From the perspective of today's art world, where "transgression" has become for many little more then a quick path to fame and notoriety, it is difficult to grasp the extraordinary bravery and daring of Carolee Schneeman, the pioneering performance artist whose career is lavishly documented in this volume. Decades before "The Body" became an object of safe academic discourse, Schneeman was putting hers on the line, creating a series of films, actions and performances—perhaps most notably the majestically Dionysian Meat Joy
of 1964—that have become touchstones not only in the history of performance art but also in the development of feminist aesthetics. By its very nature, performance is hard to capture between the covers of a book, but the quality and extent of the images presented here, while no substitute for having been there, capture events with an almost cinematic completeness. Also here—in addition to a number of interviews and essays by such critics as David Levi-Strauss and Thomas McEvilley—are a number of Schneeman's own writings, which include a description of a formative encounter with poet Charles Olson, whose patriarchal warning that classical drama died when "the c— began to speak," Schneeman, with characteristic inventiveness, transforms into good career advice. In fact, from a spirited examination of Valerie Solanas to an elegy for slain colleague Ana Mendieta, Schneeman's writings form the book's core, and it is good to have them in one place. What emerges most powerfully from this book—which also covers (with 150 illustrations) Schneeman's work in painting, photography and video—is the artist's extraordinarily generous and questing personality. In an era when so much art seems directed at the audience with a sneer, Schneeman's Emersonian optimism and joie de vivre are both example and challenge. (Oct.)
