Carolee Schneeman's 'Fluxus'

Went to see the exhibition "Experimental Women in Flux" at the MoMA Library. There was much to like, although it's a small exhibit. I got a kick out of this feminist blast:


fluxus can be lots of fun when the boys let you on their boat
sometimes they throw you off the boat
you have to be NEAT all your words games philosophy
and things you make have to be NEAT (except for wolf and claes
they can smear their pages its o.k.)
if you dont wear underpants or show your pussy you get pushed
over the side (except not by jean-jacques philip larry or ben)
in england the boys gave me the fluxus boat to steer we
traveled with water ropes bricks milk shoes and blood
when i came home george wrote a bad letter about my crimes
operatic political sexual metaphoric motors caressing mess and
showing my pussy i could always sneak onto the happenings boat
it was bigger with louder music and open all night
nitsch and muhl came there with their dead pets
it used to be fun making things with alison takako and yoko
it was o.k. if we rowed but not to steer
i dont know if charlotte's embrace of all of us was flux-us or not
sometimes no one can read labels in the dark
fluxus from the far east moved by neon light and ironed wedges right into
canal street i never saw them fighting for a window seat

gino and francesco always said we could all play together
that is because those italians dont want to listen
to two popes in one life time

What a gal!

This by Mary Beach caught my eye, too. Naturally. It comes from my old mag. (Here's the cover of that issue. It's a collage by Norman O. Mustill.) I don't think Mary ever knew Carolee Schneeman, but I think they would have dug each other.

September 18, 2010 11:19 AM | | Comments (1)

1 Comments

Jan, Carolee Schneemann was the subject of a recent large show at the Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz...and she's a provocative, deep, caring, and thoughtful artist and person. Check our website http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/ under past exhibitions for more information or to order a catalogue. -- Brian (Wallace, curator, Dorsky Museum.)
---
Thanks, Brian. -- Jan
PS: Here's the exact page for her exhibition: http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/exhibitions/exhibitions_5.html . It also has a link to a recent radio interview with her that's worth hearing. The Schneeman interview begins at 13:08 of the soundtrack.

Leave a comment

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
SAMMY'S WHITE DREAMS 
Four decades ago Lenny Bruce sentenced Sammy Davis Jr. to "30 years in Biloxi," stripping him of "his Jewish star" and "his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor." Now we have two new biographies of Davis that spring him from ridicule, if not from doubts about his legacy, and restore a measure of dignity to a black entertainer whose huge fame and success never overcame his devout wish -- indeed his lifelong effort -- to be white.
more picks

Sites to See

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Straight Up | published on September 18, 2010 11:19 AM.

It's 9/11: Eraser-in-Chief ♥ Bullshitter-in-Chief was the previous entry in this blog.

Because You Never Heard of Him ... is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.