to CS 259 17 September 1996

1987–1999

I am so often asked to talk about your work, which I am always delighted to do, but on a recent review of my slide collection, I find it

462

257. Meiling Cheng (Taiwan, 1960), art historian. 258. Nonchi Wang (Taiwan, 1958), architect. 259. RoseLee Goldberg (South Africa, 1947), art historian.

quite inadequate to the task. Would you be so kind to send me about ten slides that I could use for lecture purposes? My archive is also missing “More Than Meat Joy”—do you have access to copies, or where can one be found? CS to James Schaeffer 20 October 1996

Love Letter Guidelines 1) Mention part of loved one’s body as in your “penis slowly tracing my face—my tongue slippery . . .” 2) Express a _______feeling as in “I feel happy, content, vitalized when we are together . . . Dearest Jim: I was trying to understand: what is a love letter? And I realized it must take complete concentration, a moment of time to summon forward feelings for the loved person and that to write you a love letter I become vulnerable, meshed, exposed and offer need, hope of a shared wish—that to be together is a deepening completion. And for us/for me, to feel more vivid, expressive, flying with pleasure and grounded at the same time with all the recognitions our pleasures open. You probably don’t have a moment to drift to me; then again maybe all the Emails are arrows aimed at my heart captured by jealous circuitry. CS to James Schaeffer

11 November 1996 typing this in all by myself!!! Dearest L word correspondent . . . thank you for the big heart. It has two openings among its constellated dots so i figure a way in and a way out . . . i was happy to have this valentine even if the L word never appeared . . . anyway I love you even if I wish loving words were more to your liking—they make the feelings grow and deepen . . . it was a sweet melancholy to work in your space with John . . .260 so many beautiful things there—Bern’s261 paintings of clustered permutated forms, the shining polished sculptures your tense gritty sculptures in the deep 260. John Schaeffer, James Schaeffer’s brother. 261. Bern Schaeffer, James Schaeffer’s brother.

1987–1999

12 November 1996

463

green grass . . . I felt touched as always by your qualities and those of your brothers—all naturally gifted, purposeful, creative, strong minded in the world of masculine values without sacrificing tender feelings . . . Recording the little music boxes . . . John’s careful mixing . . . our eyes closed in attention to the subtle appearance and disappearance of Row Row Row Your Boat, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Jingle Bells. James Schaeffer to CS 13 November 1996

1987–1999

Thank you for the creative response to my L— letter. I really cherish our relationship and feel very lucky whenever I think back on the wonder/ full time(s) we’ve had together. I can’t deny a hesitancy that remains based on realistic assessment of the situation, but that’s how I think—and that’s probably good for a soon-to-be engineer. For now—and always?—I am very much looking forward to our reunion! I trust the previous statement doesn’t distress you too much, because I think you know that in this process of growing up and sacrificing present pleasure for longer term goals that I’ve committed to, focus and energy will need to remain largely centered on study. College is largely a young person’s world precisely because it becomes more and more a challenge as a person gets older and has more attachments and solidity in life. So far, although I sometimes fantasize about the occasional attractive woman encountered here at Clarkson,262 I have not spent any time pursuing a relationship, and I don’t think I will or can. Even if I did, for me that would not signify you mean any less to me. I also realize that I seem to be fairly unique in this regard, and that you don’t necessarily share my feeling about this issue. On the other hand, to let my hypocritical self reign free for a moment, I’m glad that you haven’t been with other guys, too. I hope, fervently, that the New Museum show is a big success for you. I trust it will, but as always I feel compelled to issue a benediction on your behalf. All my best feelings, concerns, and yes, LOVE, to you Carolee! XOXOX

464

262. Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York.

CS to Gale Elston263 13 November 1996

I am increasingly of the belief that every time we make love, spirits come forward, hover to swim in the energy of orgasm waves. Some among them come forward to be reborn or possibly to be born again . . . and so I believe your child will ride through the distances of moon, psyche, biology, cellular unpredictability once again. In all I’ve read of natural healing, vitamin E in large doses is consistently advised to stabilize pregnancies when miscarriage has been the previous history. CS to Stan Brakhage 13 November 1996

263. Gale Elston (United States, 1956), attorney. 264. Stan Brakhage was diagnosed at this time with bladder cancer. 265. Center of Advanced Therapeutics.

1987–1999

As you said on the phone last week, you are in a war . . . our own “Plague Column,” each methodology contested by another—each certainty branching into uncertainties.264 I would not judge your decision, your intuition, your Demi-Urge which has shaped, guided a profound creative history that I’ve been privileged to be close to for so many remarkable years. So put your full force into the powers of chemo and at the same time, strengthen your immune system in every possible way as the chemo does its work. In Boulder there is the highly regarded Denver School for Therapeutic Massage.265 It is among the modalities helpful to me. In particular, during chemo stagings, knowledgeable massage can support Lymphatic function while it helps the body use and pass chemotherapy. My own therapist had training there. It’s a clinic and not very expensive. You will need a letter from your doctor. Invest in a heavy-duty juicer so that you could supply your body with fresh beta carotene and mineral-rich greens which will significantly enhance immune functioning. Most important is what you do not do to further compromise your immune system. This means no meat, no coffee, alcohol, sugar or fats— don’t burden the system with anything that is not of optimum benefit.

465

Potatoes, vegetables, whole grains, fruits, seaweed, ocean fish—these are all known to contribute positively to immunological health. I hope you and Marilyn266 will read Natural Healing by Dr. Andrew Weil267—you may already be familiar with it; among the welter of works I researched, his writing was particularly clear and useful. All this is to simply add helpful concern because among all those who love and cherish you, I maintain a deep affinity, history, visual cosmology which we must continue to build in interchange and inspiration until we are truly old and decrepit. Jan van der Marck to CS 26 November 1996

This letter is meant to tell you how happy it has made me to see your life’s work recognized and crowned with an exhibition—granted though it should have come before and not after the exhibition of so much work by artists you influenced and inspired. I know that seeing it all together will be a rewarding and, to some degree, nostalgic and reflective experience—one to which I look forward with great anticipation. Alison Knowles to CS 21 November 1996

The show is very fine. I will go back and see more of the video work. I wish you had had the whole museum, but the choices were good and the show came off strongly. Charles Rotmil to CS 268 7 December 1996

1987–1999

So good to read about you, a well deserved article and I hope gives you your due. I still linger on old memories, où sont les neiges d’autun,269

466

266. Marilyn Jull Brakhage (Canada, 1955), film administrator and distributor and Stan Brakhage’s second wife. 267. Schneemann was thinking of the physician Andrew Weil’s Spontaneous Healing: How to Discover and Enhance Your Body’s Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself (New York: Knopf, 1995). 268. Charles Rotmil (Belgium, 1932), artist, musician. 269. The allusion is to a poem by François Villon (France, b. 1431; d. after 1463), which includes the refrain, here rendered slightly inaccurately, “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?” (“But where are the snows of the past?”).

and our days and nights together long ago on the Bard campus, somewhere in New York, waking up and seeing you on the other bed looking at me and asking me if I wanted to go to Bard and then staying in the old house belonging to some mysterious teacher, listening to old blues records,270 keeping warm in bed, hugging one another at the altar of the church, then the following day, or the day after, my seeing the French teacher? Talking about the Manifesto on Literature by Victor Hugo, and then seeing the resident poet and talking about Kafka and whether he was ill or not, and then someone else, I forgot who, a woman, who showed me the Marcel Proust collection in the library which swept me over as I touched each book, and then Bard offering me a scholarship which I did not take when I returned to Temple in Philadelphia, because I got caught into another whirlpool of events. Weeks later you came to see me on Rittenhouse Square with my pipe which I had left in your bed. I wondered why it is that after all these years you did not make a painting or a work of art called “Ceci c’est une pipe” contrary to Magritte’s contention that Ceci n’est pas une pipe.271 All else is lost into a misty landscape . . . I did see you years later at Judson Church and then a show of broken glass (Kristallnacht?).272 Ah, ma chère, time is an illusion. Mark Daniels to CS 273 8 December 1996

270. Rotmil remembered that he and Schneemann listened especially to Bessie Smith. 271. Magritte’s painting with the text “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” is The Treachery of Images (1929). 272. On Kristallnacht, November 9 and 10, 1938, mobs rampaged throughout Germany, Austria, and Sudetenland, attacking Jews, destroying thousands of homes and businesses, and burning synagogues. 273. Mark Daniels (United States, 1951), filmmaker, writer. 274. Daniels’s letter is a response to Schneemann’s exhibition Up To And Including Her Limits at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 24 November 1996–26 January, 1997.

1987–1999

Just a short note. A note of thanks, I guess. I saw your show today and I was very excited. [. . .] I left the show cradled in tremendous longing.274 It was a longing composed of anger (of a righteous, existential sort), desire (of which there’s only one sort, tho’ it’s capable of infinite expressions), and reconciliation. Not a reconciliation with anyone or anything in particular. And not a passive resignation. But an inner reconciliation. A harmony

467

1987–1999

of all the effort and of all the loss, of all the speaking and of all the silences . . . Transitive, like the verb it is, that needs to take an object to complete the meaning. I guess it was the object(s) you provided. I was very moved. All these marks and scratches and traces of a movement through the passage. Ashes, cinders, stones. Residues that defy all processes of dating and transform the eye at the instant of their discovery. Their elusiveness trains the eye to deeper seeing. Or, more exactly, they can only be seen by an eye that lives as they do, in the corners of vision. There is a fleeting insistence to these things that exist fully only for that instant before they take name. And in some way not altogether clear to me, your things stay there, balanced, precisely, on that horizon. Then something blooms thru them . . . And standing there I felt something of that blooming, irresistible, lasting just an instant . . . Yet, how do I say it, at the very ground of the instantaneous, and, so, beyond duration. All the uncertainties that compose us hover about those rooms. And standing there, I felt equal to those uncertainties. Even if a little sad, and angry, that I had to be. Your work, as always, is generous with your courage. That’s where the thanks come in. As to that sense of longing: leaving the gallery I experienced a simple and direct need to be with everyone I’ve ever loved. Immediately. And a recognition that, today anyway, longing is to be its own reward . . . Tomorrow, too. Still, there’s that strength in knowing. And in saying . . . Maybe it was the final work, Mortal Coils, that framed things in this way for me. It’s very powerful and moving, and its imprint colored all the previous pieces as I worked my way back thru the galleries on my way out. It was almost as if I’d seen two shows: one on the way in, another on the way out. Which is as it should be, tho’ I never really considered it before. I don’t know if this is at all clear. In the end the only valid response to your work is poetry. But I had to give a try at expressing my profound response to the show. I know I never would have gotten any of this out over the phone.

468

CS to Jon Hendricks 10 December 1996

275. Anette Kubitza (Germany, 1957), art historian.

1987–1999

You said on the phone you’d been “berating” me to Anette Kubitza.275 I know how much you respect my work and love me, so the “berating” must have had to do with some Fluxus affiliation mentioned by Kubitza. Once more: Fluxus is—was, always my community, my historic base of friends, shared times and spaces, interconnections of intention, appreciations. You of course are correct: I am not a Fluxus artist; but I have taught Fluxus, performed Fluxus, lived among Fluxus, traveled as Fluxus. My work is rooted with Happenings and Events: in so far as we do distinguish the formal slippage between the originating principles of Happenings (painterly, messy, baroque, psychologically tilted, erotically stressed); Events (pure, pared down, scored, singular actions, brevity, public penetration); Fluxus (insistence on the integrity of the object, metaphysical vitality of the ordinary, uninflected performer as vehicle, interactive equity with a public, and deflection of the erotic/expressionistic). Given these rough definitions there have been times—no matter how strictly you wish to guard and define the boundaries—when I made works explicitly in the spirit of Fluxus, in response and conversation with Fluxus, in collaboration with Fluxus.* Fluxus boundaries have been permeable: at various times Oldenburg and Vostell of the early Happenings persuasion are permitted to cast a shadow, a mark on the history of Fluxus. I am not Fluxus but I have cast a mark, a shadow among the practitioners. This is known, though you allow no seepage in your wrapping of our history. I certainly deserve a footnote in this mutual history, and not to be excluded by you from exhibits, parties and dinners so often shared with my Flux Art buddies across years and continents. *(“Loose-leaf ” (1964–66); “Music Box Music” (1964–65); “Bottle Music” (1964); “Expansions” (1969); “Flux-Shoe” Tour, Eng­land (1970); “Flux Events,” London (1971); “Rainbow Blaze” (1971); “Isis Skating” (1972); “Road Animation for Reykjavik” (1972); “Fluxus Subjectiv,” Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, (1990); affiliation, Emily Harvey Gallery.)

469

Joseph Nechvatal to CS 276 12 December 1996

I am still in Paris working on my Ph.D. which is about “immersive experiences” in art. I am working on you for the thesis, and I really need to get a copy of the catalogue the New Museum produced on you. Can you ask them to send one to me? It’s important! I’m sure if you ask they will do it. CS to Bibbe Hansen Carrillo 277 30 December 1996

I wanted you to know how thrilled I was to receive Al’s278 catalogue from the Kolnisches Stadtmuseum,279 and I was heartbroken to have my contribution left out. I worked long and hard to compose an homage consisting of text, and groupings of photographs of Al and our friends with examples of Al’s collages. All the images are from my personal collection. I was in constant communication with Heike Lukrafka280 at the Kolnisches Stadtmuseum and she had approved my proposal, had a xerox version of the printer to compose with . . . and then they left my work out—saying it had arrived too late. I’m enclosing my letter to her and a black and white set of the color xeroxes that were to have been my contribution to Al’s catalogue. If you have any thoughts on how to recuperate this material, I’d be most appreciative. James Schaeffer to CS 20 January 1997

1987–1999

Greetings my dearest; I hope you and Vesper and Griggio are all keeping nice and warm, and you, at least, are getting a lot of work done. It’s been snowing all morning up here—not much accumulation though— the finest snow that I have ever seen. Not as cold. I skated last evening, but the blades on my new skates have poor edges without a sharpening

470

276. Joseph Nechvatal (United States, 1951), multimedia artist. 277. Bibbe Hansen Carrillo (United States, 1951), daughter of the happening and Fluxus artist Al Hansen and mother of the rock singer Beck (also known as Bek David Campbell; United States, 1970). 278. Al Hansen. 279. Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, Cologne, Germany. 280. Heike Lukrafka Hoffmann (Germany, 1964), curator.

so it was really tough to skate. I felt at first like I had never done this before; it also made it difficult because the skates are so very different from the ones I’m familiar with. I’ll get them sharpened today. [. . .] I got my room more or less set up; not much else new here. I feel good physically but I do miss you—a little more than a little. Good luck with the doctors appointments; I’ll keep my fingers crossed. CS to James Schaeffer 25 January 1997

Such a profusion of persons, events; it becomes confusing—the richness, variousness of my life and all that is offered to me. Wondering and sense of wonder, dearest Jim that one person can fill my heart and mind as you do . . . testing the measure of others as a gravity . . . where I feel true, rooted. Feeling your love makes me see more clearly. [. . .] My own bed bereft of your long welcoming body . . . its oddly mild now raining out the snow/ice . . . Vesper in a wild risky frisky mood and I stand over him at the door admonishing “don’t get crazy . . . no bad adventures!” Jim dear I am so excited about my trip north and finding you like the gift at the end of the snow rainbow. Skidmore281 will be devouring but satisfying work; I’m looking forward to the contained, simplified focus of hotel life with Vesper . . . all love kisses drooling stroking reaching . . . glad your work is so solid demanding and satisfying with the pace of skating to emboss time & motion.282 CS to Volker Hamann283 11 March 1997

281. Schneemann gave a guest lecture at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York. 282. Schneemann and Vesper visited Schaeffer at Clarkson University, living in his apartment. 283. Volker Hamann (Germany, ca. 1960), artist.

1987–1999

Your very beautiful letter arrived here. There was a slow silent snowfall in the night, a brilliant sun early morning . . . I had missed the storm, the motion of flakes. [. . .] Thank you Volker for all your insight, clarity. Age is not my issue. Not yet. I will always wonder why these clamouring women entered the frame’s focus in Germany: Harpies, Greek Chorus, Hissing winds in an old fairy tale . . . the motion is enclosure, the motion is

471

1987–1999

backwards. Perhaps they think I am the generation of HANSEN?284 (He was ten, twelve years older.) I cannot represent what they want. [. . .] (We all know about the biological imperative, the cultural and genetic drifts to youth/beauty, the aspect of male power to renew himself with “daughters” . . .) And why were you in the position suddenly as guide or representative to their questioning? Even the body itself is too various in its experiences for me to assume a cultural agreement. When my very close women friends speak of their erotic pleasures they depict a body different from my own . . . a different realm. With you it was indeed the “hops over borders.” Everything I know of you deepens shape, sound, touch . . . I knew first “blind” . . . some rare affinity . . . in this universe of partial communication, burning away, destroying source, breaking apart . . . We moved together in a simple and immense harmony. That is enough. The further evidence of your thoughts, the blue words on speckled paper, lingering arches, arrows of sound in the high white Bonn Kunstverein, or the rhythms of light pools marking our lost walk in the night. Or the wind blowing the red curtain over the red candle . . . there alone with you. As you write “repeating an inner constellation which worked years ago can be harmful” . . . I want to build a set of motorized gestures and to get computer equipment for scanning . . . the money is as always the question . . . in the mean time I have an amazing laser printer shop in NYC . . . “self serve” . . . there are enough controls and randomizing elements to attract some psychic magic . . . I cannot send you one print I think because it is the conversation among them that builds the necessity of each of them . . . As for your tender concern . . . after wriggling away from medical/ cancer treatment/death I follow a very strict regime to detoxify and strengthen the immune system . . . raw juices, organic vegetables, aerobics, yoga, meditation . . . my sort . . . having literally seen my death I can permit a few visitations with white fire water and sacred smoke (NOT cigarettes . . .). May your beautiful body be warm enough, stroked enough, cherished and free enough . . . I love your letter, I feel blessed by your friendship.

