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==Career==
==Career==
She began a traditional [[concert hall]] career but was soon drawn into the active [[mixed-media]] [[performance art]] scene of the 1960s. She became a close associate and collaborator of Korean [[avant-garde]] artist [[Nam June Paik]], and was a regular interpreter of experimental composers, including [[John Cage]], [[Edgar Varese|Edgar Varèse]] and [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]]. Moorman was a friend and associate of many well-known artists of the late twentieth century, including Paik, Cage, [[Wolf Vostell]], [[Joseph Beuys]], [[Joseph Byrd]], [[Yoko Ono]], [[Carolee Schneemann]], Jim McWilliams and others.<ref>[http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/project-archive/charlotte-moorman-and-nam-june-paik-1976 "Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik 1976"], Kaldor Art Projects, Retrieved 23 May 2014.</ref> She was involved with the [[Fluxus]] movement of avant-garde and performance art, working closely with many of its protagonists, including Paik and Ono, and interpreting enigmatic scores written in the open-ended spirit of Fluxus.<ref>http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/womeninflux/</ref> In 1966, Beuys, then-associated with Fluxus, created his work ''Infiltration Homogen für Cello,'' a felt-covered [[violoncello]], in her honor.<ref name="Sounding the Gallery">{{cite book|last=Rogers|first=Holly|title=Sounding the Gallery: Video and the Rise of Art-Music|year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=London|page=174|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=muS60XYy1O8C&lpg=PA174&ots=PcpGgQWXqi&dq=Infiltration%20Homogen%20f%C3%BCr%20Cello&pg=PA174#v=onepage&q=Infiltration%20Homogen%20f%C3%BCr%20Cello&f=false}}</ref> However, Moorman, like numerous other female artists including her close friend, Schneemann, was "blacklisted" by Fluxus-organizer [[George Maciunas]] for reasons that remain unclear.<ref name="Fluxus Feminus">{{cite journal|last=O'Dell|first=Kathy|title=Fluxus Feminus|journal=TDR|date=Spring 1997|volume=41|issue=1|page=44|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1146571|accessdate=2/1/2013}}</ref>
Following her studies at Julliard, Moorman commenced a classical [[concert hall]] career as a cellist and joined the American Symphony Orchestra.<ref name="Archive">{{cite web|last=Kaldor Public Art Projects|first=|title=Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik|url=http://archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/archived/2010/kaldor_projects/artists/moorman_and_paik/|work=archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au}}</ref> However, she was soon drawn into the more experimental [[performance art]] scene of the 1960s through her roommate and friend [[Yoko Ono]].<ref name=Archive/> She also became a close associate and collaborator of Korean [[avant-garde]] artist [[Nam June Paik]], and was a regular interpreter of experimental composers, including [[John Cage]], [[Edgar Varese|Edgar Varèse]] and [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]]. Moorman was a friend and associate of many well-known artists of the late twentieth century, including Paik, Cage, [[Wolf Vostell]], [[Joseph Beuys]], [[Joseph Byrd]], [[Yoko Ono]], [[Carolee Schneemann]], Jim McWilliams and others.<ref>[http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/project-archive/charlotte-moorman-and-nam-june-paik-1976 "Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik 1976"], Kaldor Art Projects, Retrieved 23 May 2014.</ref> She was involved with the [[Fluxus]] movement of avant-garde and performance art, working closely with many of its protagonists, including Paik and Ono, and interpreting enigmatic scores written in the open-ended spirit of Fluxus.<ref>]http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/womeninflux/ "Women in Flux"], The Museum of Modern Art.</ref> In 1966, Beuys, then-associated with Fluxus, created his work ''Infiltration Homogen für Cello,'' a felt-covered [[violoncello]], in her honor.<ref name="Sounding the Gallery">{{cite book|last=Rogers|first=Holly|title=Sounding the Gallery: Video and the Rise of Art-Music|year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=London|page=174|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=muS60XYy1O8C&lpg=PA174&ots=PcpGgQWXqi&dq=Infiltration%20Homogen%20f%C3%BCr%20Cello&pg=PA174#v=onepage&q=Infiltration%20Homogen%20f%C3%BCr%20Cello&f=false}}</ref> However, Moorman, like numerous other female artists including her close friend, Schneemann, was "blacklisted" by Fluxus-organizer [[George Maciunas]] for reasons that remain unclear.<ref name="Fluxus Feminus">{{cite journal|last=O'Dell|first=Kathy|title=Fluxus Feminus|journal=TDR|date=Spring 1997|volume=41|issue=1|page=44|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1146571|accessdate=2/1/2013}}</ref>


===Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York===
===Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York===
In 1963 Moorman founded the ''[[Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York|New York Avant-Garde Festival]]''.<ref name="Norman"> Norman, Geraldine. [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-market--material-challenge-knickers-on-the-line-by-ayo-a-beuys-cello-wrapped-in-felt--charlotte-moorman-cellist-and-performance-artist-left-some-extraordinary-mementoes-of-the-avantgarde-1492729.html "Material Challenges"], ''The Independent'', Retrieved 23 May 2014.</ref> The Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York presented the experimental music of the Fluxus group and Happenings alongside performance, kinetic art, and video art.<ref name="4th"> [http://eai.org/title.htm?id=1011 "4th and 7th Annual Avant Garde Festivals of New York"], Electronic Arts Intermix, Retrieved 15 June 2014.</ref> Despite the event's title the festival was not held annually. There were fifteen festivals from 1963 to 1980.<ref name=Norman/> In addition, the festivals were often organized at unique locations such as Shea Stadium, the World Trade Center, and the Staten Island Ferries.<ref name=4th/>
In 1963 Moorman founded the ''[[Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York|New York Avant-Garde Festival]]''.<ref name="Norman"> Norman, Geraldine. [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-market--material-challenge-knickers-on-the-line-by-ayo-a-beuys-cello-wrapped-in-felt--charlotte-moorman-cellist-and-performance-artist-left-some-extraordinary-mementoes-of-the-avantgarde-1492729.html "Material Challenges"], ''The Independent'', Retrieved 23 May 2014.</ref> The Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York presented the experimental music of the Fluxus group and Happenings alongside performance, kinetic art, and video art.<ref name="4th"> [http://eai.org/title.htm?id=1011 "4th and 7th Annual Avant Garde Festivals of New York"], Electronic Arts Intermix, Retrieved 15 June 2014.</ref> Despite the event's title the festival was not held annually. There were fifteen festivals from 1963 to 1980.<ref name=Norman/> In addition, the festivals were often organized at unique locations such as Shea Stadium, the World Trade Center, and the Staten Island Ferries.<ref name=4th/>


As well as being a star performer of avant-garde pieces, she was an effective spokesperson and negotiator for advanced art, charming the bureaucracies of New York and other major cities into co-operating and providing facilities for controversial and challenging performances. The years of the Avant Garde Festival marked a period of unparalleled understanding and good relations between advanced artists and local authorities.<ref>{{cite web|last=Kaldor Public Art Projects|first=|title=Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik|url=http://archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/archived/2010/kaldor_projects/artists/moorman_and_paik/|work=archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au}}</ref> Friend and artist [[Jim McWilliams]]' created numerous memorable pieces for her to perform at the New York Avant Garde Festivals, including ''Sky Kiss'' which involved her hanging suspended from helium-filled weather balloons for the Sixth Avant Garde Festival, and The Intravenous Feeding of Charlotte Moorman for the 1973 edition.<ref name="McWilliams Press Release">{{cite web|last=McWilliams|first=Jim|title=The Intravenous Feeding of Charlotte Moorman (A Deep Sea Event for Cerise Cello)- Press Release|url=http://www.eai.org/supportingDocumentView.htm?id=341&from=a.344.34|work=Electronic Arts Intermix|accessdate=1 February 2014}}</ref> or the brightly colored inflatable sculptures of [[Otto Piene]].
As well as being a star performer of avant-garde pieces, she was an effective spokesperson and negotiator for advanced art, charming the bureaucracies of New York and other major cities into co-operating and providing facilities for controversial and challenging performances. The years of the Avant Garde Festival marked a period of unparalleled understanding and good relations between advanced artists and local authorities.<ref name=Archive/> Friend and artist [[Jim McWilliams]]' created numerous memorable pieces for her to perform at the New York Avant Garde Festivals, including ''Sky Kiss'' which involved her hanging suspended from helium-filled weather balloons for the Sixth Avant Garde Festival, and The Intravenous Feeding of Charlotte Moorman for the 1973 edition.<ref name="McWilliams Press Release">{{cite web|last=McWilliams|first=Jim|title=The Intravenous Feeding of Charlotte Moorman (A Deep Sea Event for Cerise Cello)- Press Release|url=http://www.eai.org/supportingDocumentView.htm?id=341&from=a.344.34|work=Electronic Arts Intermix|accessdate=1 February 2014}}</ref> or the brightly colored inflatable sculptures of [[Otto Piene]].


===Collaborations with Nam June Paik===
===Collaborations with Nam June Paik===

Revision as of 21:12, 15 June 2014

Charlotte Moorman
Born18 November 1933
Little Rock, Arkansas
Died8 November 1991
New York City, New York
NationalityAmerican
Known forCellist, Performance artist

Madeline Charlotte Moorman Garside (November 18, 1933–November 8, 1991) was an American cellist and performance artist.[1] She was a frequent collaborator of Korean artist Nam June Paik and was referred to as the "Jeanne d'Arc of new music" for her advocacy of avant-garde music.[2]

Early life

Madeline Charlotte Moorman was born on 18 November, 1933 in Little Rock, Arkansas.[3] She studied cello from age ten, graduated from Little Rock High School in 1951, and won a scholarship to Centenary College (Shreveport, Louisiana) where she took her B.A. in music in 1955. She received her M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and continued on to postgraduate studies at The Juilliard School in 1957.[3]

