Charlotte Moorman

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Madeline Charlotte Moorman (born November 18, 1933 in Little Rock , Arkansas , † November 8, 1991 in New York , NY ) was an American musician, Fluxus , video and performance artist, who became famous primarily for playing the cello .

Life

Moorman began playing the cello at the age of ten. She won a scholarship to Centenary College in Shreveport , Louisiana , from which she graduated in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in music. She received her MA from the University of Texas at Austin . She continued her studies in 1962 at the Juilliard School .

She began a conventional concert career and was a member of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski for several years . But she soon felt drawn to the multimedia performance art scene of the 1960s. She became a close associate of the Korean avant-garde artist Nam June Paik , with whom she toured a lot. In 1963 she founded the New York Avant-Garde Festival, which took place in Central Park and on the Staten Island Ferry until 1980 (annually except for 1970, 1976 and 1979). In 1965 she took part in the 24-hour happening in the Parnass Gallery in Wuppertal as a partner of Paik .

In 1967 she was arrested and charged for causing public nuisance when she appeared half-naked in Paik's Opera Sextronique . She was sentenced to probation. Through this event she became known throughout the USA as the "topless cellist". The composer Edgar Varèse called her the " Joan of Arc of New Music ". She also performed Paik's TV Bra for Living Sculpture (1969) with two small televisions on her breasts. Another memorable performance was Jim McWilliams' Sky Kiss in New York, Sydney and at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz , where it hung from helium-filled weather balloons and brightly colored inflatable sculptures by Otto Piene were in play.

In addition to her role as a star artist, she was also a successful spokesperson for modern art, who persuaded the authorities of New York and other cities to approve and provide space for unusual and provocative art performances. The years of the Avant-Garde Festival are said to have been a time of unprecedented good relations between the artists and the authorities.

Moorman was diagnosed with breast cancer in the late 1970s . She was treated and continued to appear through the 1980s despite deteriorating health and severe pain. She died of cancer when she was only 57.

meaning

Charlotte Moorman belonged to the Fluxus movement of avant-garde and performance art and, in addition to her own achievements, was also a close collaborator of various well-known artists of the second half of the 20th century such as Nam June Paik , John Cage , Joseph Beuys , Wolf Vostell , Yoko Ono , Carolee Snowman , Jim McWilliams & the like. A. In 1967, Joseph Beuys created his work Infiltration Homogen for Cello in her honor , a cello by Moorman sewn into felt . With this cello she had given a concert at the 4th New York Avant-Garde Festival in 1966 , which Joseph Beuys called Infiltration Homogen for cello .

Exhibitions

  • 2000: The World of Charlotte Moorman . Bound & Unbound , New York .
  • 2017: A festival of wonder. Charlotte Moorman and the avant-garde, 1960–1980 . Museum der Moderne Salzburg .

literature

  • 24 hours . Beuys, Brock, yearling, Klophaus, Moorman, Paik, Rahn, Schmit, Vostell. Hansen & Hansen, Itzehoe-Vosskate, 1965.
  • Karin von Maur (ed.): From the sound of pictures. Music in 20th Century Art . Prestel, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7913-0727-4 .
  • Vostell. Die Weinende, Homage to Charlotte Moorman , Galerie Inge Baecker, Cologne 1992.
  • Jürgen Claus : Charlotte Moorman , in: Jürgen Claus, love art. An autobiography in twenty-one encounters . Kerber, ZKM Karlsruhe 2013, ISBN 978-3-86678-788-9 .
  • The World of Charlotte Moorman . Barbara Moore, Bound & Unbound, New York, 2000. 
  • 24 hours - in photographs by Bodo Niederprüm . Das Wunderhorn, 2016, ISBN 978-3-8842-3538-6 .
  • Topless Cellist: The Improbable Life of Charlotte Moorman by Joan Rothfuss, MIT Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0-2625-3358-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Courrier de l'Ouest: Saumurois. Charlotte Moorman “s'installe” pour quatre mois au château-musée de Montsoreau. November 12, 2019, accessed November 12, 2019 (French).
  2. ↑ Karin von Maur (ed.): From the sound of images. Music in 20th Century Art . Prestel, Munich 1985, p. 295
  3. ↑ Ryerson and Burnham Archives: The World of Charlotte Moorman Collection accession listing (with a short biography) ( Memento of July 30, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (English; PDF; 86 kB)
  4. ↑ A festival of wonder. Charlotte Moorman and the avant-garde, 1960–1980 . Museum der Moderne Salzburg
  5. ↑ 24 hours . Publication, 1965.
  6. ↑ time.arts.ucla.edu (March 4, 2017)
personal data
SURNAME Moorman, Charlotte
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American performance artist and musician
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Little Rock , Arkansas
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 1991
Place of death New York City