The explicit body in performance

250 Pages·1997·3.82 MB·English

by  Schneider, Rebecca

The Explicit Body in Performance
The Explicit Body in Performance interrogates the avant-garde precedents and
theoretical terrain that combined to produce feminist performance art. Among
the many artists discussed are Carolee Schneeman, Karen Finley, Ana Mendieta,
Sandra Bernhard, Annie Sprinkle, Robbie McCauley, Ann Magnuson, and
Spiderwoman.
Rebecca Schneider tackles topics ranging across the ‘post-porn modernist
movement’, New Right Censorship, commodity fetishism, perspectival vision,
and primitivism. Employing diverse critical theories from Benjamin to Lacan,
to postcolonial and queer theory, Schneider analyzes artistic and pop cultural
depictions of the explicit body in late commodity capitalism.
Complemented by extensive photographic illustrations of the performative
and artistic productions of postmodern feminist practitioners, The Explicit Body
in Performance is a fascinating exploration of how these artists have wrestled
with the representational structures of desire.
Rebecca Schneider lectures at Yale University is Visiting Assistant Professor
of Drama at Dartmouth College. She is a contributing editor to The Drama
Review and has published essays in a range of performance anthologies.

The Explicit Body in
Performance
Rebecca Schneider
London and New York
First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Disclaimer: For copyright reasons, some images in the original version of this book are
not available for inclusion in the eBook.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1997 Rebecca Schneider
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-42107-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-72931-5 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-09025-3 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-09026-1 (pbk)
for Joy, 1963

Contents
List of plates ix
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
Ghost of the avant-garde 3
Desire and the satiate body 5
Twisting the map 7
1 Binary terror and the body made explicit 12
Re-vamping the ghosts of modernism 21
Beside herself: postmodern artists and modern whores 28
Eye/Body: Carolee Schneemann beside herself 32
2 Logic of the twister, eye of the storm 43
Impasse: unnatural acts 46
Twister: looking into looking out 52
3 Permission to see 66
Gender in perspective: have we really gone beyond? 67
Refusal to vanish 71
Castration anxiety in perspective 77
Ghostly horrors: looking at the past, seeing through the body 83
4 The secrets eye 88
No accident: commodity bodies 92
Embodying disembodiment 97
Radical sex activism, satiability, and the commodity 104
Two-way streetwalkers 107
Explosive literality 114
Literal shrouds and dreamscape re-interments 117
5 After us the savage goddess 126
Seeing back through 126
Primitive techniques 130
Dark continence: reading the thrall and the threat 134
Dark incontinence: Ubu Roi and savage primitivism 138
vii
viii Contents
Dada’s big drum: primitivism and the performative 141
Hard primitivism, base matter, and the blindspot 145
Literal primitives 149
6 Seeing the big show 153
First, a story about doubt that includes a reverberation 153
White nostalgia, authenticity, and the split subject 159
Spiderwoman: the early days 163
Vigilant repetitions, the comic turn, and counter-mimicry 168
The irruption of “real stuff” and the politic of sacrality 172
The irruption of grandmothers and the reality of dreams 173
Epilog: returning from the dead 176
Notes 185
Works cited 213
Index 225
List of plates
1.1 Marty and Veronica with Veronica Vera, Robert
Mapplethorpe, 1982 12
1.2 Linda Montano as sex-goddess, from “Summer Saint Camp” 18
1.3 Ann Magnuson, Vargus pin-up girl from Paper Magazine, 1992 19
1.4 Olympia, Eduard Manet, 1863 26
1.5 Site, Carolee Schneemann and David Morris, 1964 30
1.6 Eye/Body, Carolee Schneemann, 1963 34
1.7 Vagina Painting, Shigeko Kubota, 1964 39
2.1 Infinity Kisses, Carolee Schneemann, 1991 48
2.2 Annie Sprinkle with speculum from Post Porn Modernism, 1990 54
2.3 Annie Sprinkle with toilet from Post Porn Modernism, 1990 59
2.4 Annie Sprinkle with inserted speculum from Post Porn
Modernism, 1990 61
2.5 Origin of the World, Gustav Courbet, 1866 62
2.6 Etant donnés, Marcel Duchamp, 1946 63
3.1 Fuses, Carolee Schneemann, 1964/65 77
4.1 Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face, Barbara Kruger, 1981 91
4.2 The Constant State of Desire, Karen Finley, 1987 103
4.3 Ann Magnuson with teddy bear 110
4.4 Ann Magnuson as housewife from Paper Magazine, 1992 111
4.5 Untitled from Siloueta series, Ana Mendieta, 1977 118
4.6 Untitled #153, Cindy Sherman, 1985 120
4.7 Advertisement for Ginfranco Ferre from Vogue 121
5.1 Interior Scroll, Carolee Schneemann, 1975. Photo by Peter Grass 133
5.2 Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Pablo Picasso, 1907 136
5.3 Invitation to a Dada Evening, Marcel Janco, 1916 143
5.4 Noire et Blanche, Man Ray, 1926 146
5.5 Die Süsse, Hannah Höch 152
6.1 Reverb-ber-ber-rations, Spiderwoman Theater 154
6.2 Lisa Mayo in Lysistrata Numbah, Spiderwoman Theater 164
6.3 An Evening of Disgusting Songs and Pukey Images, Spiderwoman
Theater, late 1970s 167
ix