Artist Carolee Schneemann to speak at Williams College
Williamstown, Mass - Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) announced today that internationally acclaimed artist Carolee Schneemann will deliver the Annual Plonsker Family Lecture in Contemporary Art. The lecture will take place on Thursday, November 13 at 7:00 pm at Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall on the Williams College campus. This is a free public event and all are invited to attend.Schneemann is an art historical icon, her work often focusing on the female body and provoking feminist dialogue. At the same time, Schneemann’s work defies classification as it references art history, current events, and embraces technological and artistic innovation. Schneemann may be most well-known as a performance artist; however she is originally a painter and she often exhibits her films and videos, photographs, drawings and artist’s notes.
"Williams is extremely proud to welcome this pioneering artist to campus," says WCMA Director Lisa Corrin. "Her thought-provoking work challenges our definition of art, and demonstrates the seminal place for the artistic voice in the envisioning and re-visioning of art history."
The Annual Family Plonsker Lecture in Contemporary Art
The Plonsker Family Lecture Series in Contemporary Art was established in 1994 by Madeleine Plonsker, Harvey Plonksker (Class of ’61) and their son, Ted Plonsker (Class of ’86), to examine current issues in contemporary art. Past lectures include the symposium "Jackson Pollock: Beneath the Surface, A Tribute to Kirk Varnedoe ’67"; and lectures by acclaimed artists Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Gregory Crewdson, Sarah Sze, and Kara Walker.
About the Artist
A multidisciplinary artist, Carolee Schneemann’s work is characterized by research into archaic visual traditions, the deconstruction of suppressive taboos, and the dynamic relation of the artistic body with the social body. Her work questions the exclusivity of traditional western categories by creating a space of mutuality and integration. She has transformed the very definition of art especially with regard to discourses concerning the body, sexuality, and technology.
The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City featured a retrospective of Schneemann's work in 1998 entitled, "Up To And Including Her Limits." In 2007, a dual exhibit at CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, NY and MOCCA Toronto featured recent video installations. Electronic Arts Intermix and Anthology Film Archives in New York City collaborated on presentations of newly restored and current film & videos in November 2007. Her work has also been shown at such renowned institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
In May of 2003, she received an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from CalArts. She was chosen for the American Academy of Arts & Letters Jimmy Ernst Award in 2002 and the Skowhegan Award in 2001. In 2000, Schneemann was acknowledged by the College Art Association as Distinguished Woman in the Arts. In 1998, her retrospective exhibit at the New Museum for Contemporary Art was awarded by the Art Critics Association of America. She has been the recipient of Media Grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Pollock-Krasner Fellowship, as well as grants from the Gottlieb Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Andrea Frank Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
MIT Press has just published Imaging Her Erotics - Essays, Interviews, Projects; editions of Schneemanns previous writing includes; More Than Meat Joy: Complete Performance Works and Selected Writings (1979, 1997);Video Burn (1992); Early and Recent Work (1983); ABC - We Print Anything - In The Cards (1977); Cezanne, She Was A Great Painter (1976); and Parts of a Body House Book (1972). Correspondence Course, a selection of her letters edited by Kristine Stiles is forthcoming from Duke University Press.
The Williams College Museum of Art is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free and the museum is wheelchair accessible. Publicity images for this exhibition and other current exhibitions are available for use by the press. Contact: Suzanne A. Silitch, Director of Communications and Strategy, 413.597.3178; suzanne.silitch@williams.edu; www.wcma.org.
