Author(s): Carolee Schneemann ; Oliver Kielmayer (Editor); Lara Pan (Editor)

CONCEPTUAL ART | ART THEORY

An oral-visual autobiography of Carolee Schneeman, with portraits of her home and working life.

The pioneering Pennsylvania-born artist Carolee Schneemann (1939–2019) embraced a cornucopia of mediums: after starting her career as a painter, she expanded her practice to include photography, performance, film, video, mixed media and installations, famously applying the gestural physicality of action painting to kinetic environments and performances centered on the body—more often than not, her own.  Many of the artist’s works have entered the canon of contemporary art, such as Eye Body (1963), Fuses (1964), Meat Joy (1964), Up To and Including Her Limits (1974) and Interior Scroll (1975).

Supported by the Carolee Schneemann Foundation, From Then and Beyond homes in on the artist behind this invigorating body of work, consisting of interviews with Schneemann before her death, conducted by art historian Oliver Kielmayer (Kunsthalle Winterthur) and curator Lara Pan at her home in New Paltz, New York. The transcript of these interviews, edited into 27 monologues and dialogues, is the last substantial testimony by the artist and is complemented by illustrations of her works and photographs of her house.