472

284. Al Hansen.

CS to Jan Avgikos285 18 March 1997

Just a note to thank you for your succinct, fiercely clear review of my retrospective at the New Museum. An exceptional number of people have responded to your Artforum article,286 as if they have found a passionate vindication in what you stated. The questions of the displacement of my work from its own areas of influence and centrality remains a form of schizophrenic balancing for me. You’re correct to posit an “Uber physicality” which with my home base in the woods sometimes enables me to concentrate on the possibilities of work. CS to Robert Morgan287 24 March 1997

I’m in complete agreement with your sense of “solipsisms” tangling womens’ issues lately, and your sense that we are in a moment when both women and men can develop dialogue on womens’ issues and sexuality. As I mentioned in passing, it really seems to me that you could position a discussion, a breakthrough into, on and about an erotics of perception. And I know how difficult this is, fraught with confusion, because our sexual experiences are so various and perfect pleasure invites perfect envy, defensive responses, confusion . . . For example, “Vulva Morphia’s” observations on female orgasm often sets off a flurry of questioning and contradictory experiences given the same orgonomic system!288 CS to Clayton Eshleman 28 April 1997

285. Jan Avgikos (United States, 1950), art historian. 286. Jan Avgikos, “Carolee Schneemann/New Museum,” Artforum International 35 (March 1997): 94. 287. Robert C. Morgan (United States, 1943), artist, art historian. 288. The orgonomic system refers to Wilhelm Reich’s orgone research.

1987–1999

Thank you for your good wishes concerning the rumor that I was ill. I have denied this to everyone but six friends, deplored the inevitable and confused “leaks.” Now it seems safe enough to let you know a bit of what happened. A year and a half ago I was being examined for a

473

presumed femoral hernia. After many contradictory opinions, a local surgeon discovered that I had large cell malignant, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and Breast Cancer. I had exploratory surgery, which confirmed the two anomalous cancers. At this time, I rejected the doctor’s insistence on mastectomy, long-chain radiation and chemotherapy. I decided I would rather die than endure treatments which would probably kill me. I continued both my research and to create images from that research, which led me to the alternative treatments of Dr. Max Gerson. I have quite strictly followed the Gerson Therapy for over a year now—(beginning with two weeks in the Tijuana hospital a year ago February). All Lymphataic, T-cell and associated blood parameters are normal. I’m recovered and never lost a day of working within this unexpected research! Within the next few weeks, I will send you portions of the text and imagery with which I constructed the installation “Known/Unknown: Plague Column;” none of this material has ever been printed. I will also send another work for your consideration “Vulva’s Morphia,” a photo grid with text. CS to Kathy O’Dell 289 1 May 1997

Life being insane skid that it is—quick note to tell you how much “Fluxus Feminus”290 deepens the entire scan of issues and where to look, what to consider—it’s very stately and troubling—you excavate completely hidden patterns which demands a/your new linguistics! I felt the mystery story—all its grey crumbling dust distorting clear vision—the mystery story I moved within has begun to clear in your essay-CS to Roger Conover 291 20 June 1997

1987–1999

These summer months are dedicated to completing the writing on my book/our book.292 [. . .] I am engrossed and excited about the richness

474

289. Kathy O’Dell (United States, 1950), art historian. 290. Kathy O’Dell, “Fluxus Feminus,” The Drama Review 41, no. 1 (spring 1997): 43–60. 291. Roger Conover (United States, 1950), writer, editor. 292. In her letter of 16 August 1991, Schneemann notes that “Jay Murphy of Red Bass wants to edit all the lectures!” for the book that would become Imaging Her Erotics.

of the material. The New Museum exhibit, reviews, many interviews, recent lectures have all enlarged my audience domain. I am enclosing the reviews so that you can see what a passionate response has been stirred up. But there have been no sales whatsoever and I need to discuss my financial impasse with you. The problem is that I’ve been without a regular job for a year and a half—since my illness forced me to cut back—and I have no money for secretarial costs. And it’s essential to include the most recent material to sharpen focus and relevance. There are at least six hours of recent lectures to be transcribed (from cassette and video)—I’ve been lecturing quite extensively all year. My rewriting and edits need to be retyped on computer in order to bring a manuscript to you by September. I am a miserable typist, fumbling on my old electric typewriter with its several missing keys, and passing the corrected material to the woman who has been helping on the typing for this project. She is one of the few people on earth who can read my handwriting and I need her to continue. I estimate there are about 200 hours of computer work remaining on edits, interviews and manuscripts. This does not include costs of xeroxing, collating, etc. The production expenses are realistically around $3,000. I have spoken with all the major grant agencies and because I have in the past received a Guggenheim, a Gottlieb, a Krasner-Pollock,293 I am no longer eligible to apply. Please call me to give me your suggestions— I am feeling quite desperate. Suloni Robertson to CS 24 June 1997

293. Schneemann refers to her grants from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Inc., and the Pollock Krasner Foundation, Inc. 294. Linda Montano (United States, 1942), artist.

1987–1999

i’m so happy. i sort of found you. i mean i had your other address. your real address. and i asked linda montano294 about you, but i feel disconnected. and to have you on the computer in my room feels effortless. i saw you on a video a couple of months ago at my husband’s place of temporary work, a performance art compilation, all different artists. i read reviews of your work in art magazines. it’s hard to believe that i thought i was an artist in the same way that i used to think i was. right now i am working in the basement of the public library 20 hours a week. it’s quiet and safe, and i feel like i’m just visiting when i’m at

475

work. i like it. i like to draw fur when i decide to draw. i do small drawings. today i got a book on jenny holzer295 from the fine arts library. it prints up her writing. put me in a weird mood to have read it. i wish i could have taken that seminar class that you gave that people had to write a lot of stuff and read a lot of stuff. i’m not really good at that. linda296 says that you look beautiful and that you’re doing really well, in your personal life and in your art. that makes me happy. linda says that you look like a cat. when you were my teacher you made me feel very worthwhile and special. things seem more and more unclear as i get older. everything changes and contradicts what has happened before. i’m not sure if this is going to get to you. i really want you to know that i’ll always think of you and be grateful that i had a chance to know you and know myself through you and that i love you. CS to Suloni Robertson 5 August 1997

great joy to have news of you your beautiful letter this is just a crude attempt to send reply my love and anticipation of a further communication there into the library there into the feathers fur of your weavings so i thought you must take more classes can you get tuition break as working in ut?297 i want to know every thing about you . . . that class was powerful for me and your work sensibility forever clear revelatory so you may not be that art energy just now but definitely a question of where your special energies should be challenged developed further . . . as for your precious joe thank him for putting us in contact . . . if you are making beads think of something simple from your hands towards me . . . anyway send notes text images i just want to send this off before another disruption here in the country . . . much love always . . . Suloni Robertson to CS 5 August 1997

1987–1999

my god—i have received your kind terribly too kind e-mail just now i can’t . . . stop crying . . . i don’t know what’s wrong . . . i’m awfully touched—i had made up my mind not to write you—and just to send

476

295. Jenny Holtzer (United States, 1950), artist. 296. Linda Montano. 297. University of Texas, Austin.

you good things instead . . . i sent you a good thing in the mail today! . . . should be with you in 2 or 3 days to the new paltz address . . . i so much . . . just don’t feel worth your friendship—it’s awful to say it, and i am ashamed of the weakness . . . but also i will LOVE* sending you things in the mail—and your acceptance will be an honor and a great gift to me—i—do thank joe for putting us in touch, because i haven’t had the courage my-self—please tell me if what i’ve sent you fits—tell me if the colors are right—i can change the designs—re-size them—send you any other colors. in our class you were the great conductor—the composer i’ve never experienced my-self, my own being again—the way i did in your class—it was you Carolee—your genius . . . your incredible gift to us—we glimpsed you through ourselves—this is what i firmly know . . . i love you — — — — — — — — — — — —suloni — — — — spinaround*until*youfeeldizzy CS to Suloni Robertson 11 August 1997

1987–1999

It’s you who are precious, mysterious . . . we just affect each other strongly . . . I cry when I read your letters to me . . . the beads are so exquisite . . . I want to send you wonderful gifts . . . something I made . . . I used to dart into the hallway to hide my tears overcome by some actions of yours, the unforgettable blood-language installation of the earliest morning . . . the depth, courage of your insights and of that amazing class . . . I know how difficult it is to leap over teacher/student . . . all the structures around us . . . but Joe lowered the hurtles . . . we can be friends together . . . you are always in my heart . . . you don’t have to be a great artist or anything but who you are . . . what I wish for you? . . . as I noted in my letter last week . . . be less self-critical, give yourself permission to start at a blind level with some creative discipline you like . . . “like” is enough . . . every little thing demands as much time/energy as anything with imaginative consequence . . . we have to fight for that selfdetermined space, event . . . and that takes a blind confidence . . . based on? nearly nothing is o.k. for a start of blind confidence . . .

477

67. Carolee Schneemann on the cover of the Germanlanguage edition of the exhibition catalogue Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979, 1998. The exhibition opened at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and traveled to MAK—Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (Vienna), Museu d’Art Contemporani (Barcelona), and Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo). Photograph of Schneemann from her series Eye Body, 1963, by Erró (also known as Gudmundur Gudmundsson), courtesy of Carolee Schneemann. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Hatje Cantz.

CS to Mercedes Vostell 298 23 April 1998

1987–1999

It seems a cruel joke to lose Wolf at the peak of our recognitions. Immense in every way, grand in vision of art, in love, devotion, transgression of convention and generosity to friends. He was always helpful to me; I carry his suggestions and estimation of my work, it’s value as a guide. It was wonderful to have an installation, side by side, in Paris; we missed him at the extraordinary “Out of Actions”299 this spring. [figure 67] I will sorely miss sharing our history together as it takes power and place. He left an incomparable dazzling universe of art for us all. I hope

478

298. Mercedes Guardado Olivenza Vostell (Spain, ca. 1935), wife of Wolf Vostell. 299. “Out of Actions” was the first comprehensive international show of the objects preserved from artists’ performances; it traveled to Austria, Spain, and Japan. Paul Schimmel, ed., Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979 (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art and London: Thames and Hudson, 1998). Essays by Guy Brett, Hubert Klocker, Shinichiro Osaki, and Kristine Stiles.

it brings some comfort—he adored you and the fullness of your life together. CS to Hannah Higgins 4 November 1998

Very dear Hannah, It was so hard to be away (in Virginia) & not be with you for Dick’s300 funeral service. He will always be the shaper—the great visionary shaper of our created history—our family of collaboration & contention. I’ll miss him. We had such a long rich history. (I’ll try to write it but if you & I could do an interview it would be better.) CS to Scott MacDonald 20 November 1998

300. Dick Higgins. 301. Schneemann read and commented on this book in manuscript form. See Scott MacDonald’s The Garden in the Machine: A Field guide to Independent Films about Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 302. Margie Keller.

1987–1999

Thank you so much for Avant-Gardens;301 your writing carries such a clear measure—a kind of music layering insight—I’m always surprised when I find myself in tears, stricken by the subtle momentum, a revelatory clarity. Your writing effects me the way the films of Ozu affect me. It’s all wonderful: the unraveling of Anger’s waters, the deepening of Keller’s furrows; I’m so pleased for your deepening of that mystic, ancient, seemingly simple earth of Americana. I love that work and its extraordinary retrieval of the forgotten integrations, of the Demeter— Persephone depth which gave us Margie302 and took her back. As for Fuses! That you can still make new connections is thrilling— to bring us back to earth shamelessly is thrilling and radical given our cultural will to mutate, mutilate, engineer, virtualize, plasticize flesh and earth. It’s certainly the first any one has seen the seasons and the outside landscape as container and shaper of the human interactions. It’s also wonderful how you emphasize the Edenic erotics apart from domesticity, pornography, maturation . . . A few modifications on page twelve of the manuscript I did not “batik” the celluloid, I baked it. Kitch is misspelled only once and I would com-

479

plain that you do not see “a bit of snow covered yard” because we do not have yards in the country—we have a field, a pasture . . . It was wonderful to follow you into the Brakhage and Lowder,303 to be together in the garden vision of MacDonald. Now what do you think about these confused ideas; the sacred must be tactile, actual, materially embodied, so that sculpture can be sacral in a way that a photograph cannot be. Because the photograph is referential—we must optically project into it to receive its two dimensional charge . . . the photograph is always a lie, a hallucination, a deception, a point of conditioned recognitions. The sculpture takes us as physically embodied . . . its shape and mass and density. But film because it is in motion inhabits another set of purposes in which the sacral can be illuminated is revealed as light and motion and form and carries us . . . Has this already been thought through somewhere? Have you already written about this or has Stan? CS to Paul Schimmel 304 2 December 1998

1987–1999

It was wonderful being all together in delicious Barcelona,305 working with the excellent staff at MACBA306 our panel was terrific, you were eloquent and elegant. We agree, my installation couldn’t have been better—it suits my work to stand next to Beuys. Following you through the narrow streets to the next great or terrible (Chinese/Birthday) restaurant remains memorable. You ruined the entire crew’s hotel expectations by the vision of your completely green toned room, its 12 foot ceiling, the huge picture windows facing across a medieval square to the rising crenellated spires of a Gothic cathedral. (My immune system didn’t do too badly, but it took several weeks to get normal energy again.) When I’m at Cal Arts307 this April, I hope we can spend a little time together. I wonder if you will advise me concerning my insurance claim for the defacement of “Up To And Including Her Limits” in Rome. As you and I discussed in Barcelona, it is imperative that the damaged drawing be returned to me. Financial compensation is due to me for this major work.

480

303. Rose Lowder (United Kingdom, ca. 1945), filmmaker. 304. Paul Schimmel (United States, 1954), curator. 305. Schneemann attended the Barcelona opening of “Out of Actions.” 306. Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. 307. California Institute of the Arts, Valencia.

(It is increasingly understood to be an extension of Pollock’s physicalization of painting.) And I will be unable to represent this originating drawing for my retrospective which opens in Barcelona in 2000, then traveling to other museums.308 CS to Hubert Klocker 23 February 1999

I feel very good about you representing the installation for Vienna and I want to work out all the details we should consider in advance. A major United States private collector has expressed interest in purchasing the complete room as he saw it in Los Angeles.309 This might be a spur to the Ludwig Foundation’s310 commitment to this work. [. . .] Artpace is incredible . . . I may be creating a new work that carries “Mortal Coils” forward. This one is an enveloping hallucination of seven video monitors—images streaming vertically, a wall of artifacts lit from within, many new drawings and sets of computer-scanned objects . . . To add to my mythology, I’ve just been informed that I will receive the “Lifetime Achievement Award” for Women in Art/Art History from the College Art Association, 2000. (They told me since Nochlin and Bourgeois got the awards, that the artists under consideration are getting younger every year . . . it must be true.) CS to Hubert Klocker 23 March 1999

308. Schneemann refers to a proposed retrospective at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art that never materialized. 309. Schneemann refers to the potential purchase of the installation replica of her New York studio as it was when she conceived Eye Body in 1963. This installation and the photographs were featured in “Out of Actions.” The sale never occurred. 310. Museum Ludwig, Kunst des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts, Cologne, Germany. 311. “Big Boards/Eye Body” refers to Schneemann’s sculpture Four Fur Cutting Boards (1963) and her photographic series Eye Body (1963), both of which were included in the installation replica of her studio, which traveled from Los Angeles to Barcelona, Vienna, and Tokyo. 312. The proposal for an exhibition at the Portland Art Museum never materialized.

