DIED
Carolee Schneemann Artists’ artist
By Laurie Simmons
ALTHOUGH CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN CLAIMED SHE WOULD LIVE and die as a painter, her work broke nearly every rule of that tradition. Carolee established a catalog of thought on gender, sex and the politics of representation from which I and almost every woman artist I admire has taken a page. Way before the ideas of sex-positive feminism emerged in the ’80s, her body-positive, pro-sensual art put her at odds with both ’60s feminists who saw her as exploitative and male artists and critics who saw her work as a tease.
Like young artists today, Carolee, who died on March 6 at 79, moved freely between mediums—going beyond painting to film, performance, photography, installation, collage, sculpture, drawing and writing. She reimagined the ways…
