CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN

I was very honoured to Skype with the artist in November 2018, four months before she passed away, about her contribution to the Helmut Lang artist series.

A series of ropes are suspended between two trees in an idyllic clearing. Eight men and women move across these ropes, without touching the ground, gripping onto one another to cross. “There was a freedom for risk”, says Schneeman of the context of the early works in which ‘Water Light / Water Needle’ (1966) formed a vital part: the risk of performers suspended some feet in the air with only one another to hold on to, but also the risk of a female artist in the 1960s so radically putting her body and sexuality on the line for her medium. With works like Meat Joy (1964), in which raw fish and chickens mingled with naked bodies, and Fuses (1965), in which sequences of the artist having sex with her partner are spliced and  collaged, Schneemann claimed her stake as one of her generation’s most radical feminist visionaries, articulating the frustrations of all women who are constantly told they do not own their bodies. But less discussed is how the bold independence of these actions combined with quieter, tender work like ‘Water Light / Water Needle, the Lake Mahwah performance of which forms her Helmut Lang collaboration. Here, you cannot move forward at all without depending on, and making your needs felt, to others. “It’s about interdependence,” says Schneeman of the piece’s inherent tenderness. “That’s characteristic in all my performative works – (they’re all) a series of exercises to address the taboos of self-presentation, and taboos of touching. You know, it's very pleasurable once you can move through your old layers of incertitude and fearfulness – it just takes a lot of practice.”

“Water light/Water Needle was inspired by my first visit to Venice, Italy – it was in 1964, for the Biennale. I was overwhelmed by the complete transformation of perceptual space. What was above was below: the transparency, the liquidity and the structures all merging (with) the water. There was an organisation of domestic space that I hadn’t experienced before – but that is Venice. It’s so unique and so inspiring. So I wanted to produce aerial work to suspend participants on a relay of works which, in some sense, occupied the dimensionality of transparency that Venice had often made.

Water Light/Water Needle required a great deal of mechanical adaptation. It was my first aerial work of choreography: I had to build ropes, they had to be structured on supports, they had to be measured in terms of space between the layers for movement. St Mark’s Church [where the original performance of Water Light/ Water Needle took place] allowed me to bring an architect friend to stabilise pillars and bring in the kind of mechanics that would support the ropes. But they never hesitated – the church people never said well this is insecure, or what if people fall off the ropes. There were no formal structures to help, there was no insurance, but there  were (also) no guidelines around the avant garde in the sixties: we sort of (made it happen) by pure will, and there were spaces that were willing to have us work within them.

There was a balloon salesman, a poet, a writer, usually my partner James Kenny, a musician, a painter… I didn’t work with trained performers, dancers or actors necessarily. I wanted something less predictive in terms of the (what the) participants (were) feeling about their own physicality.  But I would always assemble a group that would be harmonious together, that was very important. The rules and conception of the work was that when you came upon another person you  physically gesture to each other and made some combination to facilitate each others intentions. So you have to adapt your intentions while you’re on the road to the next figuration that you come upon. The higher you could go on the rope, the more dangerous it could be for your balance – it had that kind of tender regard while at the same time being very rigorous, which was important for me.”

Taken from the Helmut Lang Artist Series, which I wrote the editorial content for.