1987–1999

We are up against an immediate deadline. The installation “Big Boards/ Eye Body” shipment leaves Tokyo on 11 April.311 I have to confirm with Portland312 whether it will come back to me in upstate New York or is shipped care of you to Vienna. (Now that you are feeling better, you

481

will find a copy of our correspondence with Portland from LA MOCA— 3 March.) [. . .] I’m sure you agree that we have to establish this agreement now. Without this, I cannot risk shipping these crates. I do really hope that Vienna gets the work, and that you can situate this context for “Big Boards/Eye Body.” But I have to have some certainty that the work will not go into a complicated limbo. CS to Hubert Klocker 30 March 1999

Tell me if the deranged militarism from here will be affecting art interchange internationally, as I suspect it will. In the states there is this paralysis of confusion, grief, empathy and ignorance, with no political community to clarify what’s happening. CS to Stan Brakhage 7 April 1999

1987–1999

I’m just back from a residency at Artpace313 in San Antonio and on my way to teach at Cal Arts for three weeks. I’ve been constantly racing to try to work to surrender to not being able to work—it’s my own ghost town flooded with the living, the dead, motions, lights in passage, trees cracked by lightning and the blessed moments when I disappear into the actual frog studded pond. So I missed celebrating our friendship and your work in Paris with Pierre314 and Robert315 and . . . and I missed being able to be with you in Boulder to teach—which I so looked forward to but I’ve had this amazing installation that no one else can prepare which has traveled from Los Angeles to Vienna to Barcelona to Tokyo . . . Composite Nature arrived at last.316 Thank you so much—it’s full of vibrant truths “down to the bones,” and of the bone, nourishing. As for “Carl Ruggles’ Christmas Breakfast,”317 I can only find the mas-

482

313. Artpace, a foundation for contemporary art, founded in San Antonio, Texas, in 1995 by Linda Pace. Schneemann took part in Artpace’s International Artist-in-Residence program. 314. Pierre Joris (Luxembourg, 1946), poet, translator, essayist. 315. Robert Kelly. 316. Philip Taaffe, Philip Taaffe, Composite Nature: A Conversation with Stan Brakhage (New York: Peter Blum Edition, 1998). 317. Carolee Schneemann, Carl Ruggles’ Christmas Breakfast (1963), 8 mm film, enlarged to 16 mm, sepia toned, separate sound, 7 minutes.

ter, it seems there are no prints. Despite the addition of your appreciation and care, I still can’t afford prints . . . it’s a problem I hope to resolve before too long through finally getting video distribution (but it’s my fault, I’m way behind in organizing master tapes, bibliography, filmography, histories, statements—what they need). If there is any way that the disappointment of my canceling this past year can be overcome, my fall is actually open for visiting artist work . . . is there something I can do to reactiviate the possibility of coming to Boulder? CS to C. Carr 318 14 June 1999

318. Cindy Carr (United States, 1943), critic. 319. Tracy Emin (Eng­land, 1963), artist. See C. Carr, “The Urge to Purge,” Village Voice, 25 May 1999. 320. Karen Finley posed for the July issue of Playboy in 1999.

1987–1999

Thanks for your reference to my work in your article on Tracy Emin.319 It’s gratifying to have my work acknowledged—certain originating body issues . . . source of form, both analytic subject and sensuous object, and to watch these concepts slip into the “abject”—the current Lacanian cul-de-sac denying female authenticities. As you know my physicalizing images had been initially so reviled that any link to economic investment, museums, collectors was broken (in thirty years, only two works have been purchased by U.S.A. Museums and one is a tiny photograph). So, I am amazed for the past ten years at the gallery trajectory representing younger women artists who create assertive, in your face, hostile body representations, and the art world is rewarding this work! Reading “The Urge to Purge,” I had the sensation of falling through my own historic rabbit hole. It’s perplexing that the eroticized feminine has been recently situating its contradictions in an honored place of abjection. Or, the eroticized feminine positions itself as Karen Finley’s current Playboy spread,320 conniving with the same lascivious patriarchal fantasies (orality as displacement of genital, fun as deflection of taboo dread). Is this urge to purge, urge to seduce, confounding issues of resistance, historical precedence—provoke a thoughtful rage to destabilize the arenas of our cultural acceptance? How do I feel about a shameless beautiful nude artist entering the ceaseless masturbatory fantasies of a militaristic psychotic culture in which the detestation of the feminine

483

is deflected by our margins of freedom? Who the fuck are we kidding? Between Tracy Emin in the bathtub and Karen Finley as chocolate edible Playboy feature, where do we locate an envisioning feminist politics? CS Susan Arbetter 321 29 June 1999

I am a devoted fan. I enjoy your clarity, wit and insightfulness. But I must take exception to an expression you use very often when you are considering information which lacks substantiation or belongs to a realm of common mythology. In these instances you consistently refer to “old wives tales.” You should be aware that until relatively recently traditions of women’s wisdom, authority and opinions which deviated from rationalizing male belief systems would be denigrated as “old wives tales.” “Old wives tales” actually represent the residual wisdoms of women’s historic role as herbalist, healer, midwife, farmer—the unrationalized historic sources of practical knowledge. Susan Arbetter to CS 29 June 1999

Thank you so much for your note! I always try to be sensitive to speech patterns, histories, and roots, and you just educated me a little more; I appreciate it. CS to Beth Anderson322 30 June 1999

1987–1999

I was so interested to get the notice of your May concert and regretfully missing hearing your music. But as usual, I always seem to be elsewhere. I was struck by your R. D. Laing “Knots”323 text and wondered if you had given any analysis to the implicit fierce aggressivity of Laing’s conundrums, its profound misogyny. To my reading, Jill324 is reactive, ma-

484

321. Susan Arbetter (United States, 1964), news director at WAMC/Northeast Public Radio, Albany, and host/producer of New York Now, Albany, New York. 322. Beth Anderson (United States, 1950), composer, founder of Ear magazine. 323. Beth Anderson’s composition is titled “Knots,” after R. D. Laing’s Knots (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970). 324. Jill is a fantasy character in R. D. Laing’s Knots.

nipulative and “castrating.” Laing situates her inadequacies, projections and envy of the masculine, which I recognize as a common distorting gender base for those years (the 1970’s) of transition/resistance to feminist clarification of gender bias. Those years when I was in London, trying to understand the contradictions I experienced as an artist friend among these socially transgressive young patriarchs who in all their assumed radicality as “anti-psychiatrists” still perpetuated reactionary psychological determinations by which they continued to define control and suppress all aspects of feminine self-determination which questioned masculine conventions and authority. It was difficult to resist Laing—handsome as an actor, the relay of ever-younger beautiful wives (my age then) replacing the older ones, the confirming replication of his children . . . This might not have any real relevance to the richness and subtlety of your music. I dance as wildly to the Rolling Stones “Under My Thumb”325 as I do to Donna Summer’s “I will Survive,”326 and I love Dylan’s sinister, misogynist “What Was It You Wanted,”327 and I don’t know what you musically formed around the “Knots” . . . but I was struck by the text after so many years . . . CS to Carol Kaesuk Yoon328 9 November 1999

325. Rolling Stones, “Under My Thumb” (1966). 326. Donna Summer, “I Will Survive” (1979). 327. Bob Dylan, “What Was It You Wanted?” (1998). 328. See Carol Kaesuk Yoon, “Of Breasts, Behavior and the Size of Litters,” New York Times, 19 October 1999, F3. 329. Yoon quotes David D. Hall in her article. See Hall’s The Antinomian Controversy of 1636–1638: A Documentary History and Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New Eng­land (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1968).

1987–1999

“Of Breasts, Behavior and the Size of Litters,” provided valuable information for my research on the body. I am constantly alarmed by discrepancies between advanced technological methodologies and the actual properties and experiences of a live body. Scholars whose own cultural constraints distort physical facts provide another area of analytic divergence. As for Dr. David D. Hall329 of the Harvard Divinity School, he misled you in his decorus explanation of the research for witch marks. The “extra nipples” found on the women examined “in their privy witch parts” are actually an overt clitoris. This “protuberance sucked by the

485

devil”—the clitoris—was evidence of “depraved witch craft”—not the breasts’ nipples. CS to Melissa Moreton330 23 October 1999

1987–1999

dearest MELISSA . . . ON YOUR GIFT TYPEWRITER . . . THE THOUGHT OF cooking a turkey and cleaning a kitchen, of happy faces in the dark wooden . . . filled with resistant dread . . . everything has been pulled out of me psychically drained cannot imagine making art the work so many artists proliferation my own struggles in myriad forms i can represent rather then be/ . . . on a high rigged platform we balanced to observe the new performance my long pastel draped skirt keeps falling open my legs were unmarred perfect from behind some video artist was kind enough to pass down long narrow needles and I could close the skirt the distraction of shifting fabric. . . . . . . .331 [plate 20] we were hugely amused to see Treasure332 had entered the stage area and was moving with a determined curiosity among the performers then disappearing into layers of props I kept nudging you/Brew333 to keep from calling to keep from laughing hysterically, the cat was so adorable seeming to fit in, the performers accepted his unexpected presence . . . suddenly over come by hysterical tears . . . i realized the thrust of this group’s performance was the reintegration of the goddess the feminine would be worshiped revered integrated . . . i would not live long enough to see this happen but was witness to renewal . . . why could i cook when i have no body no pleasure no joy to provision for what i really need i am always feeding others and not being nourished as i need i cannot imagine making work adrift in these leaves these dreams . . . months before i enter the pond to swim again . . . probably type too much a letter to you but they say people don’t write letters tactile “cursive” the post office says there are so few hand written letters that they MUST take over email . . . [. . .] now when i travel or this time to boston i parked the car at

486

330. Melissa Moreton (United States, 1968), art historian, assistant to Schneemann from 1993 to 1997. 331. Schneemann refers to her performance of Vesper’s Pool (1999). 332. Treasure, one of Schneemann’s cats. 333. Kathy Brew (United States, 1959), curator.

stewart . . . drove down the back roads, left enough time . . . drove back by thruway . . . it cost eighteen dollars . . . robbery . . . but the loneliness was complete to take ones self or return one’s self . . . your wild golden reception waiting for my arrival or the years of Jim334 so tall and focused waiting to receive my return . . . an immense undertow of absence to it . . . the miserable greedy righteous past tenants have a certified thing waiting most likely to take me to court for the 150 i held from the 650 deposit before the monster dictator child and her dangerous dog joined him . . . but as your birthday wish . . . yes many many festive friends loving appreciations all blurred as these dense layers of shifting falling leaves since I’m not grounded abandoned and burning . . . left to grow old that new place . . . in the dream bruce335 had created chaos in his part of the house furniture piled helter skelter books in rows turrets what’s the key word here? a blockade of stuff. . . . a bbBARRACADE . . . i said you don’t love me we have no life together and you have to leave here . . . he seemed perplexed rather than moved . . . outside there was a woman who said it was her cat i had been feeding and it was ok now that i knew where it really lived . . . so dearest melissa in your new transition world of scholarship students testings probity the deepenings of your investigations students in rooms i will never glimpse in a city i know of in fragments of satisfying explorations, achievement . . . there from your loving witch crouching in the dark cave between casting rays of light outward . . . our subject— a TURKKEY . . . CS to Ken Johnson 1 November 1999

334. James Schaeffer. 335. Bruce McPherson. 336. Ken Johnson, “In a Man’s World, Is a Subterranean Feminine Soul the Indomitable Muse?” New York Times, 22 October 1999.

1987–1999

Just a brief appreciation of “In a Man’s World, Is a Subterranean Feminine Soul the Indomitable Muse?”336 Your subtle analysis in brining forward a deepened motive for figurations of the feminine is long overdue. It’s remarkable still, the male psyche so often described in Jungian terms as searching for his “anima”; I never hear of a corresponding search by women for their lost, broken away “animus.” They/we instead invoke a male person, not an image, replication or principle . . .

487

Rosalie Purvis to CS337

1987–1999

3 November 1999

488

Last year I had an extraordinary experience. I was a senior at Bard College, double majoring in dance and literature. One of my dance pieces was rejected from the senior concert and I was devastated—at least, I imagined myself to be, at the time. My boyfriend came to get me and took me home for the weekend. Sitting there in his apartment, stewing in my own disproportionate depression, lamenting to myself as artists are prone to do, I began to pray for a sign of whether I should continue my work, or whether I had forever failed. I suddenly thought of a performance I wrote and directed when I was 17—a young bride approaches a lioness from her childhood, they touch noses and she receives a sort of benediction of artistic insight. There were indeed stone lions near my childhood home, and I always cried to my parents to take me there and lift me so that I might touch my nose to theirs. My parents never understood this odd behavior but they humored me and later recognized the scene in my play. As I contemplated all this, I absentmindedly flipped through my boyfriend’s mail. There, I found a copy of the Bard Alumnae publication with your interview featured on the cover. I immediately began to read it for I had been an admirer of your work ever since I first discovered it in a class on performance art. I felt comforted right away, as if a friend had looked up at me, knowingly, from the cover of the page. I read the article and in it the description of the Egyptian frieze with the young girl and the lion cub, which described precisely the strong images/visions I had carried with me for as long as I could remember. The girl, you wrote, has exchanged the breath of fire with the lion cub and she has, thus become a previsionary for her culture. At that moment, the phone rang. It was my mother who had just arrived to see my work in the concert. She asked me to meet her at her hotel which was across the street from the lions from my childhood. The concert and my remaining pieces went well and I was awarded the department’s main award for directing and choreography. But it was your interview that restored my sanity, so to speak. [. . .] Your work and your presence continue to be a source of inspiration and challenge for me and my colleagues. I want to thank you for that and also for “saving” me last year, although you probably didn’t know you were doing it. 337. Rosalie Purvis (United States, 1975), dancer and choreographer.

68. Carolee Schneemann and Kristine Stiles in the artist’s New York City studio, 1998. Photograph by Kathryn Andrews. Courtesy of Kathryn Andrews, Kristine Stiles, and Carolee Schneemann.

CS to Daniel J. Socolow 338 30 November 1999

338. Daniel J. Socolow (United States, 1940), director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program, 1997–present. 339. National Endowment for the Arts grant, Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation grant, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation grant.

1987–1999

Thank you for your invitation to serve as a nominator for the MacArthur Fellows Program and your concern to develop “a diverse pool” of younger artists. My difficulty is with the intention to “expand a life” in contradiction to a “lifetime achievement award.” I myself am a failure at raising funds and sustaining my work. As a visiting artist I can hardly support basic functions. I do not have health insurance, life insurance, storage or insurance for art works; I do not have savings, retirement funds, medical plan, investments, bonds, etc. It is impossible to produce the new works I envision. Any works associated with my cultural contribution have usually been possible because of grants—and these of course are sporadic, unpredictable. An NEA grant, a Gottlieb, a Guggenheim,339 underlie specific works: for instance “Up To And Including Her Limits,” “Cycladic Imprints,” “Venus Vectors,” Mortal Coils.”

489

1987–1999

In 1995, I was unexpectedly diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and Breast Cancer. I am alive because a Pollock-Krasner Grant enabled me to undertake alternative therapy in Mexico while at the same time I was able to concentrate on creating an installation, “Plague Column” (video, film, and photographic grid) examining contradictory media’s procedures. An inspiring art/life dedication and mythological artworks cannot be sustained by part-time teaching. I am not the only distinguished artist whose works have critical acclaim with no commensurate commercial, economical support. People find it unbelievable that in thirty years I have sold only two works to museums in the U.S.A. I am not the only woman artist with a distinguished history who has no way to sustain her work, nor provide for her future. I’m enclosing a bibliography as well as an exhibition and lecture sheet to clarify this extremely paradoxical history, the punishing facts of this mythic “career.” Perhaps you will understand that being in dire straights while enduring a fantasy of success and achievement makes it impossible to fulfill your request.

