A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s-1980s

by Lisa Graziose Corrin (Editor), Corinne Granof (Editor)

Overview

Charlotte Moorman was a bold, barrier-breaking musician and performance artist and a tireless champion of experimental art, whose avant-garde festivals in New York City brought new art forms to a broad public. To date, recognition of Moorman has been limited mostly to her collaborations with other artists, including composer John Cage and pioneering multimedia artist Nam June Paik, and to her 1967 performance of Paik’s "Opera Sextronique," for which she became known as the "topless cellist" after being arrested on indecency charges. A Feast of Astonishments looks deeper to portray Moorman as a leading international figure in her own right.

With more than 150 color images and essays by art historians, curators, and musicologists, this catalog will offer a fresh perspective and complement an exhibition that opens at Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art in January 2016 before traveling to New York University’s Grey Art Gallery in Manhattan and the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg, Austria. The exhibition will feature original sculptures, photographs, video, props and costumes, annotated music scores, archival materials, film clips, and audio recordings, many drawn from the Charlotte Moorman Archive at the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Library. The exhibition is a partnership between the Block Museum and the Northwestern University Libraries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810133273
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	01/31/2016
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

LISA GRAZIOSE CORRIN is Ellen Philips Katz Director and curator of modern and contemporary art at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

CORINNE GRANOF is curator of academic programs at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University and a specialist in twentieth-century German art.

 

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction: "In times like this . . ." Moorman’s Art in Context

Corinne Granof, Block Museum of Art

Charlotte Moorman’s Experimental Performance Practice

Ryan Dohoney, Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University

Beyond the Score: Charlotte Moorman and John Cage’s 26’1.1499" for a String Player

Jason Rosenholtz-Witt, Bienen School of Music, Northwestern

University

Messy Bodies and Frilly Valentines: Charlotte Moorman’s Opera Sextronique

Laura Wertheim Joseph, Block Museum of Art

Live Art in the Eternal Network: The Annual New York Avant- Garde Festivals

Hannah B Higgins, University of Illinois at Chicago

Festival Posters

Introduction by Joan Rothfuss, author of Topless Cellist:

The Improbable Life of Charlotte Moorman

Noise Bodies and Noisy Women: A Conversation with Carolee Schneemann

Lisa G. Corrin, Block Museum of Art

Sky Kiss

Joan Rothfuss

I Love Germany and Germany Loves Me: Charlotte Moorman’s Tours and the Transatlantic Avant-Garde

Rachel Jans, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Bomb-Paper-Ice: Charlotte Moorman and the Metaphysics of Extension

Kathy O’Dell, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

"Necessity’s Other": Charlotte Moorman and the Plasticity of Denial and Consent

Kristine Stiles, Duke University

"Don’t Throw Anything Out": Charlotte Moorman’s Archive

Scott Krafft, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special

Collections, Northwestern University Library

Editorial Reviews

Numerous cross-disciplinary essays … place Moorman’s work in dialogue with that of her contemporaries in new music, performance art and visual culture.” —Art in America

From the Publisher