Carolee Schneemann’s Genealogies of the Spiritual

After Carolee Schneemann’s 1964 New York performance of Meat Joy in the sanctuary of the Judson Memorial Church, the Reverend Howard Moody became inspired by the lingering smell of fish to rewrite his sermon with analogies between Schneemann’s performance and the biblical miracles of the loaves and fishes. Schneemann appreciated the religious iconography and spiritual qualities of the Judson Church sanctuary space, and she described the significant effect that space had on Meat Joy as well as other works she developed at Judson. In this paper, Schneemann’s reflection on the New York performance of Meat Joy and her relationship to the Judson Church and its ministry act as a departure point for a broader re-thinking of the artist’s oeuvre in terms of its relationship to spiritual and religious histories, genealogies, and knowledges. While Schneemann rejected the patriarchy of dominant religious structures, she readily embraced aspects of sacred spaces, ritual, myth, and ecstatic states. From her early assemblages to her late performances to her writing, Schneemann embraced the sensorial and psychic as well as the transcendental qualities she saw as imperative to her creative production. Reading Schneemann’s work through the lens of its spiritual associations provides an enriched understanding of the artist’s interrogations and reimaginings of the material and the intangible.