Performalist self-portraits

“I was just reminded of interviewer Charlie Rose asking why performance artist Karen Finley (she does all kinds of things) smeared her breasts with liquid chocolate during a performance, and she answered that she also smeared her elbows with the chocolate. Carolee Schneemann wanted her elbows to have the same priority as her genitals, as her vulva, etc. and when she was in art school it was okay to paint from a nude female model and for Carolee to pose for her male co-students, but when she did a nude self portrait painting with legs up and spread then it was considered obscene.” – SMW.

“I always say I want to be like nature to women’s culture, instead of that old chestnut, ‘women are nature, men are culture’ things are way more complex than this (starting with the fact that there is more than just women and men and spectrums and continuums must be taken account of). But yes, I want to be part of nature and that in relation to women’s culture, which I understand to be in the best sense more of a symbiosis with the world and planet and not a confrontation…” – SMW.

“Labor is such an important subject, it reminds me of that phrase ‘who will clean up after the revolution?’ Yes, who? And what kind of a revolution am I gunning for?” – SMW.

“I love my ass/hole but these are very specific parts of the body…” – SMW.