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The Explicit Body in Performance
Contributor(s): Schneider, Rebecca (Author)
ISBN: 0415090261     ISBN-13: 9780415090261
Publisher: Routledge
OUR PRICE:   $44.60  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: January 1997
Qty:
Annotation:

What happens when a body is presented as a stage, and dramas unfold across it--is it Performance Art or pornography? "The Explicit Body" examines the controversial and often shocking issues which surround the use of the female body in performance art.
Since the early 1960s, women in performance art have worked to "liberate" the female body from the confines of patriarchal delimitation. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the clash of the rubrics "porn" and "art"' manipulated by female artists worked to complicate the already embattled debates about the terms of that liberation. Schneider tackles topics which include the "post-porn modernist movement," censorship by the New Right, primitivism, commodity fetishism, and the link between the modern prostitute and the postmodern performance artist. Among the many artists discussed are Karen Finley, Spiderwoman Theatre, Carolee Scheemann, and Annie Sprinkle. Theoretically sophisticated, trenchantly argued and elegantly written, "The Explicit Body" will be illuminating reading for students and teachers of performance studies, women's studies and cultural studies as well as practitioners of performance art.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Theater - History & Criticism
- Drama
Dewey: 700.82
LCCN: 97137002
Lexile Measure: 1580
Physical Information: 0.68" H x 6.2" W x 9.24" (1.22 lbs) 256 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
The Explicit Body in Performance interrogates the avant-garde precedents and theoretical terrain that combined to produce feminist performance art. Among the many artists discussed are:
* Carolle Schneemann
* Annie Sprinkle
* Karen Finley
* Robbie McCauley
* Ana Mendieta
* Ann Magnuson
* Sandra Bernhard
* Spiderwoman
Rebecca Schneider tackles topics ranging across the 'post-porn modernist movement', New Right censorship, commodity fetishism, perspectival vision, and primitivism. Employing diverse critical theories from Benjamin to Lacan to postcolonial and queer theory, Schneider analyses artistic and pop cultural depictions of the explicit body in late commodity capitalism.
The Explicit Body in Performance is complemented by extensive photographic illustrations and artistic productions of postmodern feminist practitioners. The book is a fascinating exploration of how these artists have wrestled with the representational structures of desire.