490

index Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. ABC—We Print Anything—In the Cards (artist book and performance), xlvi, xlviii, liv, lix, 269, 275, 280, 283, 344, 411 Abolafia, Louie, 143 “Absolute Cow” (performance collaboration), 392 Abzug, Bella, 66 n. 213 Ackerman, Diane, 391 “Action/Performance & the Photograph” (exhibition), 457 Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes, The (Brakhage), 184 Actual and the Real, The (Köllerström), 294 Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, 384–85, 475, 489 Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts (CASVA), 369 AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), 34 “Aesthetic of Indifference, The” (Roth), 298, 302 “Age of Ouch” (Schjeldahl), 449 Aggression for Couples (Schneemann and McCall), 186–89 Agnew, Spiro, 132 n. 426 Aherne, Dixie, 31 Alan Gallery, 65 Albee, Edward, 332 Alcott, Louisa May, 190 n. 103 Alenikoff, Frances, 224 n. 201 Allen, Jo Harvey, 427 Allen, Woody, 395 Alloway, Lawrence, 228 Alternative Museum, 411 n. 95 Alvares, Maria, 77 n. 247, 203, 207 American Center (Paris), 78, 83 American Civil Liberties Union, 113 n. 366 Anderson, Beth, 484–85 Anderson, Eric, 411 Anderson, Laurie, 395

Andre, Carl, 359 Andrews, Kathryn, 489 “Andromeda,” 444 Anger, Kenneth, 289, 339 Anthology Film Archives, 184, 252 Anticipation of the Night (Tyler), 185 “Anti-Demeter (The More I Give the More You Steal / The More You Give the More I Need)” (Schneemann), xxix, 402 n. 66 Antin, David, 191, 196, 256–57, 302, 317 n. 127, 357 Antin, Eleanor, 191 n. 103, 330, 357 n. 248 Anton, David, xxv–xxvi Antonioni, Michelangelo, 50 n. 135, 127, 130 “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (Warwick), 85 Aphra (magazine), 272 n. 12 Aphrodite, 390 Applebroog, Ida, 362 Aquinas, Thomas, 48 Arbetter, Susan, 484 Arbours Crisis Centre, 96 n. 304 “Archaii” (Eshleman), 281 Archinto, Filippo, 24 Arctic Tern, 456 n. 239 Arden, John, 125 Arendt, Hannah, 64 Arica School, 212 Ariel, 70 Aristophanes, 125 Aristotle, 220, 285 Arman, 78, 345 Arp, Jean, 165 n. 45 Arpelle-Ziegler, Jourdan, 410 “Art” (Picard), 140 Art & Artists (magazine), 109 “Art and Film Since 1945” (exhibition), 450, 451, 457, 458 Artaud, Antonin, xxxix, 55, 121

Art Diary, The, 446 Artemis, 334 Artforum (magazine), 223, 302, 316, 343, 366, 385, 473 “Artful Dodger” (Marzorati), 323 Art in America (magazine), 228 Art Institute of Chicago, 204, 429 Art Institute of San Francisco, 411 “Artists of Conscience” (exhibition), 411 Art Journal, 403 Art Metropole (Toronto), 320 Artpace, 481, 482 Art Papers (magazine), 421 “Art + Performance” (Schneemann), xxii Arts Lab, 138 Arts Magazine, 302, 411 Ashley, Robert, 82 n. 272, 98 Ask the Goddess (Schneemann), 411 Aspects of Performance (festival), 411 n. 96 Atlantic Center for the Arts, 390, 391 n. 32 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 34 Attalai, Gabor, 195; correspondence of, 194, 319, 320 Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, 478 Avalanche (magazine), 271 “Avant-Garde Cinema” (festival), xvii, xix Avant-Garde Festivals, xviii, xix, 99–101, 218, 315, 323, 384 “Avant-Gardens” (MacDonald), 479 Avelliz, Martim, 434 Avgikos, Jan, 473 Avventura, L’ (film), 50 Aycock, Alice, 356 Aylon, Helene, 432

index

Baby and Child Care (Spock), 132 n. 426 “Baby Rhubarb” (Eshleman), 233 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 113, 117, 374 Bachelard, Gaston, 420 Backlash (Faludi), xlvii Bacon, Francis, 233, 261 n. 290, 290 Bad Girls and Sick Boys (Kauffman), 459 Baez, Joan, 210 n. 155 Baillie, Bruce, 335 Baker, Kenneth, 407 Baker, Russell, 159 Baldwin, Cliff, 422

492

Baldwin, James, 58 Ballard, Hank, 54 n. 152 Baltimore Institute of the Arts, 344 n. 216 Banana Hands (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 60, 178 Band (rock group), 209 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, 481 Bard College, 35, 45, 117, 400, 444, 461, 466–67, 488 Barnes, Mary, 111, 378 Barr, Alfred, Jr., 165 n. 45 Barrett, Annabel, 368 Bartlett, Scott, 289 n. 58 Bashkirtseff, Marie, xlii, xliv, 20, 237 Bass, Fontella, 117 Bataille, Georges, xlv Bateson, Gregory, 111 n. 354, 318, 378 n. 336 Bateson Group, 378 Battelle, Wayne, 44 n. 113 Baudelaire, Charles, 10–11 Baumeister, Mary Hilde Ruth, 144 Baxandall, Lee, 310 Bayerthal, Friedrich, 309 Bear, Liza, 271 n. 4 Beatles, 79, 112, 117, 119, 125–26, 160 n. 36 Beatniks, 375 Beatty, Maria, 441 Beau Geste Press, 192 Beauvoir, Simone de, xli, xliv, 19, 20 n. 57, 61, 77 n. 244, 159 n. 33, 171 n. 64, 237, 249, 400 Beaux Arts, 398 Beck, Julian, 112, 125, 143; correspondence of, 56 Becker, Inge, 307 Beckett, Samuel, 19, 103, 178, 207 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 10, 52 “Be In,” 118, 364 Bellamy, Dick, 65, 89 Bellows, George, 58 Bell Telephone Laboratories, 48, 196, 246 n. 270 Belsize Park Gardens, 142, 209, 403, 433 Benamou, Michel, 365 Benday dots, 446, 456 Benedikt, Michael, 55 n. 158, 313, 315 Benglis, Linda, 421 Benjamin, Walter, xl n. 43, 436 Bennington College, 8, 15, 138–39, 335

Bowles, Jane, 209 n. 151 Boyle, Mark, 120, 360 Brach, Paul, 16, 54 Brakhage, Jane, 3, 25, 240, 269, 283 n. 40, 284 n. 41, 289 n. 57, 337, 338; correspondence of, 221, 374, 375– 76, 422–23, 459 Brakhage, Marilyn Jull, 466 Brakhage, Myrrena, 36, 284 n. 41, 335 Brakhage, Stan, 158, 182, 206, 261, 267, 269, 284 n. 41, 395; correspondence of, xiii, xxxi, xli, 4, 9–10, 17–19, 172 n. 67, 184, 221, 247–49, 251–53, 255–56, 282–84, 308, 309– 10, 311, 320–22, 334–42, 345–46, 439, 465–66, 482–83; films of, 28 n. 85, 38 n. 110, 95, 170 n. 62, 184 n. 92, 244, 266–67, 276, 286–87, 289; friendship and collaboration with, 3, 5 n. 9, 51–52, 55, 260, 268, 435, 450–51, 480 Brakhage Scrapbook (Brakhage), 336 Brancovan, Anna Élisabeth de, 328 Brandenburg, Peter von, 315–16 Breakwell, Ian, 395 Brecht, Bertolt, 125 Brecht, George, 55, 62, 91, 345, 388; correspondence of, 63–64 Breslaw, Caryl, 148, 240, 241 Brew, Kathy, 486 Broadway Central Hotel, 163 n. 40 Brody, Jennifer, xxx Brody, Sherry, xlii Brook, Peter, 75 n. 239 Brooklyn Museum of Art, 297, 304 Brougher, Kerry, 448, 450–51, 457 n. 241 Broughton, James, 248–49, 252, 336 n. 179 Brown, Carolyn, 203 Brown, Cee, 306–7 Brown, Earle, 77 Brown, Trisha, 58, 203 Bruegel, Pieter, 37 Bruggen, Coosje van, 348 Brummense Uitgeverij Van Luxe Werkjes, xlviii Brus, Günter, xxviii n. 23, 139 n. 444 Bruzzichelli, Aldo, 97–99 Bryant, Linda Goode, 344 n. 211 Buchholz, Daniel, 422 Buckberrough, Sherry, 343, 348 Buddha, 110 Burke, Joe, 378–79

index

Bergé, Carol, 307, 439–40 Berger, Maurice, 399–400 Bergman, Ingmar, 81 Berke, Deborah, 455 Berke, Joseph, 96 nn. 304–5, 135 n. 436, 317–18, 361 n. 266, 380, 381, 415; correspondence of, xiii, 109–12, 113–19, 119–24, 322–23, 441, 455 Berke, Joshua D., 455 Bernadac, Marie-Laure, 446, 448 Bernard, Roger, 326, 328 Beuys, Joseph, xxviii n. 23, 99, 258, 409, 417, 480 “Beyond the Page” (exhibition), 273, 278 Biennale di Venezia, 74, 89–90, 92, 123, 130, 133–34, 346, 401–2 Big Table (magazine), 55, 57 Binnewater Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale, N.Y.), 356 Bio Energetics, 147 n. 18 Birringer, Johannes, 429 Bishop, Claire, xxviii n. 24 Blackburn, Julia, 300 Blackburn, Paul, 118, 348 n. 223, 365 Black Mass, 53, 58, 63 Black Panther Party, 171 n. 64 Blake, William, 125, 193 Blanchot, Maurice, liii Blank, Carla, xvii Bleecker St. Cinema, 230 Block, René, 273 Blucher, Heinrich, 64 Blumenfeld, Erica, 435 “Body as Object and Instrument, The” (Alloway), 228 Body Collage (Schneemann), xvii, xviii, 128–29 “Body Sculpture,” 117 Bold, Alf, 430 n. 162 Bonnie and Clyde (film), xvii “Bonsoir Dr. Schon!” (Rosenthal), 329 Boone, Mary, 367, 368 Borofsky, Jonathan, 356 Botticelli, Sandro, 125, 379, 380 Bottle Music (Schneemann), 469 “Boudoir-In-Exile” (exhibition), 436, 437 Boulanger, Lili, 338 Boulanger, Nadia, 338 Bourgeois, Caroline, 440 Bourgeois, Louise, 385 Bourriaud, Nicolas, xviii n. 24 Bouvet, Joachim, 173 n. 70

493

index

Burnett Miller Gallery (Los Angeles), 373 Burnham, Linda, 324 n. 147 Burr, Steve, 34–35 Burton, Ken, 180, 181 n. 86 Bush, George H. W., 406 “Bust-Up over Festival Nude” (Burton), 180, 181 n. 86

494

CAA (College Art Association), 403, 481 Café de Flore (Paris), 77, 145 Cage, John, lviii–lix, 54, 55–56, 57, 98, 125–27, 173 n. 70, 199, 204, 218, 225, 284, 323, 367, 415, 430 n. 162 Caged Gloves (Schneemann kinetic sculpture), 362 CalArts, 171, 176, 178, 179, 196, 206, 480, 482 Caldwell, John, 430 n. 162, 432 Caliban, 70, 93 Camden Arts Centre, 181 n. 86 Camden Festival, 180 Cameron, Dan, xl, 458 Campa, Lou, 138 n. 442 Campbell, Bek David, 470 n. 277 Camus, Albert, 77 n. 244, 305 Canadian Centre of the Arts, 411 n. 96 Cannes International Film Festival, 142, 143, 145–46, 153 CAP (Creative Artist Program), 207 Cardew, Cornelius, 175, 197, 204 Carl Ruggles’ Christmas Breakfast (Schneemann film), 482–83 Carlton House Terrace, 125 Carmichael, Joel, 137 n. 439 Carmichael, Stokely, 111 n. 354 Carnegie Hall, 91 Carnegie Institute, 206, 291 Carolee Schneemann (exhibition catalogue), xl n. 42 “Carolee Schneemann: The Body as Object and Instrument” (Alloway), 228 Carr, Cindy, 483–84 Carrillo, Bibbe Hansen, 470 Carroll, Paul, 79; correspondence of, 55–56, 57–58 Cartier, Jean-Albert, 65 n. 205 Cary, Joyce, 321 n. 138 Cassandra Foundation, 164 Cassatt, Mary, xliii Castañeda, Carlos, 169, 429 Castelli, Leo, 65, 75, 89, 130 Castillejo, José Luis, 388 n. 20

Castro, Fidel, 35, 48, 125 Caterpillar (magazine), 127, 145 n. 9, 146, 147, 178 Cats, xliv–xlv, xlvi; Bathsheba, 180; Charlie, 246–47 n. 270; Cluny I, xliv–xlv, xlvi, 334, 343, 355, 461; Cluny II, 357, 367, 376, 387, 389– 90, 392, 424, 461, 462, 462; Furrow, 417; Griggio, 437, 470; Isabelle, 368; Kitch, xxxi, xliv, lv, 7, 9, 29–31, 39–40, 43, 48, 49, 50, 63 n.199, 83, 90, 92, 97, 107–8, 108, 128, 131, 132, 134, 142, 145–46, 150 n. 23, 153, 155 n. 30, 156, 157, 167, 175, 180, 190, 202, 203, 205, 207, 218, 227, 229, 246 n. 270, 247, 249–50, 253, 255–56, 269, 270, 291, 293, 461, 479; Strawberry, 359; Treasure, 486; Vesper, 435, 437, 459, 462, 470–71; Wicca, 389 Cat Scan (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 393, 452 Cat’s Cradle (Brakhage), 28, 38, 95, 253, 266, 287, 303 Cavalcade (magazine), 93 Caws, Mary Ann, 443 CDL (Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation), 111–12, 118, 119–22, 124, 142, 161, 317–18, 361, 380, 415 Center for Constitutional Rights, 171 n. 63 Center for Inter-American Relations (Americas Society), xlviii Center for International American Relations, 140 Center for Symbolic Studies, 437 Center of Advanced Therapeutics, 465 Center of the Cyclone, The (Lilly), 211–12 Center Opera Company, 103 n. 342 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 213 n. 165 Central Park (New York), 118 Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), 440, 448, 449 Césaire, Aimé, 55 CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act), 308 Cézanne, Paul, xxvi, xli, 15–19, 23–24, 64, 318, 420, 425, 449 Cézanne, She Was A Great Painter (Schneemann artist book), xxvi, xxxi, 207, 223, 230–31, 234, 247, 249, 251, 253, 278, 279

College Art Association (CAA), 403, 481 Collins, Judy, 135, 210 n. 155 Columbia University, 13 Combarelles cave, 220 Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, 132 n. 426 Common Course (Blucher), 64 n. 201 Communist Party of Cuba, 35 n. 106 Composite Nature (Taaffe), 482 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), 308 Concord Sonata (Ives), 190 Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation (CDL), 111–12, 118, 119–22, 124, 142, 161, 317–18, 361, 380, 415 Conner, Bruce, 288–89, 326, 458 Conover, Roger, 474–75 Constable, John, 5 Constantine, Peter, 64 n. 201 “Contingent Life and a Radical New Figuration” (Stiles), 364 Conz, Francesco, 282, 307 n. 95, 308, 387–88, 390–91, 393, 401–2, 405, 406, 416 Conz Archives (Venice), 282 Cooke, Al, 50 Cooper, David, 111 n. 354 Cooper, R., 143 Cooperative Studio for Electronic Music, 98 n. 316 Coppola, Francis Ford, 395 Cordier, Robert, 207 Core Energetics, 147 n. 18 Cornell, Joseph, xlvi, 221, 272, 288, 443–44; correspondence of, lix, 5, 6, 30, 58, 62–63, 70–73, 93, 97, 102, 288, 344 Corner, Ina, 82 n. 274 Corner, Michael, 82 n. 274, 86 Corner, Philip, 86 n. 283, 95, 98, 107, 153, 191 n. 105, 282, 307–8, 368, 388, 416–17; correspondence of, 58–60 Corno Emplumado, El ( journal), 55 n. 155 Correspondence Course (Schneemann action for camera), xxxii–xxxiii, xxxiv–xxxvii, 453 Cortés, Ramiro, 388 n. 20 Cottingham, Laura, 458 Couperin, François, 30 n. 91 Cowell, Henry, 98, 101 Coxhead, David, 299

index

“Chair frais” (Harris), 332 Chamberlain, John, 89 Changes, Inc., 280–81 Chanute Air Force Base (Rantoul, Ill.), 34 n. 102 Charcot, Jean Martin, 21 Charred Beloved (Gorky), 22, 45–46 Chavannes, Pierre Puvis de, 366 n. 293 Checker, Chubby, 54 n. 152 Cheng, Meiling, 462 Chicago, Judy, xliii, 215 Chicago Art Institute, 204, 429 Chicago conspiracy, 171 Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, xvii, 127 Chiessi, Rosanna, 387 Childs, Lucinda, 200, 224, 399 n. 54; correspondence of, 239–40 Chin, Daryl, lviii, 222 n. 185, 225, 271, 343; correspondence of, 234–39, 242–45, 291–93 CHIPSA Medical Center (Mexico), 454, 456, 459, 474 Chomsky, Noam, 298–99 Chong, Ping, 362 Chou Wen-Chung, 30 n. 92 Christmas postcard, 180 Chromolodeon (Schneemann Kinetic Theater performance), 67–68, 85, 95, 242, 399–400 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 213 n. 165 Cinémathèque, 101–2 City Gallery (New York), 362 n. 271 Clark, Lydia, xxviii n. 23 Clark, Ramsey, 132 n. 426 Clarkson University (Potsdam, N.Y.), 464 Clash (rock group), 112 n. 358 “Clean Paintings” (Hompson), 421 Clever, Diane, 434 Club, The (New York), 4–5 Coagula Art Journal, 383 Codrescu, Andrei, 401 Cohen, Leonard, 135 Cohn, Ruby, 178 Coils (Eshleman), 199 Colette, Sidonie-Gabrielle, 209 n. 151 Collage #1 (Blue Suede) (Tenney), 82 n. 271 Collage series London (Schneemann), 158 Collective for Living Cinema, 221

