CHAMPAIGN, IL.- Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion present Carolee Schneemann: Within and Beyond the Premises January 27 through April 1, 2012. A public reception to celebrate the exhibition opening will be held on Thursday, January 26, 6–7 pm. The reception will feature a gallery conversation with the artist, Carolee Schneemann, at 6 pm.
A multidisciplinary artist, Carolee Schneemann transformed the definition of contemporary art, steering it toward a discourse on the body, sexuality, and gender. Schneemann initially examined these issues through the medium of painting, but in the early 1960s she began employing other media—notably, performance and installation art and documentary photography—to explore suppressive taboos and the relationship between the individual human body and the social body.
In the 1960s Schneemann became part of the "experimental avant-garde" that included Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Allan Kaprow, Jim Dine, and other artists interested in moving beyond Abstract Expressionism. She collaborated with Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and others to develop the Judson Dance Theater and created performance productions involving multiple participants that she called "kinetic theater." Since the mid-1960s, Schneemann has pursued film as a mixed-media art form, and on occasion, within the context of performance. These works place her at the forefront of experimental film's investigation of materiality and abstraction, as well as feminist content. Work of the late sixties and early eighties included protest work related to the Vietnam War and the atrocities in Beirut.
This retrospective exhibition presents Schneemann's career from her earliest work to her most recent investigations, ultimately revealing the artist's thought process. The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, photography, installation work, video projections, and writings, some of which were created while finishing her MFA degree from the School of Art + Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Carolee Schneemann: Within and Beyond the Premises, curated by Brian Wallace, was first organized by and presented at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz from February 6 through July 25, 2010. This revised presentation has been organized by Krannert Art Museum in partnership with the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, and curated by Elizabeth Brown and Kathleen Harleman.
