Carolee Schneemann is one of the first American artists to have opened up the field of performance to body art. By staging her own body in crude and liberating performances, she made the female body the centre, the object, as well as the subject of the action, in a consciously scandalous proto-feminist exploration of the relationships between art, eroticism, and social norms. Schneemann studied painting at several institutions, including Columbia University. Her early works were inspired by abstract expressionism and leaned toward Neo-Dada. She became close with a vast circle of artists in New York, including Stan Brakhage and Robert Rauschenberg, and was influenced by the work of Allan Kaprow.

She has done many performances for stage, film and photography throughout her career, often exploring erotic and sexual dimensions to provoke and interrogate preconceived notions of menstruation, sexuality, and the body as a desiring subject and desired object.

Photo credit : Joan Barker, 1996