Career

Following her studies at Julliard, Moorman commenced a classical concert hall career as a cellist and joined the American Symphony Orchestra.[4] However, she was soon drawn into the more experimental performance art scene of the 1960s through her roommate and friend Yoko Ono.[4] She also became a close associate and collaborator of Korean avant-garde artist Nam June Paik, and was a regular interpreter of experimental composers, including John Cage, Edgar Varèse and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Moorman was a friend and associate of many well-known artists of the late twentieth century, including Paik, Cage, Wolf Vostell, Joseph Beuys, Joseph Byrd, Yoko Ono, Carolee Schneemann, Jim McWilliams and others.[5] She was involved with the Fluxus movement of avant-garde and performance art, working closely with many of its protagonists, including Paik and Ono, and interpreting enigmatic scores written in the open-ended spirit of Fluxus.[6] In 1966, Beuys, then-associated with Fluxus, created his work Infiltration Homogen für Cello, a felt-covered violoncello, in her honor.[7] However, Moorman, like numerous other female artists including her close friend, Schneemann, was "blacklisted" by Fluxus-organizer George Maciunas for reasons that remain unclear.[8]

Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York

In 1963 Moorman founded the New York Avant-Garde Festival.[9] The Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York presented the experimental music of the Fluxus group and Happenings alongside performance, kinetic art, and video art.[10] Despite the event's title the festival was not held annually. There were fifteen festivals from 1963 to 1980.[9] In addition, the festivals were often organized at unique locations such as Shea Stadium, the World Trade Center, and the Staten Island Ferries.[10]

As well as being a star performer of avant-garde pieces, she was an effective spokesperson and negotiator for advanced art, charming the bureaucracies of New York and other major cities into co-operating and providing facilities for controversial and challenging performances. The years of the Avant Garde Festival marked a period of unparalleled understanding and good relations between advanced artists and local authorities.[4] Friend and artist Jim McWilliams' created numerous memorable pieces for her to perform at the New York Avant Garde Festivals, including Sky Kiss which involved her hanging suspended from helium-filled weather balloons for the Sixth Avant Garde Festival, and The Intravenous Feeding of Charlotte Moorman for the 1973 edition.[11] or the brightly colored inflatable sculptures of Otto Piene.

Collaborations with Nam June Paik

At the Second Avant Garde Festival, Moorman convinced Stockhausen to allow a New York restaging of his performance piece, Originale, on the condition that Paik would reprise his role.[12] This meeting began the decades-long collaboration between Moorman and Paik. Paik created many works specifically for Moorman, including TV Bra for Living Sculpture (1969) and TV-Cello (1971), and the two performed and toured internationally for many years.[12]In 1967 Moorman achieved notoriety for her performance of Paik's Opera Sextronique, a seminude performance which resulted in her arrest on charges of indecent exposure, though her penalty was later suspended. The incident gave her nationwide fame as the "topless cellist."[3] For this piece, Paik himself performed the role of the cello, kneeling in front of Moorman and holding the strings over his shoulders.[9] Moorman was fired from the American Symphony Orchestra following this collaboration.[9]

Following this incident, her collaborations with Paik focused more on humanizing technology and less on sexualizing music, as in works like TV Bra for Living Sculpture (1969), for which two small television receivers were attached to her breasts while she played cello.[13]

Death

In the late 1970s she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy and further treatment, to continue performing through the 1980s in spite of pain and deteriorating health. She died of cancer in New York City on November 8, 1991, aged 57.[3] Following Moorman's untimely death, Schneeman created an online memorial page for her friend.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Charlotte Moorman", Electronic Arts Intermix, Retrieved 23 May 2014.
  2. ^ "Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik", Art Gallery of New South Wales, Retrieved 23 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d Collins, Glenn. "Charlotte Moorman, 58, is Dead; A Cellist in Avant-Garde Works", The New York Times, Retrieved 23 May 2014.
  4. ^ a b c Kaldor Public Art Projects. "Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik". archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au.
  5. ^ "Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik 1976", Kaldor Art Projects, Retrieved 23 May 2014.
  6. ^ ]http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/womeninflux/ "Women in Flux"], The Museum of Modern Art.
  7. ^ O'Dell, Kathy (Spring 1997). "Fluxus Feminus". TDR. 41 (1): 44. Retrieved 2/1/2013. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  8. ^ a b c d Norman, Geraldine. "Material Challenges", The Independent, Retrieved 23 May 2014.
  9. ^ a b "4th and 7th Annual Avant Garde Festivals of New York", Electronic Arts Intermix, Retrieved 15 June 2014.
  10. ^ McWilliams, Jim. "The Intravenous Feeding of Charlotte Moorman (A Deep Sea Event for Cerise Cello)- Press Release". Electronic Arts Intermix. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
  11. ^ a b Piekut, Benjamin (2011). Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits. University of California Press. p. 140.
  12. ^ Walker Art Center. "TV Bra for Living Sculpture". WalkerArt.org.

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