495

Crawford (Seeger), Ruth, 461 Creative Artist Program (CAP), 207 Creeley, Robert, 376 Cuadrado, Javier Martínez, 388 n. 20 Cuban Missile Crisis, 3, 63 Cubism, 17, 422 Cuevas, Marquise de, 156 n. 31 Cummings, E. E., 11 Cunningham, Merce, 200 n. 128, 242, 281, 399–400 Cunningham Group, 281 Cutler, Sam, 165 “Cycladic Collage” (Key Gallery), 411 Cycladic Imprints (Schneemann installation and performance), 391, 393, 406, 407, 411, 438, 460, 489

index

DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst), 436 Daily News, 131, 134 “Daily Paradise” (Schneemann poem), 265–66 Dance by 5, xvii Dance Scope (magazine), 230 Daniels, Mark, 467–68 Dasgupta, Gautam, xxii Davidson, Carol Fazzio (Wikarska), 229–30, 246–47, 271–72 Davies, Hugh, 175 Davis, Peter, 122–23 Davis, R. G. “Ronny,” 364 Davis, Rennie, 171 n. 63 Day, Benjamin, 446, 456 Daybreak (Brakhage), 28 n. 85, 95, 287 Deane, Hamilton, 50 n. 133 De Bellis, Robert H., 150, 157 De-coll/age ( journal), 74 Defense Intelligence Agency, 213 n. 165 De Kooning, Elaine, 366 De Kooning, Willem, 5, 9, 52, 366 n. 292, 384, 425, 451 Delacroix, Eugène, 370 Dellinger, David, 171 n. 63 De Man, Paul, lx–lxii De Memoria (Aristotle), 285 Democratic National Convention (1968), 171 n. 63 Demoiselles d’Avignon, Les (Picasso), 24 Dennison Hall, 75 n. 239 De Noblet, Jocelyn, 87–88, 101, 360 Deren, Maya, 221, 252, 338, 411 Derrida, Jacques, lii–liii, 366 Desistfilm (Brakhage), 287

496

Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), 109, 121, 190 n. 101, 316–18, 361, 415 Deus Ex (Brakhage), 184 Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), 436 Deux Magots (Paris), 77 Dewey, Ken, 82 n. 272, 124, 218 DIAS (Destruction in Art Symposium), 109, 121, 190 n. 101, 316–18, 361, 415 Dijkstra, Bram, 418 Di Maggio, Gino, 387, 388, 391, 393, 402, 416 Dine, Jim, 367, 395 Diogenes Laertius, 285 Dionysus, 390 Dirksen, Everett McKinley, 132 Dirty Pictures (Schneemann performance), 321–22, 375, 421 Disney, Roy, 171 n. 65 Disney, Walt, 171 n. 65 Distel, Herbert, xxxi–xxxii Dixon, Sally Foy, 206 n. 136 Dixon-Gottschild, Brenda, 127–28, 130 “Documenta 9” (exhibition), 409 Documentext, 313 Doolittle, Hilda, 338 Doors (rock group), 112 n. 358 “Double Blind,” 378 Double Portrait of Stan (Schneemann painting), 335 n. 174, 337 Downey, Juan, 430 n. 162 Dracula, the Vampire Play in Three Acts (Deane), 50 “Dream/Space/Object,” 372 Drewes, Caroline, 295–97 Drury, Joan M., xxix–xxxi DuBois-Deyo House, xxxii n. 31 Ducasse, Isidore, 356 n. 246 Duchamp, Marcel, 65 Duchy of Styria, 384 Dugger, John, 180 Dumas, Alexandre, 24 n. 79 Dumb Ox ( journal), xxxii n. 32, xxxiv– xxxvii, 278 Dump (Schneemann painting), 24 Dunaway, Faye, xvii Duncan, Isadora, 209 n. 151 Duncan, John, 324–25 Duprey, Jean-Pierre, 55 Dwoskin, Stephen, 244 Dylan, Bob, 143, 485 Eagle Square Mill (Schneemann painting), 9 n. 18

Etter, Thomas, 50 Everson Museum (Syracuse, N.Y.), 383 n. 1 EVO (East Village Other), 105, 112, 133 n. 428, 140 Expansions (Schneemann performance), 469 Explicit Body, The (Schneider), 450 Exploratorium (San Francisco), 408 Export, Valie, xxviii n. 23, 295, 297, 398, 416, 453 Exquisite Corpse ( journal), 401 Eye Body (Schneemann action for camera and photographic series), xxxix n. 40, 73 n. 232, 79, 93–95, 346, 361, 367, 390, 404, 414–15, 419, 424–25, 443, 453, 478, 481–82 Eyes (Brakhage), 184

Fahlström, Oyvind, 307 “Fairies I Have Known” (Velvet Underground), 101 Faludi, Susan, xlvii Fascism, 113, 212, 278, 286, 293, 330 “Fashion Show Poetry Event,” xlviii, xlix, 140 Fatimeh, 426 Feldman, Morton, 54 “Féminin-Masculin” (exhibition), 446, 449 Feminist Art Institute (New York), 344 n. 216 Fenz, Werner, 384 Ferguson, Russell, 457 n. 241 Ferrari, Luc, 207 Ferró (Guðmundsson, Guðmundur), 73, 77, 85, 88, 89, 92, 101, 102, 360, 362, 398, 478 Festival of Avignon, 151 n. 27, 153, 155 n. 30 Festival of Free Expression, 73–76, 93, 360–62 Fictions in Autobiography (Eakin), lx Fifth Estate (magazine), 133 n. 428 Filliou, Marianne, 78 n. 250 Filliou, Robert, xxviii n. 23, 78 Film Coop, 190 Film Culture (magazine), 227 n. 216 Film Forum, 325 Film No. 4 (Bottoms) (Ono), 120 Film/Video conference, 398, 399 “Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Avant-Garde, The” (Hughes), 143

index

Eakin, Paul John, lx Ear (magazine), 484 n. 322 East Main Street Gallery (Richmond), 344 n. 216 East Village Other (newspaper), 105, 112, 133 n. 428, 140 Echaurren, Roberto Matta, 165 n. 45 Edelheit, Martha Nillson “Martie,” 205 Edelson, Mary Beth, 296, 330, 386–87, 404 Eden Theatre, 161 n. 37 Edge Biennale (Frenais), 395 n. 42 “Edge 88” (exhibition and festival), 393, 395 Edwards, Samuel Pitts, 55 Edwards House (Schneemann painting), 9 n. 18 Ehrenberg, Felipe, 147 n. 16, 186, 188, 192 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 34 n. 103 Electra, 232 Elga Wimmer PCC Gallery (New York), 452, 456 Eliade, Mircea, 111 n. 354 Elston, Gale, 465 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 190 n. 103 Emily Harvey Gallery (New York), 469 Emin, Tracy, 483–84 “En attendant le happening” (newspaper article), 84 Endgame (Beckett), 103 Eng­lish, Oliver Spurgeon, 378 n. 332 Enter . . . Vulva (Schneemann performance), 434, 436, 437 Epstein, Barbara Zimmerman, 410 Ernst, Max, 165 n. 45 Erró (Guðmundsson, Guðmundur), 73, 77, 85, 88, 89, 92, 101, 102, 360, 362, 398, 478 Esalen Institute, 210, 211, 212 Escobar, Marisol, 233 Eshleman, Caryl Breslaw, 148, 162–63, 178–79, 199, 213, 240–41, 372 Eshleman, Clayton: correspondence of, xiii, xli, 145–49, 150–52, 158–65, 176–79, 181–82, 185–89, 191–94, 207–8, 213–15, 220, 230–34, 240– 41, 256–68, 270, 281–82, 372–73, 473–74; friendship and collaboration with, xiii, xxv, xxxviii, 142, 146, 154, 174, 199, 247, 269, 373 n. 323 Espresso, L’ (newspaper), 83 n. 279, 84, 89 Esquire (magazine), 143

497

index 498

Financial Times (newspaper), 83 n. 279 Fineberg, Michael, 207 Finley, Karen, 422, 483–84 Firehouse Theater (Minneapolis), 103–4 First, Elsa, 36–37, 45 Fisher, Margaret, 142 n. 2, 215–20 Fitzgerald, Zelda, 209 n. 151 Fitzgibbon, Colleen, 249–51, 432 Five Easy Pieces (film), 179 500 Capp Street (Ireland), 405 n. 78 Flag Constructions (Morrel), 132 n. 425 Flash Art (magazine), 446 n. 213 Flaubert, Gustave, xxx–xxxi, 19 Fleiss, Marcel, 398–99 Flesh of Morning (Brakhage), 339 Flood, Richard, xl Flowers of Evil, The (Baudelaire), 10–11 Flux Events (Schneemann performance), 469 Flux-Shoe (Schneemann lecture and performance), 469 Fluxus, xii, xxii, xxviii, 85, 91, 168, 176, 330, 388, 402, 415–16, 429, 469 “Fluxus Deluxe” (exhibition), 411 “Fluxus Feminus” (O’Dell), 474 Fluxus Subjectiv (Schneemann performance), 469 Flying (Millett), 225, 226 Flym, John G. S., 248 Focillon, Henri, 420 Foew&ombwhnw (Higgins), 332 Fonda, Jane, 85 n. 281 Fondazione Mudima (Milan), 393, 401 n. 63 Foreman, John, 146 Foreman, Richard, 225 Forti, Simone, 222, 223, 224, 330, 344 Four Fur Cutting Boards (Schneemann kinetic sculpture), 440, 481 n. 311 “Four Simultaneous Lectures” (Cage), 56, 57 Frampton, Hollis, 289, 339–40 France Observateur, 83 n. 279, 84 France Soir, 83 n. 279 Francis, Sam, 354–55; correspondence of, xlvi Franklin Furnace (New York), 344 n. 215, 426 Frenais, Rob La, 395 n. 42 Fresh Blood—A Dream Morphology (Schneemann performance and video), 326, 327, 328, 330, 332, 333, 344, 355, 371–72

Freud, Sigmund, 19, 21, 164 n. 46, 232 n. 232, 366 n. 294, 410, 449 Friedman, Martin, 103–4, 424 n. 148 Friends ( journal), 179, 181 Froines, John, 171 n. 63 Frueh, Joanna, 403 Fugs (rock group), 364 Fuller, Margaret, 209 n. 151 Fuller, R. Buckminster, 125, 127, 210 n. 155 Fur Landscapes (Schneemann painted assemblage), 425 Fur Wheel (Schneemann kinetic sculpture), 348, 441 Fuses (Schneemann film), xliv, lviii, 95, 107, 120, 127–30, 138, 142, 145, 147, 151, 152, 153, 155 n. 30, 167, 185 n. 96, 190, 205, 225, 229, 252, 256, 276, 276–78, 286–90, 310, 317, 324– 25, 326 n. 46, 336, 339, 343, 370, 396, 397, 400 n. 60, 414–15, 419, 425–26, 435, 439, 441, 450–51, 479 “Future Bodies / Unfinished Narratives” (panel), 458

Gablik, Suzi, 233 Gaburo, Kenneth, 196 Gadon, Elinor, 387 n. 15 Galerie Bernheim-Jeune (Paris), xxvi Galerie Daniel Buchholz (Cologne), 422 Galerie Hundertmark, (Cologne), 422 n. 141 Galerie Ileana Sonnabend (Paris), 79, 81 Galerie Inge Baeker (Cologne), 307 n. 94 Galerie Julius Hummel (Vienna), 440 n. 201 Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna), 440, 452, 469 Galerie LeLong (New York), xliii n. 50 Gallagher, Lisa Cheng, 443–44 Gandhi, Mahatma, 111 n. 351 Garb, Tamar, lii, lxii n. 95 Garland, Peter, 347 Garrison, Earling Carothers, 124 Gaudi, Antonio, 21 Geller, Uri, 212 Gerassi, John, 111 n. 354 Geritz, Kathy, 441 German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst; DAAD), 436 Gershwin, George, 74 n. 235

Ferró), 73, 77, 85, 88, 89, 92, 101, 102, 360, 362, 398, 478 Guernsey, Otis C., 73 Guevara, Ernesto “Che,” 183 Guggenheim Fellowship, 308, 417, 433, 475 Guggenheim Foundation, 475 n. 293, 489 Guggenheim Museum (New York), 413, 434 Guinness, Alec, 321 n. 138 Gulf War (1990–91), 406 Guston, Philip, 52, 384 Gutman, Walter, 222, 403

HAA (Highland Art Agents), 342 Hafif, Marcia, 404 Hagen, Budi, 135 Hair, 399 Haley, Jay, 378 n. 336 Hall, David D., 485 Hall, Doug, 408 Haller, Robert A., 286–91, 303–4 “Hall of Mirrors” (exhibition), 450, 451, 457, 458 Halperin, David M., 418 Hamann, Volker, 471–72 Hammond, Jane, 452 Hammond, Paul, 395 Hanayagi, Suzushi, xvii Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, 54 n. 152 Hansa Gallery (New York), 65 n. 212 Hansen, Al, 95, 448, 470 n. 277–78, 472 Hansen, Sten, 205 n. 135 “Happenings & Fluxus” (exhibition), 168, 176, 416 Harlech, Lord (Ormsby-Gore, David), 164 “Harmony in Red” (Gowing), 371 Harris, Marilyn, 332 Harrison, George, 210 n. 155 Hartigan, Grace George, 9 Harvey, Emily, 388, 393, 469 Haskell, Barbara, 348 Hassan, Ihab Habib, 365 Hate mail letter, 181 Hatt, Fred, 437–38 Havemayer Estate (New Jersey), 109 n. 348, 270, 425 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 190 n. 103 Hay, Deborah “Debbie,” 71 Hayden, Tom, 171 n. 63 Hayes, Ethel, 14, 36 Hayes, Marvin, 11, 36, 183

index

Gerson Institute, 454, 456, 459, 474 Gerson, Max, 474 Getty Research Institute, xiv Ghost Rev (Schneemann performance and film), 425, 451 Gibson, Craig, 122 Gidal, Peter, 190, 244 Gile, Hank, 387 n. 15 Gillespie, Dizzy, 74 n. 235 Gilligan, Carol, xliv Ginsberg, Allan, 111, 119, 125, 131, 137 Ginsberg, Merle, xlvii, 322 n. 139 Giorgione, xlvi Giovanni Paolo II, 400 Glass, Philip, 232 Glass Environment for Sound and Motion (Schneemann performance environment), 60, 95, 416 Godard, Jean-Luc, 125 Goffman, Erving, 111 n. 354, 365 Goldberg, RoseLee, 462–63 Goldmann, Lucien, 111 n. 354 Goldstein, Malcolm, 98, 191 n. 105, 269, 308, 311, 352–54, 391–93, 406, 411 n. 92, 428, 438, 442–43 Goodman, Paul, 111 n. 354, 119, 318 Gordon, David, 60 n. 189 Gordon, Douglas, 457 Gordon, Jaimy, 274, 295 Gorky, Arshile, 22, 45–46 Gottlieb Foundation, 384–85, 475, 489 Gould, Stephen Jay, 410 Gowing, Lawrence, xlvi, 350–52, 363, 369–71, 375 Goya, Francisco de, 350, 352 Grace, Sharon, 408 Graces, 58, 379 Grady, Panna, 318 Graham, Martha, 330 Grand Central Station, 243, 364 Graves, Robert, 19 Great Bear Pamphlets, 102 n. 333 Great Book of Tantra, The (Sinha), 437 Green, Hanna, 378 Greenberg, Joanne, 378 n. 334 Green Gallery (New York), 54, 65 n. 212 Griffes, Charles Tomlinson, 30 Griffin, Susan, 418 Groddeck, Georg, 164 n. 46 Grooms, Red, 346, 367 Grove Press, 73, 130 Guardian (newspaper), 111 Guðmundsson, Guðmundur (Erró;

499

index 500

Haynes, Deborah, 333–34 Haynes, John, 123 Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, Calif.), 408 Hebb, Bobby, 117 Heidegger, Martin, 173 n. 70 Hellion, Martha, 192 Hemingway, Ernest, 25, 376 Hendricks, Geoff, 218, 388, 415, 417; correspondence of, 307–8, 448 Hendricks, Jon, 218, 282, 416–17; correspondence of, 469 Hendrix, Jimi, 112 n. 358 Henri Gallery (Washington), 367 n. 301 Henry, Jules, 111 n. 354 Herbert, Victor, 143, 145, 151 n. 26, 207; correspondence of, 210–13 Heresies ( journal), 295–96, 299, 301 Herodotus, 285 Hero Is Nothing, The (Phillips), 354 n. 236 Hesse, Eva, xliii Hidalgo, Juan, 388 n. 20 Higgins, Dick, xiii, xxviii n. 23, 99, 101, 102 n. 333, 125, 147 n. 16, 193, 230–32, 269, 365, 416, 417, 479; correspondence of, xiii, xxxiii, 326–33 Higgins, Hannah, 479 Highland Art Agents (HAA), 342 High Performance (magazine), 324 n. 137, 329 “High Priest” (Leary), 168 Hiller, Lejaren, 430 n. 162 Hiller, Susan, 295–302 Hiroshige, Ando, 261 n. 291 Hirshorn, Anne Sue, 273 Hitler, Adolf, 39 Ho Chi Minh, 114 n. 366 Hoet, Jan, 409 n. 87 Hoffman, Abbie, 171 n. 63 Hoffman, Julius, 171 n. 63 Hoffmann, Heike Lukrafka, 470 Hofmann, Hans, 338 Hokusai, Katsushika, 261 n. 291 Holloway (Tenney), Ann, 256, 372; correspondence of, 239 Holtzer, Jenny, 476 Homer, 125 Homerunmuse (Schneemann performance and environment), 296, 297, 304–5, 309, 349 Homo meter (Export), 297 n. 77 Hompson, Davi Det, 421–22

