Cycladic Imprints, 1990 – 1993

multimedia installation with motorized violins, slides, dissolve unites, projectors and quadrophonic sound

This multi-image installation interpolates well-known art historical representations of the female body from painting, sculpture, and photography onto a wall-bound assemblage of mechanized violins and painted hourglass-shaped silhouettes. Schneemann builds a vocabulary of over 300 projected images sequenced across four projectors and dissolving into each other through the agency of slide dissolve units. A amalgam of double curves mixes Cycladic sculpture, violins, fronds, nude torsos (and Man Ray’s “KiKi “decorated as a cello). The quadraphonic sound composed by Malcolm Goldstein fragments cross-cultural sources of violin music.

Installed at the Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago (1992), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1991), Emily Harvey Gallery (1990), The Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati (1990).

Image: Exhibition view, Cycladic Imprints-A Kinetic Installation, Emily Harvey Gallery, New York, NY 1990. Courtesy The Emily Harvey Foundation Collection and Archive.

six violins are installed over a projected image of a woman's nude crotch standing in front of a blue, red, and white abstract background