Double Trouble, continued
By Kathleen Wentrack

Sexuality-Eroticism-Pleasure

Traditionally, women have been defined in terms of heterosexual male desire. Schneemann has actively tried to turn the tables-not to invert one for the other but to make heterosexual female desire, sexuality and experience part of the equation. "I wanted to put everything in Fuses that seemed normal and ordinary. Then I edited sequences so that whenever you were looking at the male genitals it would dissolve into the female and vice versa; the viewer's unconscious attitudes would be constantly challenged."³⁹ Female sexuality and pleasure has too often been represented and defined according to heterosexual male desire: not female desire, gay or straight. Schneemann describes some of the first reactions to Fuses: 

Schneemann has explored female sexuality, taken control of it, and celebrated it. This is empowering to heterosexual women. No guilt, no shame, no hiding it.

Interior Scroll (1975) is based on research into "vulvic space" that Schneemann began in 1960 and included the study of symbols in ancient civilizations.⁴¹ Her thoughts developed: "I though of the vagina in many ways - physically, conceptually: as a sculptural form, an architectural referent, the source of sacred knowledge, ecstacy [sic], birth passage, transformation. I saw the vagina as a translucent chamber of which the serpent was an outward model."⁴² The performance began with Schneemann undressing and wrapping her body in a sheet. She read from her book Cézanne, She Was Great Painter, then dropped the sheet and covered her body in broad strokes of paint along its contours. After which she extracted a scroll from her vagina and read a text from her work Kitch's Last Meal (1973-1978). The text addressed how a filmmaker viewed her and her work and his misunderstandings of both. This latter part of the performance is based on Schneemann's understanding of "interior knowledge" and how she "related womb and vagina to 'primary knowledge.'"⁴³ This work looks to the female body and female sexuality as a source for creativity, an aspect that runs through much of Schneemann's work.

Schneemann performed Fresh Blood-A Dream Morphology in Middelburg in 1981. The work constitutes a process of researching blood taboos and symbols which stem from a menstrual dream.

For the visual aspect of the work, she realized that menstruation was considered too debased in American culture, "I decided that my approach to its visual associations would be layered and suggestive. Therefore, I built the visual vocabulary and narrative content…on associations with the vulvic "V" symbol."⁴⁵ She researched forms from nature, science, sacred religions, popular culture, and even Tantra couples whose intertwined bodies formed vector shapes, these diverse forms reveal a relationship to the vulvic V, symbolism the artist relates to the female body. She produced drawings based on these images which form the visual space via slides in front of which she performed with a clear umbrella. In tandem, she formed a lecture on blood taboos from a feminist perspective "to attack and dismantle and rearrange Freudian theory once again."

The taped text contextualizes the images, addressing the relationships between the images and female sexual experience, for example:
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Schneemann's other text on the tape describes how prevailing male interpretations of dreams, female creativity and sexuality have denigrated these areas of women's lives. She counters Freud's denial of the body in his "dream-mind" by describing the "dream-body," a more integrated concept. In the second part of the Fresh Blood performance, Schneemann reads her text and describes the connection the artist makes between the dream object of the umbrella and its relationship to both "cunt and cock."

This complex work - the surface is only scratched here - takes images of women pervasive in media, education, religion and popular culture and moves towards a symbolism of women and their sexuality which counters the phallic order. Schneemann's work celebrates female sexuality as a source of energy and creativity. For many, this is difficult to take as Frueh describes, "Neither indecent, imprudent, immodest, nor brazen, Schneemann's pleasure is unashamed. It only appears arrogant in an art world that likes its pleasure cut by irony, ambiguity, danger, or past pain, that elevates an abject or grotesque aesthetic, so that an aesthetic of unadulterated pleasure in an aphroditean body is 'too much' because it is more than many of us can imagine to be possible for ourselves."⁴⁹ In response to queries about audience reactions to Fresh Blood, Schneemann describes her experience in Holland:

The manner in which Schneemann references her body very directly, physically, tactilely against a male dominated system informs Murray-Wassink's work and provides him with a reference point to work against the dominant modes of sexuality. Her approach interests him in its "direct referencing of the genitals and an eroticized body without shame."⁵⁰ More directly, he states, "It is also very important to me how Carolee treats the presentation of the female genital-it inspires and has inspired me to think of ways of presenting and dealing with my own genital, and in my case the extended reference of my 'asshole' as my sexual orifice and the feelings surrounding it."⁵¹ The previously discussed Erotic Homosexual White Western Male Artist Self Nude (2000/2001) series is viewed by Murray-Wassink as a significant breakthrough in processing his sexuality. In terms of using text such as "gay" on the surface he describes:

The artist is working through his own understanding of sexuality and how that functions within American and Dutch society.

Murray-Wassink believes that America makes gay men sexless by not acknowledging their sexuality and relationships, such as denying the existence of such a relationship through forbidding marriage and partner benefits.⁵³ To undermine this problem, he explains that "I want to present myself as threateningly normal." Murray-Wassink explores ways in which gay sexuality is not seen as abhorrent and deviant but normal. At the same time, the series recognizes homosexual desire and sexuality and takes pleasure in the erotic energy that his body offers.

Me/Clitoris/Dildo (2000) crosses borders and taboos in complicated ways. A purchased, and used, dildo lies in its original clear plastic box with "ME" written on one side in red marker and "CLITORIS" on the other in dark blue marker. In making this work Murray-Wassink was thinking about his own sexuality and it representing his interior/rectum.⁵⁴ When questioned about the motives and effectiveness of the work, he responded that it was an experiment of pushing the envelope after long discussion with his sister about life, women and equality. Using the word clitoris could be viewed as a simple reductionism of female sexual organs-equating the penis with the clitoris. However, the artist's motives were different:

For Murray-Wassink, the work addresses a reverence for what women, lesbian and straight, have done and their own uniqueness. He is clearly aware that he has crossed a line but it is part of his experimental process and helps him deal with questions he feels need to be addressed.

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