Hooven, Coille, 51–54 Hooven, Peter, 51–54 Horn, Rebecca, 434 Hornick, Neil, 122 Horovitz, Israel, 365 Horse’s Mouth, The (film), 321 n. 138 “Hors Limites” (exhibition), 440 Hosmer, Harriet, xliii Hotchkis, Joan, 357 Hotel La Louisiane (Paris), 90, 398 Houck, Jack, 213 n. 165 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), 66 Houston, Samuel, 75 n. 237 HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), 66 Huang, Wen-shan, 210 Hughes, Robert, 143 Hummel, Julius, 440 Hundertmark, Armin, 422 Hutchins, Claudia, 208 Hutchinson, Max, 356, 410; gallery of, 337, 342, 344, 345 Hutchins-Puéchavy, Claudia “Holly,” 208 Hysterical (Gordon), 457 n. 244

Iannone, Dorothy, 309 ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts, London), 122 n. 385, 125, 130, 137, 138, 161 Ices Festival Train, 355 n. 237 Ices Strip Train Skating (Schneemann performance and print series), 354– 55, 390, 393 Ichazo, Oscar, 212 n. 162 I Ching, or Book of Changes, 173 Idols of Perversity (Dijkstra), 418 IIBA (International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis), 168 n. 59 Illinois Central (Schneemann Kinetic Theatre), xviii, 114, 116, 127, 128–29, 130, 266, 425 Imaging Her Erotics (Schneemann), 411 n. 99, 434 n. 176, 474 n. 292 “In a Man’s World, Is a Subterranean Feminine Soul the Indomitable Muse?” (Johnson), 487 Independent: Film and Video Monthly, 397 Infinity Kisses (Schneemann action for camera and photographic series), xlv, 389, 424, 460–61 Ingraham, Susan, 427 Ingram, Alexis, 223

Jackson, Don, 378 n. 336 Jackson, Martha, 65–66, 82 n. 272 Jacobs, Ken, 339 Jacobs, Leo, 177 Jagger, Mick, 318 n. 130 JAM (Just Above Midtown), 343–44 James, David, 450 Janet, Pierre, 21 n. 60 Jarman, Derek, 430 n. 162, 436 Jimson, Gulley, 321 Joannides, Christos, 95 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur

Foundation Fellows Program, 489 n. 338 John Paul II (pope), 400 n. 59 Johns, Jasper, 46 Johns Hopkins University Press, xxii, 434 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 308, 417, 433, 475 Johnson, Ken, 487 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 117 Johnson, Ray, 313, 314 Johnston, Jill, 200 n. 128, 404 John Weber Gallery (New York), 52 n. 140 Jonas, Joan, 232, 330, 398 Jones, Amelia, 450; correspondence of, 418–21, 457–58 Jones, Joe, 388, 430 n. 162 Joplin, Scott, 172 Jordan, Larry, 288–89 Joris, Pierre, 482 Joselit, David, 458 Joseph Cornell’s Theater of the Mind (Caws), 58 n. 183, 71 nn. 225–26 Jouffroy, Alain, 55 Journal of a Young Artist, The (Bashkirtseff ), 20 Joyce, James, 24, 59 n. 188, 121 Judson Dance Theater, 3, 60, 96 n. 305, 112, 399, 403 Judson Memorial Church (New York), xvii, 66, 94, 97, 100, 122, 216, 343, 414–16, 467 Jull, Marilyn, 284 n. 41, 466 n. 266 Jung, Carl Gustav, 21 n. 60, 437 Just Above Midtown (JAM), 343–44

Kafka, Franz, 24, 467 Kaprow, Allan, xxviii n. 23, xxxii n. 32, 53, 73, 75, 94, 100, 103, 119, 206, 231–32, 238, 273 n. 16, 313, 323, 348, 415; correspondence of, 66, 205, 215, 324 Karp, Ivan, 52 Kauffman, Linda S., 459–61 Kearns, Jerry, 278 Keating, Kenneth B., 66 Keller, Marjorie “Margie,” 231, 430 n. 162, 432, 479 Kelly, Helen “Button,” 191 n. 108, 199, 240, 259 Kelly, Mary, xliii Kelly, Robert, xxv, xxvii, 191, 199, 240, 482 Kelman, Ken, 336 n. 179

index

INK ( journal), 183–84 Inside the White Cube (O’Doherty), 405 n. 77 Institute for Contemporary Art / PS 1 Museum (New York), 436 n. 185 Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), 122 n. 385, 125, 130, 137, 138, 161 Institute of the Arts (Valencia, Calif.), 480 Instructions Per Second (Schneemann and Rogala video installation), 417 Interior Scroll (Schneemann performance), liv, lvii–lix, 273, 286, 420, 441, 459 Intermedia, xiii Intermedia Festival, xviii, 130 Internationaal Cultureel Centrum, 344 n. 216 International Congress of Psychoanalysis, 344 n. 216 International Herald Tribune (newspaper), 168 International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis (IIBA), 168 n. 59 International Times (newspaper), 112, 133 n. 428 “In the Know” (Vogue column), xviii Ireland, David, 405, 408, 423–24, 427–28 Ireland, Patrick, 405, 408, 438 Irigaray, Luce, lxiii “Iron City Flux” (exhibition) 411 n. 91 Isis Festival, 190 n. 101 Isis Skating (Schneemann print series), 469 Isocrates, 285 Italian Cultural Institute, 319 “I Threw It All Away” (Dylan), 143 Ives, Charles, 98, 172, 190 n. 103, 191 n. 105, 353, 461 “I Will Survive” (Summers), 485

501

index 502

Kennedy, John F., 56 n. 174, 63 n. 199, 124 nn. 397–98 Kerouac, Jack, 24 Kesey, Ken, 168 Key Gallery (Richmond), 411, 422 Kienholz, Edward, 345 Kiesler, Frederic, 101 Kinetic Theater, xxx n. 27, 3, 105, 112, 142, 161, 218, 425 King, Coretta Scott, 114 n. 366 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 114 n. 366 Kingsley Hall (London), 111, 120 Kirby, Michael, 222, 234 Kitaj, Ronald B., 178, 193 Kitch’s Last Meal (Schneemann film), xliv, lviii, 205, 206, 207, 227, 229, 239, 249, 253, 256, 258, 281, 290–91, 321, 326, 370, 460 Klee, Paul, 385 Klein-Moquay, Rotraut Uecker, 78–79, 88, 133 Klein, Yves, 78 Kline, Franz, 52 Klocker, Hubert, 436, 440, 445, 448, 452–53, 481–82 Klüver, Johan Wilhelm “Billy,” 101 n. 331 “Knots” (Anderson), 484 n. 323 Knots (Laing), 484–85 Knowles, Alison, xxviii n. 23, 178, 190, 232, 282, 284, 308, 330, 332, 344, 388, 415, 416, 417; correspondence of, 466 Known/Unknown: Plague Column (Schneemann installation with video), 456, 465, 474, 490 Kogelnick, Kiki, 224 Kohler, Lotte, 64 n. 201 Kohut, Joel, 172 Köllerström, Bridget, 293–95 Köllerström, Oscar, 142, 164, 167, 208, 293 n. 63, 294, 355 n. 238, 367, 424 Kölnisches Stadtmuseum (Cologne.), 470 Köln Museum (Cologne), 416 König, Kasper, 223 Korot, Beryl, 242 Kostelanetz, Richard, 119 Kowalski, Ludwig Peter, 83 Krasner, Lee, 366, 384, 475, 490 Krasner Pollock Foundation, 475 n. 293 Krauss, Rosalind, 343; correspondence of, 449

Kréa, Henri, 55 Kren, Kurt, xix Kriesche, Richard, 384 Krinzinger, Ursula, 440, 452, 453 Kristallnacht, 467 Kriwet, Ferdinand, 99 Krull, Craig, 457 Kubelka, Peter, 336 n. 179 Kubitza, Anette, 469 Kubota, Shigeko, 114 n. 367, 244 n. 265, 414–15; correspondence of, 457 Kubrick, Stanley, 130 Kuhn, David, 146 Kuhn, Wendy, 146 Kulas, Elizabeth, 278–79 Kultermann, Udo, 319, 343–44 Kunstler, William, 171 n. 63 Kunstraum (Vienna), 445, 453 Kunz, Martin, 448 Kusama, Yayoi, 143, 361 Kuspit, Donald, 385 Kustow, Michael, 122, 137–38, 153, 323; correspondence of, 124–31

Labyrinths (Berger), 399 Lacan, Jacques, 483 Lacy, Suzanne, 309 n. 107, 310, 357 Lady Asleep (Schneemann etching), 4 Laing, Ronald D., 111 nn. 351–52, 111 n. 354, 317, 378, 380, 381, 484–85 Landis, John, 395 Landow, George, 340 “Landscape as Metaphor” (exhibition), 424 Lane, Mark, 56 Langer, Elinor, 225 Lao Tzu, 210 n. 154 Laqueur, Thomas, 410 Lascaux, or the Birth of Art (Bataille), xlv Lateral Splay (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 95, 98, 416 Latham, John, xxviii n. 23 Laurence, Margaret, lx Lauterbach, Ann, 198–200 “Laying of the Table” (Gowing), 371 Leary, Timothy, 168 Lebel, Jean-Jacques, xxviii n. 23, 55, 61 n. 191, 73 n. 231, 75 n. 239, 76 n. 240, 93, 361 n. 264; correspondence of, xiv n. 8, xv, 60–62, 65–66, 73–76, 93–94, 99–102, 400 Lee, Pamela, 208–10 Lehmann, Barbara, 430

Lovemaking (Brakhage), 286, 288–89, 339 Loving (Brakhage), 18–19, 95, 286–87, 289–90, 303, 339 Lowder, Rose, 480 n. 303 Lowen, Alexander, 168, 173, 325, 429 Lucier, Alvin, 368 Lucier, Mary, 432 Ludwig, Jack Barry, xliv n. 54, liv n. 71, 5–7 Ludwig, John, 103 Ludwig Collection, 481 Lurie, Jennifer “Jimpy,” 50 Lusitania ( journal), 434 Lyons, Mari, 2 Lyotard, Jean-François, 365 Lytle, Richard, 46

Maas, Willard, 221 MacArthur Fellows Program, 382, 489 Macdonald, Dwight, 137 n. 439 MacDonald, Scott, 326, 343, 450, 479–80 Mâche, François Bernard, 82, 88, 207 Maciunas, George, 224 n. 203, 244, 307, 415 MacLaine, Shirley, 85 n. 281 Mac Low, Jackson, 269, 279–80 Madame Cézanne (Cézanne), 23 n. 66 Magritte, René, 125, 233 n. 237, 467 Mahler, Leopoldo, 191 Mailer, Norman, 338 Making Sex (Laqueur), 410 Malina, Judith, 56 nn. 171–72, 57 Mandel, Ernest, 111 n. 354 Manet, Édouard, 413 n. 104 Manipulations (exhibition), 122 n. 389 Manupelli, George, 82 n. 272 Mapp, Thomas “Tom,” 340 Marchetti, Walter, 388 n. 20 Marco, Tomas, 388 n. 20 Marcuse, Herbert, 111 n. 354, 119 Marisol, 233 Marranca, Bonnie, xxii; correspondence of, 429 Martha Jackson Gallery (New York), 52 n. 140, 65–66 Martinez, Rudy, 116 n. 373 Martinique Theater (New York), 114, 115 Mary Boone Gallery (New York), 367 n. 303, 368 Marzorati, Gerald, 323 Masculin féminin (Godard), 449 n. 224

index

Lehmann, Minnette, 430, 432 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 173 n. 70 Lennon, John, 161 n. 37 Lennox, Lillian, 434 Leo Castelli Gallery (New York), 65 n. 210 Leone, Vivien, 272 Leopolder, Ferdinand, 421–22 Lerner, Eve Bailey, 17, 64 Leslie, Alfred, 46 Lester, Doris, 111 n. 351 Lester, Muriel, 111 n. 351 “Lethal Environments,” 95 “Let It Be” (Beatles), 160 Levinson, Naomi, xli, 8–9, 12–14, 15–17, 20–23, 24–30, 41–43, 45–46 Levy, Julien, 165 n. 45 Leyster, Judith, 366 Libin, Paul, 114 Lieberman, William, 165 n. 45 Life in Forms of Art, The (Focillon), 420 n. 130 Lifetime Achievement Award for Women in Art/Art History, 481 Lifton, John, 176, 435 Lilith (female demon), 12 Lilly, John, 211–12 Lincoln Center (New York), 119, 130 Lind, Jacov (Jacob), 111 n. 354, 119 Lindsay, John V., 113 Lipchitz, Jacques, 46 Lippard, Lucy, 273 n. 16, 296 Lipton, Seymour, 4 Lipzín, Janice Crystal, 359 Liszt, Franz, 62 n. 196 Living Theatre, 55–56, 60, 95, 112 n. 358, 143, 145 n. 12, 191, 244, 398, 416 Lockwood, Anna, 190 Lödro, Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi, 441 n. 206 London Film Coop, lv London Underground, 126, 180 Look (magazine), xvii, xviii Loony-Bin Trip, The (Millett), 403 Loose-leaf/Looseleaf (Schneemann performance), 95, 98, 469 Lorber, Richard, 222–23 Los Angeles Free Press, 128–29, 133 n. 428 Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, 478 Louise and Walter Arensberg Archives, 24

503

index 504

“Mass Media and the Future of Desire, The” (Youngblood), 305 Masson, Andre, 233 “Masterpiece Theatre,” 159 n. 34 Matisse (Gowing), 371 Matta (Roberto Matta Echaurren), 165 n. 45 Matta-Clark, Gordon, 307 Matusow, Harvey, 190 Maxfield, Richard, 55, 98 Max Hutchinson Gallery (New York), 337, 342, 344, 345 Max’s Kansas City (New York), 163 McBean Gallery (San Francisco), 411 McCall, Anthony, 180, 185, 186–89, 196, 199, 200, 213, 232, 237, 240, 246, 250, 256, 271, 273, 275 n. 23, 293, 367; Barrett’s marriage to, 368 n. 308; correspondence of, 368–69; Schneemann’s divorce from, 269; Schneemann’s marriage to, xliii, 142, 181–82, 202, 209, 229, 234, 276, 366; works and collaborations of, lviii, 198, 203, 205, 228, 246, 258, 272 McCarthy, Paul, xxxii n. 32, 324 n. 147 McCartney, Paul, 126 McClure, Michael, 58, 92, 322, 360–61 McCoy, Ann, 420, 421 McCullough, Dave, 120 n. 380 McDarrah, Fred, 315 McElroy, Neil H., 34 McEvilley, Thomas “Tom,” xlv n. 56, 309, 347–48, 389–90 McPherson, Bruce, 269, 270, 274–76, 282, 308, 309, 311, 312, 319, 320, 321, 322, 346, 358, 359, 362–63, 367, 368, 394, 396, 435, 458, 487 McPherson and Company, 283 n. 38 McReynolds, David, 57, 57 n. 176 Meat Joy (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), xviii, l, 3, 73–74, 77, 81–85, 87, 93–95, 102, 103, 106, 108, 151, 161, 238, 244, 318 n. 127, 344, 360–61, 399, 404, 415, 419, 460 Meat Science Essays (McClure), 360–61 Meat Systems (Schneemann and Lifton slide projection), 176 n. 77 Medalla, David, 180 Medici family, 24 Mekas, Jonas, 120 n. 380, 288, 336 n. 179, 339, 342, 395; correspondence of, 227–29 Mellis, Mona, 34–35, 43–44

Mellon Institute, 411 Melton, Hollis, 230, 342 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 372 n. 318 Men and Mountains (Ruggles), 30 n. 89 Men Cooperate, The (Schneemann print) 269 Mendieta, Ana, 359, 372–73, 426 Menken, Marie, 221, 252, 338 Mercury (Roman god), 58 Meredith, James, 132 n. 425 META (+) HODO (Tenney), 176 Metaphysics (Aristotle), 285 Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), 5, 23, 50 Metzger, Gustav, 317, 415 Miarnau, Rafael Lopez, 114 n. 369 Michaelson, Jean, 122 Michaux, Henri, 207 Michelangelo, 374 Michelson, Annette, lviii–lix, 223, 225, 271, 343, 366–67 Midstream (magazine), 137 n. 439 Migdoll, Herbert, 270 Miller, Burnett, 373 Miller, Larry, 280 Millett, Kate, 225, 415; correspondence of, 226–27, 403–4 Mills College, 357 Minujin, Marta, 102, 191 Mitchell, Adrian, 125 Mitchell, Joan, 9, 338, 384, 400 Mitchell, Tyrone, 114 n. 367 Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, 138 n. 442 MIT Press, 434 “Modern Machines” (exhibition), 356 Modersohn-Becker, Paula, 237 Modersohn, Otto, 349 Molholm, Sarah, 234 Molholm, Tom, 131 MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York), 22 n. 64, 46 n. 118, 50 n. 132, 130, 136 n. 438, 217, 316, 406, 407, 424, 435, 451 Mondersohn, Otto, 349 n. 230 Monet, Claude, 16, 22 n. 64, 45, 426 Monk, Meredith, xvii, 229, 434 Montano, Linda, 475, 476 Montréal World Film Festival, 284 n. 42 Moon In A Tree (Schneemann performance), liv, lix, 344 Moore, Peter, 315, 430 n. 162

Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), 406, 424 Music Box Music (Schneemann sculpture), 469 Musicworks ( journal), 428 Muste, Abraham Johannes, 113 Myers, Richard, xix Mysterians, 116 n. 373

Naked Action Lecture (Schneemann performance), 161 “Naked: Toward a Visual Culture” (symposium), 358 Namuth, Hans, 343 Naropa Institute (Boulder), 320, 358 Nash House (London), 126 Nash, John, 126 Naslednikov, Mitsou, 143 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), 359, 438, 489 National Geographic, 113 n. 365 National Theatre (London), 323 Nation, 323 Naturist Society, 310 n. 109 NEA (National Endowment for the Arts), 359, 438, 489 Nechvatal, Joseph, 470 Neel, Alice, xliii Nelson, Gunvor, 252 Nelson, Robert, 276 Neshat, Shirin, 426 Neubert, Sigfried, 438 Neuhaus, Max, 98, 204 Nevelson, Louise, 46 Neville, Phoebe, 114 n. 367 Newark Riot (1967), 134 New Cinema Festival—Cinematheque, 451 Newman, Dorothy, 349 n. 232 New Milton Drama Center, 60 n. 189 New Museum (New York), xl New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), 316, 452, 458–59, 464, 467 n. 274, 470, 473, 475 New School for Social Research, 192 Newspaper Event (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 95, 98 Newton, Huey P., 171 n. 64 New Wilderness Letter ( journal), 327 New York Botanical Gardens, 171 n. 64 New York Feminist Art Institute, 344 n. 216 New York Filmmakers Cooperative, 221–22, 227 n. 216

index

Moorman, Charlotte, 99, 100 n. 23, 113, 143, 150 n. 23, 218, 335 n. 177, 343 n. 210, 344, 368, 398, 413, 414– 15, 416, 430 n. 162; correspondence of, 311, 323–24 Moquay, Daniel, 78 n. 254 More Than Meat Joy (Schneemann), lviii–lix, 269, 270, 282–84, 294, 301, 305, 310–13, 315–16, 319–20, 349, 380 n. 339, 404, 416, 419, 423, 434, 451, 458, 463 Moreton, Melissa, 431, 433, 486–87 Morgan, Robert, 356 n. 246; correspondence of, 473 Morisot, Berthe, 237 Morra, Giuseppe, 309 Morrel, Mark, 132 n. 425 Morris, Robert, xxviii n. 23, 223, 343, 364 n. 275, 367, 399, 413, 418–19, 421 Morrow, Charles “Charlie,” 280 Mortal Coils (Schneemann installation), 269, 430, 431, 433, 436–37, 440–41, 445 n. 211, 468, 481, 489 Moscow Film Festival, 396 Moss, Thelma, 211 “Mostly Nudes” (Schneemann), lvii Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 117 Ms. (magazine), 225, 226 Muciunas, George, 224 Mühl, Otto, xxviii n. 23, 139 n. 444, 399, 451 Mumma, Gordon, 98 Murphy, J. J., 326 Murphy, Jay, 411, 474 n. 292 Murray, Elizabeth, xliii Muschinski, Patricia (Oldenburg), 54 n. 147, 137, 202–3 Museo Archivio Laboratorio per le Arti Contemporanee, 309 n. 102 Museu d’Arte Contemporani de Barcelona, 478, 480, 481 Museum Ludwig (Cologne), 481 Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), xviii, 127 Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), 457 n. 241, 478 Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), 478 “Museum of Drawers” (Distel), xxxi– xxxii Museum of Modern Art (New York), 22 n. 64, 46 n. 118, 50 n. 132, 130, 136 n. 438, 217, 316, 406, 407, 424, 435, 451

505

New York Society for Ethical Culture, 8 New York State Council on the Arts, 127 New York Times, 359, 360 New York University, 383 Nichols, Mary Perot, l Nielsen, Nanna, 281 Nieman, Catrina, 411 Nin, Anaïs, xliv, 246 “Nine is a Four Letter Word” (exhibition), 421–22 “96 Tears” (Mysterians), 116–17 Nitsch, Hermann, xxviii n. 23, 139, 282, 307, 309, 360–61, 399, 405 Nixon, Richard, 204 n. 133, 212 Noailles, Mathieu, comtesse de (Brancovan, Anna Élisabeth de), 328 Noblet, Jocelyn de, 87–88, 101, 360 Noise Bodies (Schneemann and Tenny performance), 98–99, 100, 399 Nordman, Maria, 355–56 Noren, Andrew, 336, 339 Norman, Dorothy, 349 Northeast Public Radio, 484 n. 321 Norton, Larry, 372 Norton, Peter, 435 Nosei, Annina, 82, 88 “Notes from the Underground” (Schneemann), 397 Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 224 Nowak, Lionel, 8 Nude Bride (Schneemann performance), 140 Nude Lady (Schneemann painting), 24 Nurenberg, Robert, 145 Nureyev, Rudolf, 179 Nyman, Michael, 175 NYU (New York University), 383

index

Object of Performance, The (Sayre), 363 O! Calcutta!, 160, 399 October (magazine), lviii Odell, Henry F. “Dell,” 272 O’Dell, Kathy, 474 O’Doherty, Brian, 405, 438–39 “Of Breasts, Behavior and the Size of Litters” (Yoon), 485 O’Grady, Gerald, 340 Oiticica, Hélio, xxviii n. 23 O. K. Harris Gallery (New York), 52 n. 140 Oldenburg, Claes, xlviii, 54, 55, 57, 65,

506

89, 94, 101, 137, 140, 146, 203, 222, 224, 244, 346, 348, 367, 469 Oldenburg, Patricia “Patty,” 54 n. 147, 137, 202–3 Oliva, Achille Bonito, 402 n. 64 Oliveros, Pauline, 196, 391–92 Olney, James, lx–lxi Olson, Charles, 162, 318 n. 130; correspondence of, 47 Olympia (Manet), 413 n. 104 Olympic Games, 285 O. M. Theater, 138–39, 307 n. 96 ONCE Group, 98 n. 315, 145 n. 12 Ono, Yoko, xliii, 120–21, 361, 415 Ontological-Hysteric Theater, 225 n. 206 Open Theater, 124, 130 Opéra National de Lyon, 97 Oppenheim, Dennis, 356, 409 Ordinary Dance (Rainer), 201 Orenstein, Gloria, 301, 387 n. 15 Organica (magazine), 401 Orgies Mystery Theater, 138–39, 307 n. 96 Orgonon, 149 Orlando (Woolf ), 235 Ormsby-Gore, David, 164 Ottawa performance festival, 411 Out of Actions, 478, 480, 481 n. 309 Owen, Rochelle, 105 Owl/Ocean/Table (Schneemann performance), 372–73 Ozu, Yasujiro, 232, 239

Pace, Linda, 482 n. 313 Pacifica Foundation, 66 Pacific Film Archives (Berkeley), 218 Paden, William, 193 Page, Robin, 120 Paglia, Camille, 418 Paik, Nam June, xxviii n. 23, 99, 100, 113, 284, 388, 457 Paine, Gina, 449 PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, xxii, xlvii, li, 429 Pakenham, Francis Aungier, 167 n. 53 Palestine, Charlemagne, 242–43 “Panavision 70 penis meets mammoth vagina” (article), 129 Pandora’s Box (Panofsky), 385 Pane, Gina, 415, 449 n. 222 Panofsky, Dorothea (Dora) Mosse, 385 “Panther 21,” 171 Pardo, Fréderic, 75 n. 239

“Politics of Ecstasy” (Leary), 168 Politi, Giancarlo, 446 Pollock, Jackson, xxxvi, 9, 16, 343 n. 208, 384, 451, 475, 480–81, 490 Pollock Krasner Foundation, 475, 490 Pommereulle, Daniel, 75 n. 239, 86, 88, 398 Pompidou Center, 440, 448, 449 Pontormo, Jacopo, 24 Pop Art, 66 Pornography and Silence (Griffin), 418 Portland (Ore.) Art Museum, 481 Portlock, Ginerva, 327 Portrait Partials (Schneemann and Lifton photographic series), 435 n. 180 Posner, Irina, 244 Potain, Pierre, 21 Pound, Ezra, 420 Presley, Elvis, 175 Price, Luther, 340 Priessnitz, Reinhard, 309 Printed Matter bookstore, 316 Proust, Marcel, liv, 18, 19, 21, 24, 42, 59, 145, 226 n. 212, 328, 467 PS 1 (New York), 436 n. 185 Punctuation (Brody), xxx Purce, Jill, 299 Purvis, Rosalie, 488 “Push and Pull” (Kaprow), 100, 323– 24, 416 Puthoff, Harold E., 213 n. 165 Pythagoras, 285

Quasha, George, 321 n. 137 Quasha, Susan, 321 Queen’s Dog (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 98 Queens Museum (Flushing, N.Y.), 186 n. 96 Question Mark (singer), 116 n. 373 Quinn, Mr. ( journalist), 274 Rachel, Vaughan, 66 Radich Gallery (New York), 132 Radigue, Eliane, 78 Rainbow Blaze (Schneemann score), 469 Rainer, Yvonne, xxviii n. 23, 58–59, 60, 71, 95, 199, 200 n. 128, 222, 224, 229, 244, 267, 269, 271, 330, 395, 399 n. 54, 404; correspondence of, xiii, xiv n. 8, 67–68, 197–98, 201–2 Raleigh, Walter, xi Ramones, 291 n. 61

index

Pari and Dispari Agency, 387 n. 18 Paris-Express (newspaper), 83 n. 279 Park, Jonathan, 167, 175 Partch, Harry, 36–37 Parts of a Body House (Schneemann drawings), 147, 169 Parts of a Body House Book (Schneemann artist book), xlii, 192, 193 Pasadena Film Forum, 324 n. 147, 325 n. 148 Patterson, Ben, 411 Peacock, Jan, 444–45, 461 Pelligrini, Norman, 57 Pence, Bill, 248 Penrose, Roland, 125, 164 n. 45 Peret, Benjamin, 55 Performing Arts Journal, xxii, xlvii, li, 429 Perils of Pauline, The (film), 102, 197 Perlman, Jack, 150 Persephone, 58, 93, 479 Perspectives of New Music ( journal), 372 Peterson, Sidney, 248, 252 Pharisees, 52 n. 143, 53 Phases (for Edgard Varèse) (Tenney), 82 n. 270 Philadelphia Museum of Art, 23–24 Philip IV, king of Spain, 19 n. 50 Phillips, Dennis, 354 Phillips Collection (Washington), 371 Philpot, Clive, 387 n. 15 Piano, Renzo, 448 n. 217 “Pianofortissimo” (exhibition), 401 Picabia, Francis, 65 Picard, Lil, 94, 140, 272–73 Picasso, Pablo, 24, 125 Pierrakos, John, 147, 176 Pileggi, Frank, 311, 398, 413, 430 n. 162 Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, 411 Plague Column (Schneemann installation with video), 456, 465, 474, 490 Playboy, 124, 346, 483–84 Plumb Line (Schneemann film), 135 n. 437, 176, 185, 271, 284, 290, 310, 326, 435, 439, 451 Plumed Horn (magazine), 55 Pocket Planner (Schneemann calendar), lvii, lviii Poetry Center for International American Relations (New York), 140 Polansky, Larry, 372 Polari Gallery, 5 n. 9

507

index 508

Randall, Margaret, 55 n. 155 Rapp, Martin, 316 Rattray, David, 430 n. 162 Rauschenberg, Robert, xlvi, 46, 53, 59, 79, 89–90, 101, 119, 124 n. 396, 130, 242 n. 257, 330 n. 163, 345, 346; correspondence of, 280–81 Ray, Man, 165 n. 45 Read, Herbert, 165 n. 45 Real Art Ways (Hartford), 344 n. 216 Redford, Robert, 395 Reichardt, Jasia, 128, 138 Reich, Steve, 191, 242 Reich, Wilhelm, 61, 149, 164, 169, 179, 208, 211, 247, 251, 325, 473 n. 288 Rembrandt van Rijn, 19, 52, 147, 374 Renfrew, Danielle, 14 n. 36 Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, 366 n. 293 Renoir, Rita, 85, 207 Restany, Pierre, 102; correspondence of, 346 R. G. Davis Mime Studio and Troupe, 364 n. 276 Ricordanza, La (Liszt), 62 n. 196 Rietman, Jaap, 231 Riley, Bob, 432, 458 Rilke, Clara Westhoff, xxvi Rilke, Rainer Maria, xxvi, 349, 366 n. 294 Rinder, Larry, 441 Rivera, Diego, 110 Road Animation for Reykjavik (Schneemann score), 469 Robertson, Joe, 386 Robertson, Suloni, 386, 475–77 Robins, Corinne, 404 Rockburne, Dorothea, 413–14 Roditi, Edouard, 207 Roe v. Wade, xliii Rogala, Miroslaw “Mirek,” 417–18, 445–46 Rogers, Richard, 448 n. 217 Rokeby Venus (Velázquez), xlvi Rolling Stones, 112 n. 358, 165, 318 n. 130, 485 Romer, Jacob, 60, 246 Rosen, John N., 378 Rosenberg, Harold, 439, 439 n. 197 Rosenblum, Gordon, 334, 341 Rosenquist, James, 89, 137 Rosenthal, Rachel, 329, 434 Rossignol en Amour, Le (Couperin), 30 n. 91 Roth, Dieter, 258, 309

Roth, Martha, 48; correspondence of, 402 Roth, Martin, 48 n. 128 Roth, Moira, 298, 302, 304, 357–58 Rothenberg, Jerome “Jerry,” xxv–xxvi, 317 Rothko, Mark, 111 Rotmil, Charles, 466–67 Rouault, Georges, 16 Roundhouse (London), 112 n. 358, 127, 161 n. 37 Round House (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 50, 112, 118, 119, 126, 161, 165–67, 218, 317, 415 Royal Albert Hall, 138, 163 Rubin, Jerry, 171 n. 63 Rubin, Jon, xix Rubins, Nancy, 373 Rudhyar, Dane, 98, 178 Ruggles, Carl, 10, 30, 50, 51, 98, 107, 172, 328–29, 332, 333, 461, 482–83 Russell, Bertrand, 112 n. 358 Ryder, Mitch, 138 n. 442 Ryman, Robert, 427 Rzewski, Frederic, 191

“Sacred Spaces” (exhibition), 383 St. Adrian’s bar (New York), 163 St. Mark’s Church (New York), 109 Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (New York), 113 Saint Phalle, Niki de, 415 Salomé, Lou Andreas, 366, 400 “Salvaged—Altered Everyday Objects” (exhibition), 345 Salzedo, Carlos, 236–37 Samaras, Lucas, 54 n. 153, 367 San Francisco Art Institute, 411 San Francisco Book Fair, 358 San Francisco Chronicle, 407 San Francisco Mime Troupe, 364 n. 276 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 406, 424 Sartre, Jean Paul, 77 n. 244, 111, 119 Sayre, Henry, 363–67 “Scandal Ripens in My Fair City” (Nichols), l Scarlet Tanager (bird), 71 n. 227 Scenes from Under Childhood (Brakhage), 290 Schaeffer, Bern, 463 Schaeffer, Jim, 429–30, 433, 435, 437, 454–55, 459, 463–64, 470–71, 487

