(b. 1924), involved such actions as throwing paint balls at blank can-
vases or wallowing in mud as a means of shaping it. In Making a
Wo r k ,Shiraga used his body to “paint” with mud. The Gutai group
dissolved upon Yoshihara’s death in 1972.
CAROLEE SCHNEEMANNLike Gutai,Carolee Schnee-
mann(b. 1939) integrated painting and performance in her art-
works (see “Carolee Schneemann on Painting, Performance Art, and
Art History,” above). Her self-described “kinetic theater” radically
transformed the nature of Performance Art by introducing a femi-
nist dimension through the use of her body (often nude) to chal-
lenge “the psychic territorial power lines by which women were ad-
mitted to the Art Stud Club.”^39 In her 1964 performance Meat Joy
(FIG. 36-76), Schneemann reveled in the taste, smell, and feel of
raw sausages, chickens, and fish.
JOSEPH BEUYS The leftist politics of the Fluxus group in
the early 1960s strongly influenced German artist Joseph Beuys
(1921–1986). Drawing on Happenings and Fluxus, Beuys created ac-
tions aimed at illuminating the condition of modern humanity. He
wanted to make a new kind of sculptural object that would include
“Thinking Forms: how we mould our thoughts or Spoken Forms:
how we shape our thoughts into words or Social Sculpture: how we
mould and shape the world in which we live.”^40
Beuys’s commitment to artworks stimulating thought about art
and life derived in part from his experiences as a pilot during World
War II. After the enemy shot down his plane over the Crimea, no-
madic Tatars nursed him back to health by swaddling his body in fat
and felt to warm him. Fat and felt thus symbolized healing and re-
generation to Beuys, and he incorporated these materials into many
of his sculptures and actions, such as How to Explain Pictures to a1018 Chapter 36 EUROPE AND AMERICA AFTER 1945C
arolee Schneemann (FIG. 36-76), one of the pioneering Perfor-
mance artists of the 1960s, also produced works in other me-
dia. In notes she wrote in 1962–1963, Schneemann contrasted her
Performance works with more traditional art forms.
Environments, happenings—concretions—are an extension of my
painting-constructions which often have moving (motorized) sec-
tions....[But,the] steady exploration and repeated viewing which
the eye is required to make with my painting-constructions is re-
versed in the performance situation where the spectator is over-
whelmed with changing recognitions, carried emotionally by a flux
of evocative actions and led or held by the specified time sequence
which marks the duration of a performance. In this way the audi-
ence is actually visuallymore passivethan when confronting a...
“still”work ....With paintings, constructions and sculptures the
viewers are able to carry out repeated examinations of the work, to
select and vary viewing positions (to walk with the eye), to touch
surfaces and to freely indulge responses to areas of color and texture
at their chosen speed.*Readers of this book will also take special interest in Schnee-
mann’s 1975 essay entitled “Woman in the Year 2000,” in which she
envisioned what introductory art history courses would be like at
the beginning of the 21st century:
By the year 2000 [every] young woman will study Art Istory [sic]
courses enriched by the inclusion, discovery, and re-evaluation of
works by women artists: works (and lives) until recently buried
away, willfully destroyed, [or] ignored.†A comparison between this 13th edition ofArt through the Agesand
editions published in the 1960s and 1970s will immediately reveal
the accuracy of Schneemann’s prediction.
- Quoted in Bruce McPherson, ed.,More Than Meat Joy: Complete Performance
Works and Selected Writings(New Paltz, N.Y.: Documentext, 1979), 10–11.
†Ibid., 198.
Carolee Schneemann on Painting,
Performance Art, and Art HistoryARTISTS ON ART
36-76Carolee Schneemann,Meat Joy,1964. Performance at
Judson Church, New York City.
In her performances, Schneemann transformed the nature of Perfor-
mance art by introducing a feminist dimension through the use of her
body (often nude) to challenge traditional gender roles.