About the artworkA woman lies smeared with paint and fat, surrounded by rubble. Snakes coil over her chest and stomach. As in many Surrealist works, the female body here appears to constitute a playground for the irrational: women could be portrayed as both sexually desirable and threatening, even repulsive. But something changes when the artist Carolee Schneemann, a pioneer in feminist art and performance, takes control of the work and uses her own body as artistic material. She becomes a subject rather than an object in a male artist’s embodied imagination. Schneemann had a great interest in different religions, cultures, rites and symbols. The snake is a mythological creature that has come to symbolise a wide range of things, from death and evil to freedom and fertility. Signatures, inscriptions and marks Etikett på baksidan från galleri PPOW, New York: Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body #5 1963/2004, silver print, 19x23, edition 3/8, Schneemann-E115 Selected exhibition history Explosion (den 2 juni 2012 - den 9 september 2012) Moderna Museet, Stockholm SPEKTAKULÄRA TIDER 60-talet ur Moderna Museets samling (den 26 december 2009 - den 27 februari 2011) Moderna Museet Malmö The Moderna Museet exhibition catalogues Det andra önskemuseet : [Moderna Museet]Explosion! Måleri som handling / Painting as Action : [Moderna Museet 2/6-9/9 2012]

Works by the artist