Scott, Kathleen, 172 Scott, Michael, 112 n. 358 “Scroll Paintings with Exploded T.V.” (exhibition), 411 Scull, Robert, 112–13 Seale, Bobby, 171 n. 63–64 Second Coming ( journal), 55, 66, 73 Second Intermedia Performance Festival, 344 n. 216 Second Sex, The (Beauvoir), xli, 19, 20 Seeger, Ruth Crawford, 461 Seid, Steve, 441 Seltzer, Beth, 14 n. 36 Selz, Peter Howard, 349, 354, 356, 385–86 Serpentine Gallery (London), 296 n. 73 Serpents Tail (publisher), 395 Setterfield, Valda, 60 n. 189 “Sex and the Single Artist (Ginsburg), xlvii Sexual Parameters Chart (Schneemann chart), 145–46 Seyrig, Delphine, 85 n. 281 Shakespeare, William, 70 n. 224 Shakti (Hindu goddess), 23 Shankar, Ravi, 210 n. 155 Shanken, Edward A. “Eddie,” 455 Sharits, Paul, 289, 340, 430 n. 162 Sharkey, John J., 317–18, 415 Sharp, Willoughby, 271 n. 4 Shaw, Mr. (YMHA board member), 273 Sheehan, Maura, 387 n. 15, 389 Sheldon Film Theatre, 344 n. 216 Shepard, Sam, 161 n. 37 Shepp, Archie, 125 Sherman, Marilyn, 317 Shiomi, Mieko (Chieko), 108–9; correspondence of, 106–7 Shiva (Hindu goddess), 23 Short Films: 1975 (Brakhage), 289 Show Magazine, 73 Shrimpton, Jean, 163 Silence, The (film), 81 Silvers, Robert B., 410 Sinha, Indra, 437 Sinsabaugh, Art, 128–29, 425 Sischy, Ingrid, 316, 343 Sisters of Menon (Hiller), 295–96, 299–302 Site (Morris), 343, 364, 413 Sitney, P. Adams, 79, 184–85, 252, 336, 339, 432–33 “Sixteen Americans” (exhibition), 46

index

Schaeffer, John, 463 Schanker, Louie, 8 Schapiro, Miriam, xlii Scherchen, Hermann, 65 Schimmel, Paul, 480–81 “Schizophrenia as a Way of Life” (Abel), 111 n. 351 Schjeldahl, Peter, 449 Schmidt, Julius, 46 Schneemann, Carolee: abortions of, xlii–xliii, 3, 12–15, 41, 213, 244; aesthetics of, xxviii; on animals, xlv– xlvi; on art and suffering, xxxviii– xxxix; as autobiographer, lx–lxii; as Being, liii; career expansion of, 269; cats, xliv–xlv; dissociation by, xlii; education of, li; on equality, 3; feminism and, xli, xlvii, 142, 269; financial problems of, 382; Fluxus and, xxviii; home and stability of, 269; identity of, lii; influences on, xxvi, liv; kinetic style of, xxvi–xxvii, lix; love affairs of, 3, 142; McCall’s divorce from, 269; McPherson’s partnership with, 269; middle age and, 269; on motherhood, xlii–xliii; on obliteration of self, lx; others supported by, 269, 382; personal meaning in works by, xxvii; prosopopeia and, lxi–lxii; psychotherapy and, 142; punctuation used by, xxvii, xxix–xxxi; self-documentation of, xliii–xliv; sexuality and eroticism of, xlv–xlvii, xlvii, lviii; sexual revolution and, xlvii; as someone else, li–lx; success of, xxxii; Tenney’s divorce from, liv n. 73, 3, 142; Tenney’s marriage to, 3; as woman writer, xli–xlvii; on writing, liv, 382; writing-drawing dyad and, liv–lv, lix; writing style of, xxv–xxvii, xxx– xxxii, lxi–lxii. See also Cats; individual correspondents; individual works Schneider, Maria, 85 n. 281 Schneider, Rebecca, 450; correspondence of, 417 Schwarts, Alan E., 387 Schwartz, Barry Jay, 377–81, 387 n. 16 Schwarz, Arturo, 302; correspondence of, 92–93 Schwarz, Dieter, 309 Schwarzkoger, Rudolf, 139 n. 444 Schwitters, Kurt, 65

509

index 510

“60s, The” (lecture series), 344 n. 213 Skewed Beams (Schneemann performance), 411 Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.), 471 “Slide Art Out of Shadows” (Baker), 407 Smith, Barbara, 311–13, 330 Smith, Bessie, 467 n. 270 Smith, John, 134 n. 433 Smith, Kiki, 427 Smith, Mike, 56 Smolinski, Julia, 372 Snow, Michael, 230 Snows (Schneemann Kinetic Theater) 29, 114, 115, 116, 124, 130, 165, 244, 266, 414–15, 422 Socolow, Daniel J., 382, 489–90 Socrates, 285 Sogyal, Lerab Lingpa Tertön, 441 n. 206 Sogyal, Rinpoche, 441 SoHo Weekly News, xlvii, 323 Solnit, Rebecca, 424–26 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 475 n. 293, 489 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 413, 434 Soltanoff, Jack, 256 Something Else Press, 102, 193 n. 111, 232, 331 Sonnabend, Ileana, 65, 79, 81, 89, 103–4 Sonnabend Gallery (Paris), 79, 81 Sontag, Susan, 55 n. 158, 291–93 Sorin, Samuel I., 273–74 Soundings 13 (Tenney and Garland), 347 Soutine, Chaim, 16, 261 Spatial Poem #3 (Shiomi), 106 Spencer, Robert D., 14 n. 36 Spinsters Ink, xxix Spock, Benjamin, 132 Spoerri, Daniel, xxviii n. 23, 77, 89 Spontaneous Healing (Weil), 466 Spring (film), 232 Springtown, N.Y., xxxii n. 31 Sprinkle, Annie, 461 Spurgeon, Oliver, 378 Stebich, Stephanie A., 424–26 Stein, Gertrude, 24, 43, 94, 199, 254, 338 Steinberg, Leo, 15–17, 343 “Steirischer Autumn” festival, 384 n. 5

Stella, Frank, 46 Stendhal, Marie-Henri, 24 Stern, Gerd, 99 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 251 Stevenson, Wade, 207 Stieglitz, Alfred, 349 Stiles, Kristine, xl n. 42, 364, 414 n. 105, 416 n. 111, 429, 434, 453, 478 n. 299, 492; correspondence of, 316, 344, 360, 361 n. 263, 400, 408–10, 414–17, 455–57. See also individual works Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 144 Store (art studio), 54 n. 146 Straayer, Chris, 446 Strauss, David Levi, xl n. 42 Street, Sidney, 132 n. 425 Strindberg, August, 202 Students for a Democratic Society, 364 n. 278 Studio Morra, 309 n. 102 Stvarnost (newspaper), 152 Subotnick, Morton, 337 Sulfur ( journal), 145 n. 9, 373 Summer, Donna, 485 Summers, Elaine, xvii, 229, 343–44, 344 Summer Wounds Healed in Winter (Edelson), 387 n. 15 Sunday Times, 130 Super 8 Filmmaker (magazine), 230 Sur, Rodney, 448 “Survival Ethos and Destruction Art” (Stiles), 414 n. 105, 416 n. 111 Swann, Ingo, 212 n. 165 Sweetman, Alex, xix, 358 Sweezy, Paul, 111 n. 354 Sylphs, 58, 70 Symposium International d’Art Performance Festival, 344 n. 216 Szeemann, Harald, 165 n. 47, 168 Talbot, Susan Lubowsky, 356 n. 242 Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu), 210 Targ, Russell, 213 n. 165 Tate Museum, 193 Taylor, James, 31, 33 Telluride Erotic Film presentation, 336, 341 Telluride Film Festival, 248, 252, 283, 284, 286 Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 70 n. 224 Tenney, Ann, 256, 372; correspondence of, 239

Titian, xlvi, 24 Together Highland Art Agents, 324 n. 147 Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, 478 Tolstoy, Leo, 366 n. 294 Tomlin, Lily, 395 Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble, 191, 192, 199, 354, 372, 415 “Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble Presents Concert of 20th Century American Music,” 191 n. 105, 192 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 366 n. 293 Traut (Rotraut Uecker Klein-Moquay), 78–79, 88, 133 Treacle Press, 283 Tricycle (magazine), 52 n. 140 Trotsky, Leon, 160 Trot Trot (Rotraut Uecker KleinMoquay), 78–79, 88, 133 Trungpa, Chögyam, 320 n. 133 Tucker, Marcia, xl n. 42 Tudor, David, 218 n. 173 Turner, Jan, 457 Turner, J. M. W., 37, 125 Turner/Krull Gallery (Los Angeles), 457 n. 243 “12 Evenings,” 416 Twice a Year ( journal), 349 Tworkov, Helen “Wally,” 52 Tworkov, Jack, 52 Tyler, Parker, 5 n. 9, 9, 17, 185, 221 Tynan, Kenneth, 75 n. 239, 160 n. 37, 399

Uecker, Günter, 78 n. 254 Ulysses (Joyce), 59 n. 188 “Underground” (Youngblood), 128–29 “Under My Thumb” (Rolling Stones), 485 UNESCO, 65 n. 208 Unexpectedly Research (Schneemann photo grid), 412–13 U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 61 n. 192 U.S. Postal Service, 75 n. 237 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 131–32 University Art Museum (Berkeley), 217 n. 170, 218 n. 171 University of Colorado, xvii, xix, 340, 358, 359 University of Illinois, 33

index

Tenney, Anne “Christine,” 138, 141, 162, 167 n. 51, 170, 183, 213 Tenney, James, 2 n. 16, 82 n. 270–71; Christine’s marriage to, 138 n. 443; correspondence of, xiii, xxv, 23–24, 47, 48–51, 69–70, 76–92, 138–41, 142, 152–53, 165–76, 183, 190–91, 194–97, 202–6, 239, 256, 285, 347, 371–72, 383, 461; Holloway’s marriage to, 138 n. 443; illness and death of, xxv n. 13, 368, 372 n. 318, 379; Pratt’s marriage to, 396 n. 44; Schneemann’s divorce from, liv n. 73, 3, 145 n. 14, 158; Schneemann’s marriage to, xliii, xliv, 3, 4, 9 n. 17, 10, 11, 13, 28 n. 25, 60, 80, 213, 419, 451; works and collaborations of, 8, 18, 29, 38, 52, 55, 65, 82, 97–98, 100, 114 n. 367, 114 n. 372, 116, 120 n. 383, 128, 176 n. 76, 191 n. 105, 269, 347 n. 221, 372 n. 320, 399, 402. See also individual works Tenney, Lauren Pratt, 396, 398–99, 411, 433–36, 459 Tenney, Mielle, 138 n. 443, 162, 167, 169 Tenney, Olivia “Phila,” 8 Text of Light (Brakhage), 276, 334 n. 173 Thames and Hudson Publishers, 300 Thames Crawling (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 122 Thant, U, 111 Theater of Mixed Means, The (Kostelanetz), 119 Théâtre des Nations, 97 Theosophical Society, 164 n. 46 Thigh, Line, Lyre, Triangular (Brakhage), 289, 339 36 Transformative Actions (Schneemann constructions), 425 Thomas, Dylan, xxxiii–xxxiv, xliv, xlvi Thompson, Bill, 274–76, 297 Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth, 420 Thompson, David E., 421–22 Thoreau, Henry David, 190 n. 103 Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, The (Rinpoche), 441 “Tiger Balm” (Lockwood), 190 Time Life, 130 Time Out (magazine), 190 Tinguely, Jean, 345 Titelman, Carol Fazzio Wikarska, 229– 30, 246–47, 271–72

511

index

University of Massachusetts, 278 University of Texas, 401, 402 Up To And Including Her Limits (Schneemann performance, installation, and video), xliv, liv–lix, 215, 219, 227, 228, 230, 260, 266, 270, 304, 326, 344, 354, 365, 393, 425, 445, 448, 450, 457 nn. 241–42, 467 n. 274, 480, 489 “Urge to Purge, The” (Carr), 483 USCO (group), xviii Utrillo, Maurice, 366 n. 293

512

Valadon, Suzanne, 366 Valéry, Paul, 76 Vanderbeek, Stan, 244 Van der Marck, Jan, 130, 201; correspondence of, 104–6, 119, 137–38, 168 Van Gogh, Vincent, xli, 17 Varda, Agnes, 285–86 Varela, Willie, 276–78 Varèse, Edgard, 64 n. 202, 197, 204 Varèse, Louise, 64, 204, 236–37, 253 n. 284 Vautier, Ben, xxviii n. 23, 85 Velázquez, Diego, xlvi, 19, 261 Velvet Underground, 101 Venet, Ella Bogval, 145 Venice Biennale, 74, 89–90, 92, 123, 130, 133–34, 346, 401–2 Venus Vectors (Schneemann sculpture and video), 356, 377, 385, 489 Vermeer (Gowing), 370 Vesna, Victoria, 436–37 Vesper’s Pool (Schneemann installation and video), 486 Vicente, Eugenio de, 388 n. 20 Victoria, Charlotte, 100, 367–68 Video Burn (Schneemann artist book), 398 Video Rocks (Schneemann installation and video), 373, 408–9, 426 Viennese Action Art, 139 n. 444, 387 n. 17, 388 n. 19 Viet-Flakes (Schneemann film), 116, 117, 119, 120, 123–24, 193, 435 Vietnam War, 1, 3, 56–57, 101–2, 114, 116, 124, 132, 159, 317, 364, 425, 429 Viet Rock (play), 114 Village Voice, l, 83 n. 279, 227 n. 216, 339–40, 360, 449, 483 Visual Projection (Schneemann theater and dance piece), 67 Vogue, xlvi, xlviii, xlix, 20–21, 72

Volk, Carol, 430 Vostell, Mercedes Guardado Olivenza, 478–79 Vostell, Wolf, xxviii n. 23, 74, 99, 147 n. 16, 398, 469, 478 n. 298; correspondence of, 94–95, 109 Vranitzky, Franz, 451 Vrije Volk (newspaper), 177 Vuillard, Edouard, 371 Vulva’s Morphia (Schneemann photo grid with electric fan), 434, 437, 446, 447, 473, 474

Wachter, Rose, xxvi Wada, Yoshi, 411 Wakoski, Diane, 404 Waldhauer, Fred, 101 n. 331 Walford, Roy, 211 Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), xl, 103, 230, 344 Walter/McBean Gallery (San Francisco), 411 Wang, Nonchi, 462 War (Morris), 399 Warhol, Andy, 101, 143 War Mop (Schneemann kinetic sculpture and video), 356, 357, 359, 411 Warwick, Dionne, 85 n. 280 Washington Project for the Arts, 344 n. 216 Watergate scandal, 142, 204, 205 Water Light/Water Needle (Schneemann Kinetic Theater), 82, 97, 102, 104–5, 109, 112, 260–61, 270, 361, 425 Water Lilies (Monet), 22, 426 Waterman Switch (Morris), 399 Watts, Alan, 210–11 Watts, Peter, 114 n. 367 Watts, Robert, 244 n. 266 Watusi women, 113 WBAI, 66 Weakland, John, 378 n. 336 Wear & Tear (unrealized Schneemann performance), 329 Weathermen, 364 Weber, John, 52, 82 n. 272 Weibel, Peter, xxviii n. 23 Weil, Andrew, 466 Weil, Cynthia, 203 Weiner, Lee, 171 n. 63 Weinglass, Leonard, 171 n. 63 Weinstein, Norman, 199 Weintraub, Linda, 454 Welt, Die (newspaper), 83 n. 279

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 354–55 Wodening, Mary Jane Collum Brakhage, 3, 25, 240, 269, 283 n. 40, 284 n. 41, 289 n. 57, 337, 338; correspondence of, 221, 374, 375–76, 422–23, 459 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 209 n. 151 Woman’s Art Coalition, 204 “Woman Who Saw Through Paradise, The” (Eshleman), xxxviii, 262–67 Women and Film (magazine), 271 “Women Here & Now” (exhibition), lviii Women’s Strike for Peace, 66 Wood, Charles, 125 Woolf, Virginia, xv, xxxviii, 24, 209 n. 151, 235 n. 243, 237, 400 Workshop de la Libre Expression, 84 World Peace Brigade, 113 n. 366 Wright, Marilyn, 253–55 Wright, Mike, 254 Xatrec, Christian, 393 Xenakis, Iannis, 77, 82, 85, 207

Yalkut, Jud, 304 YMHA (Young Men’s Hebrew Association), 273–74 “Yoko Ono: Touch Me” (exhibition), xliii n. 50 Yoon, Carol Kaesuk, 485–86 Yoshida, Barbara, li, 447 Youngblood, Eugene, 128–29, 179, 271, 450; correspondence of, 304–6 Young, La Monte, 398, 401, 416 Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA), 273–74 ZAJ (Spanish avant-garde collective), 388 Zazeela, Marian, 398 Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe), 417 n. 124

index

Wentworth, Karen, 424 Wersba, Barbara, 444 Wesker, Arnold, 112, 119 “Wet Dream Film Festival” (Jacobs), 177 WFMT Perspective (magazine), 57 “What Was It You Wanted?” (Dylan), 485 “Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?” (Cage), 56 n. 170 “Whispering Pines” (The Band), 209 White, Michael, 75–76 n. 239, 93 White, Pearl, 103 n. 336 White Goddess, The (Graves), 19 n. 55 Whitehead, Peter, 124 Whiteley, Brett, 151 Whiteye (Brakhage), 28 n. 85, 95, 287 Whitman, Robert, 101, 109, 119, 348, 367 Whitney Museum of American Art, lvii, 198, 348 n. 227, 356, 359 Wikarska, Carol, 229–30, 246–47, 271–72 Wilcock, John, 133 Wilhelm, Jean Pierre, 99 Wilhelm Reich Foundation, 61 n. 192 Wilhelm Reich Museum (Rangeley, Me.), 149 Wilke, Hannah, 224, 293, 330, 403, 404, 422, 430 n. 162 William and Noma Copley Foundation, 164 n. 45 Williams, Anne, 224 Williams, Emmett, xxviii n. 23, 178, 223–24, 232, 388 Wimmer, Elga, 452, 456 Window, Water, Baby, Moving (Brakhage), 170, 251, 287, 289 n. 57, 450 Winsor, Jackie, 272 Winter Branch (Schneemann performance), 242 Wiseman, Adele, lx Witt, Harold, 145, 234

513

K r i s t i n e S t i l e s i s a p ro f e s s o r i n t he De pa rt me n t o f A rt, A rt H i s to ry, a n d V i s ua l S t u d i e s at Duke U n i ve r s i t y.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schneemann, Carolee, 1939– Correspondence course : an epistolary history of Carolee Schneemann and her circle / edited by Kristine Stiles. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8223-4500-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8223-4511-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Schneemann, Carolee, 1939– —Correspondence. 2. Artists—United States—Correspondence. I. Stiles, Kristine. II. Title. n6537.s3556.a3 2010 700.92—dc22 2010016647