Interior Scroll, 1975

1975/77
performance, Women Here and Now, East Hampton, NY, August 29, 1975. Photos: Anthony McCall
Telluride Film Festival, Telluride, CO, September 4, 1977

Interior Scroll was performed twice. Each "reading" required a reitual preparation for the action, a gradual inhabitiation of the space, increasing concentration. For Women Here and Now I placed a long table under two dimmed spot lights, in a corner of the exhibition/performance hall of the old town meeting house... I approached the table dressed and carrying two sheets. I undressed, wrappped myself in one sheet, spread the other over the table and told the audience I would read from Cézanne, She Was a Great Painter. I dropped the covering sheet and standing there painted large strokes defining the contours of my body and face. The reading was done on top of the table, taking a series of life model "action poses," the book balanced in one hand. At the conclusion I dropped the book and stood upright on the table. The scroll was slowly extracted as I read from it, inch by inch.

Carolee Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy. Documentext, New Paltz, NY, 1979.