Clairvoyance (For Those In The Desert)

Performance Pieces, 1979–2004

Author: Frueh, Joanna
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822340218
eISBN Pdf: 9780822390466
Place of publication: Durham , United States
Year of digital publication: 2008
Month: March
Pages: 408
DDC: 812/.057089287
Language: English

Caption

The performance artist Joanna Frueh has emerged over the past twenty-five years as a wildly original voice in feminist art. Her uninhibited performances are celebrations of beauty, sensuality, eroticism, and pleasure. Clairvoyance (For Those In The Desert), which features eighteen of her essential performance texts, is a celebration of this remarkable artist and her work. Arranged chronologically, from The Concupiscent Critic (1979) through Ambrosia (2004), the pieces reveal Frueh’s evolution as an artist and intellectual over the course of her career. Many of these texts have never before been published; others have not been readily available until now. Among the sixteen color photographs in this richly illustrated book are pictures of Frueh performing and images from Joanna in the Desert, a 2006 collaboration between Frueh and the artist and scholar Jill O’Bryan.

Frueh’s performances are unabashedly autobiographical, as likely to reflect her scholarship as a feminist art historian as her love affairs or childhood memories. For Frueh, eros and self-love are part of a revolutionary feminist strategy; her work exemplifies the physicality and embrace of pleasure that she finds wanting in contemporary feminist theory. Scholarly and rigorous yet playful in tone, her performances are joyful, filled with eroticism, flowers, sexy costumes, and beautiful colors, textures, and scents. Recurring themes include Frueh’s passionate attachment to the desert landscape and the idea of transformation: a continual reaching for clarity of thought and feeling.
In an afterword as lyrical and breathless as her performance pieces, Frueh explores her identification with the desert and its influence on her art. Clairvoyance (For Those In The Desert) includes a detailed chronology of Frueh’s performances.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Nota Bene
Fucking Hot: An Introduction by Jill O’Bryan
JOANNA FRUEH’S WRITING
The Concupiscent Critic (1979)
BRUMAS (1982) Lyrics and text by Joanna Frueh, music by Thomas Kochheiser
Justifiable Anger (1982–83) Lyrics and text by Joanna Frueh, music by Thomas Kochheiser
Dual Conception (1983) Written by Joanna Frueh for a piece to be performed by Frueh and Thomas Kochheiser
Solar Shores (1984) Lyrics and text by Joanna Frueh, music by Thomas Kochheiser
A Few Erotic Faculties (1985–86)
Clairvoyance (For Those In The Desert) (1985–86) Lyrics and text by Joanna Frueh, music by Thomas Kochheiser
Breathing (1988) A Proposal for a Performance by Joanna Frueh and Russell Dudley, written by Frueh
Vermilion (1988)
Mouth Piece (1989)
Amazing Grace (1990) Written and Performed by Joanna Fruehand Russell Dudley
Pythia (1994)
Dressing Aphrodite (1997)
Sade, My Sweet, My Truffle; or, Giving a Fuck (1999)
The Aesthetics of Orgasm (2002)
Voyaging to Cythera (2003)
The Performance of Pink (2003)
Ambrosia (2004)
Shaking out the Dead: An Afterword by Joanna Frueh
Joanna Frueh Performance Chronology (1979–2005)