Interview with Carolee Schneemann and Alexandra Juhasz

Also discovered in Clara Schulmann's book Chicanes, which I feel lukewarm about as despite some really interesting references and reflections (which bring back my undergrad classes in art history, cultural theory, and film studies at McGill) there seem to be a number of errors or omissions and each chapter, translated by a different translator, varies in quality. Instead of adding interesting texture and variation, the effect of the inconsistent translation stifles the text by causing unwelcome faltering. But anyway (bold added by me):

ALEXANDRA JUHASZ: I would like to talk to you about the legacy of your work I want to know what we owe you.

CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN: You owe me the vulva. You owe me beastiality. You owe me the love of the presence of the cat as a powerful companionate energy. You owe me heterosexual pleasure and the depiction of that pleasure. And you owe me thirty years of lost work that’s never been seen. That’s what you all owe me. I guess what I’m also owed is a living, an income. I am owed the chance to produce the work that I have envisioned, that I have never been able to do. I am owed the chance to preserve the work that already exists. I am glad that you asked. No one has ever asked me. And you can see, I’m fuming underneath.

Juhasz, Alexandra, ed. “Kate Horsfield.” In Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video, NED-New edition., 9:95–107. University of Minnesota Press, 2001.