From November 12, 2019, the Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art will devote an exhibition to Charlotte Moorman, a true legend of international contemporary creation.
Charlotte Moorman. Think Crazy moves away from the simplistic image of « topless cellist » that Charlotte Moorman has had since her performance of Nam June Paik’s « Sextronic Opera » to present the unclassifiable, iconoclastic and radical artist who is at once cellist, performer, event organizer and mediator of the avant-garde.
The « Joan of Arc of the New Music »
Because of her militant attitude, Charlotte Moorman was very early nicknamed the « Joan of Arc of New Music » by the composer Edgar Varèse.
After her academic training, Charlotte Moorman freed herself from the straitjacket of classical music to propose a vision of contemporary music based on the porosity between artistic practices.
She is close to John Cage, who developed a music in which the sounds of the world are used as a source of creation. She, for her part, develops a new relationship with interpretation, introducing a creative approach.
At every opportunity, Charlotte Moorman enthusiastically questions the frontier between music and visual arts and collaborates with the most innovative artists of her time: Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys.
The instrument of desire
Whatever the proposal, Charlotte Moorman executes it with precision.
In her performances, Charlotte Moorman emphasizes the physical and even carnal relationship between her body and her instrument. Both are sometimes put to the test, as when she plays naked on a cello carved out of a block of ice (Ice Cello, 1976) or when she plays on a bomb transformed into a cello (Bomb Cello, 1965).
She nevertheless manages to shock public opinion and to be arrested for indecent assault in the middle of a performance when, in 1967 during the Sextronic Opera with Nam June Paik, she takes off her clothes and continues to play bare-breasted. Many feminist artists (with the exception of her long-time friend Carolee Schneemann) have publicly denounced her, believing that she had too willingly exposed her body.
Sometimes a foreign body appears, such as that of Nam June Paik (Child of the Cello), which is interposed between the concert performer’s body and her cello.
If the body can be used as an instrument in the service of music, on the other hand, it is never instrumentalized.
Charlotte Moorman ironizes the idea of beauty conveyed by classical painting and denounces society’s obsession with the female body. In a photo taken for Miss City Beautiful in 1952, she already showed her sumptuous beauty with a casual and amused detachment. Suspended in the sky with balloons (Sky Kiss) by Jim McWilliams in 1976, in front of the Sydney Opera House, she plays her instrument with intensity, dressed in a concert dress in the image of a classical concert performer.
« Think Crazy »
In 1963, Charlotte Moorman created the « Festival d’avant-garde »… a festival that will last for 15 years. Programming the events, it invites artists (filmmakers, dancers, poets, musicians…) both known and unknown to invest New York City. From 1966 onwards, the festival ceased to take place in traditional theatres and moved to the public space (the J.F.Kennedy ferry, Central Park, the Wards and Mill Rock Islands, the 69th Infantry Regiment Arsenal or the Shea Stadium), thus setting a precedent for future major festivals of this kind.
Like a motto inscribed on the banners of the Avant-Garde Festival, « Think Crazy » by Polish artist Marek Konieczny is an exhortation to boldness and creativity. Combining his classical training with the avant-garde, Moorman once remarked: « I don’t feel like destroying a tradition. I feel like I’m creating something new. »
The exhibition
Charlotte Moorman. Think Crazy focuses on two main themes: Moorman’s repertoire as an artist and her work as founder and organizer of the Annual New York Avant-Garde Festival. It includes a wide variety of works: photos, videos, archives, ephemera from the artist’s private archives.
Several iconic works mark the route, such as Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, which Charlotte Moorman is said to have performed nearly 700 times in her career and during which the audience is invited to cut off her red dress to take a piece with them; or Bomb Cello, where she appears playing the cello on a bomb with braided flowers as a bow.
The ephemera from her personal archives bear witness to a prolific production, as do all the posters for the 15 editions of the avant-garde festival.