Kinetic Painting | Carolee Schneemann, Kathy Battista, Jenny Jaskey, David Levi Strauss | An Art Book Series Event

Event Details

FREE - Auditorium doors open at 5:30 p.m.

In celebration of the release of her new book, Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting, the pioneering feminist artist discusses her brilliant work and remarkable career with Kathy Battista, Jenny Jaskey and David Levi Strauss.

Unapologetically incorporating her body into her works of art, Carolee Schneemann emerged as one of the leading forces in the feminist art movement of the 1970s. Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting , published in conjunction with the artist's retrospective exhibition at Museum der Moderne Salzburg, follows her remarkable career in its entirety. This exhibition was organized by Sabine Breitwieser and Branden Joseph.

This new monograph shows the immense range of Schneemann’s oeuvre paintings, assemblages, performances, experimental films, and video installations. Including the controversial works for which she is most famous, such as Eye Body, Meat Joy, and Interior Scroll, this volume takes a critical look at various themes in the artist’s career, focusing particularly on what the artist termed “kinetic painting.” Essays on Schneemann’s personal politics, her experimental film, and the purposeful ambiguities of her pieces offer clear-eyed perspectives on the brilliance of her work. Illustrations of her work are accompanied by the artist’s own commentary. Schneemann’s work emerges as a celebratory, liberating, and important aspect of creative expression that stands in its own right—and stands the test of time.

Copies of Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting (Prestel, 2016) are available for purchase and signing at the end of event. 

Carolee Schneemann is a multidisciplinary artist who transformed the definition of art, especially the discourse on the body, sexuality, and gender. The history of her work is characterized by research into archaic visual traditions, pleasure wrested from suppressive taboos, the body of the artist in dynamic relationship with the social body. Her work has been shown at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. Film and video retrospectives have been held at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Film Theatre, London; and Whitney Museum, NY among others. The Museum der Moderne in Salzburg, Austria presents a retrospective exhibit and catalogue of her work from November 21 - February 28, 2016. A forthcoming monograph is be published by Black Dog in late 2015. Her visual work is represented by PPOW in New York City, and at Hales Gallery in London.

Carolee Schneemann, Installation View, Precarious 2009, DVD, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL. Courtesy of C. Schneemann and P.P.O.W, New York.
Carolee Schneemann, Installation View, Precarious 2009, DVD, Krannert Art Museum,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois
Courtesy of C. Schneemann and P.P.O.W, New York.

Kathy Battista is a writer, curator and educator. She is Director of the MA program in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York. Her books include author of New York New Wave: The Legacy of Feminist Artists in Emerging Practice  (IB Tauris, 2016) and Re-negotiating the Body: Feminist Artists in 1970s London (IB Tauris), which won the 2013 Choice Book Award. Her essays have appeared in Drawings in the 21st Century: Papers on Contemporary Practice (Ashgate, 2015); Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender (Temple University Press, 2009); Arcade: Artists and Placemaking (Black Dog, 2006); Surface Tension: Supplement 1 (errant bodies, 2006) and Surface Tension: Problematics of Site (errant bodies, 2003); and in many exhibition catalogues. She guest curated the first major retrospective of E.A.T. (Experiments in Art & Technology) at Museum der Moderne Salzburg.

Jenny Jaskey is Director and Curator of The Artist’s Institute, New York and has organized exhibitions with artists including Pierre Huyghe, Carolee Schneemann, Lucy McKenzie, Haim Steinbach, and Fia Backström. She is co-editor with Christoph Cox and Suhail Malik of Realism Materialism Art (CCS Bard and Sternberg, 2015). Her writing appears in Texte zur Kunst, Modern Painters, cura, Metropolis M, and Mousse. Recent catalog writing includes essays on artists Nina Canell, Ian Cheng, and Haim Steinbach. Prior to running The Artist's Institute, Jaskey worked as an independent curator and with institutions including Kunsthalle Zürich, Rhizome at the New Museum, and Creative Time.

Carolee Schneemann, Flange 6rpm 2011-13, foundry poured aluminum sculptures, motors 6rpm and projection. Courtesy of C. Schneemann and P.P.O.W, New York.
Carolee Schneemann, Flange 6rpm 2011-13, foundry poured aluminum sculptures, motors 6rpm and projection.
Courtesy of C. Schneemann and P.P.O.W, New York.

David Levi Strauss is the author of Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller Images Tomorrow (Aperture, 2014), From Head to Hand: Art and the Manual (Oxford University Press, 2010), Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics, with an introduction by John Berger (Aperture 2003, and in a new edition, 2012), and Between Dog & Wolf: Essays on Art and Politics (Autonomedia 1999, and a new edition with a prolegomenon by Hakim Bey, 2010). He is Chair of the graduate program in Art Writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York

In its eighth year the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world renowned artists, critics, curators, gallerists, historians and writers.

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