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247.
Parts of a Body House Book.
Cullumpton, Devon: Beau Geste Press, March 1972. The “low-cost edition”, an abridged mimeograph facsimile of the signed and numbered edition of 60 copies published by the same press two months earlier. Tall 4to. Illustrated. Wrps., stapled along top edge. Unpaginated (46pp.).
Schneemann’s groundbreaking exploration of bodily autonomy, sexuality and creativity, bringing together an eclectic range of texts, including her notes from the first viewing of “W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism” by the Serbian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev (7pp.); a conversation with a woman friend (‘K’) about her experiences of orgasm (4pp.); facsimile copies of letters to underground papers Ink and Friends, the latter signed by her as ‘Cuntalee Snowball’; letters to the poet Clayton Eshleman (7pp.) on the diaries of Anaïs Nin, and David Curtis, co-organiser of the first International Underground Film Festival in London in September 1970 during which Schneemann presented an ‘Expanded Cinema Event’ (“Free Form Recollections of New York”, 6pp., with references to Judson Dance Theater, USCO, Al Hansen, Fluxus artists, Andy Warhol); the recipe for ‘Americana I Ching Apple Pie’ as “Tested in the Belsize Park Kitchens U.K.”; sketches and notes for Kinetic Theater and other performances, including “Cat House”, 1966/67 (“a tiny room filled entirely with cats”), “Bathroom”, 1957 (“stormy afternoon. A cat is swimming in the bathtub”), and “Genital Play-Erotica Meat Room”, 1967 (“A large, curving space filled entirely with wonderfully fashioned, over life size, pricks, balls, nipples, clitoris’, labia majoria, labia minoria, cunts and ass holes”).
Includes a tipped-in “Sexual Parameters Survey - An attempt to note main parameters of love-making. Only from a woman’s point of view” (the survey, predating Shere Hite’s later research, was prompted by the end of Schneemann’s relationship with composer James Tenney and charted her own and four other women’s sexual experiences with men between 1969 and 1971).
Minor handling wear only. Very Good plus.
