The papers document the performances, happenings, film and book productions, and exhibitions of the American painter and performance artist Carolee Schneemann.

Carolee Schneemann actively engaged in performance art, experimental film-making, the Fluxus movement and feminist theory in the 1960s-1970s. The artist is best known for the provocative use of her nude body to explore personal expression, sexual taboos and feminism in both multi-media performances and solo improvisational work. Born in 1939, Schneemann studied painting at the University of Illinois and Bennington College in the late-1950s. Her performance work evolved out of a desire to express more than she could within the confines of her paintings, and retains some of the gestural qualities of abstract expressionism and the cluttered look of assemblage. In addition to choreographing her own scripts, Schneemann participated in some of the most influential events of the 1960s, including: Philip Corner's "An Environment for Sound and Motion" at the Living Theater (1962), Claes Oldenburg's "Store Days" (1962), Robert Rauschenberg's theater experiments, Robert Morris' "Site" (1964), and in Fluxus concerts.

ca. 60 linear ft. (123 boxes)

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