Jimmy DeSana
P·P·O·W is pleased to present Strip, a group exhibition bringing together three major works by the groundbreaking artists Jimmy DeSana, Carolee Schneemann, and Martha Wilson. In 101 Nudes, 1972, ICES STRIP / ISIS TRIP, 1972, and Transformance: Claudia, 1973, DeSana, Schneemann, and Wilson combine performance with seriality, text, and photo to establish the body as medium within conceptual art. Created between 1972-1973 in the context of a male dominated conceptual art movement and a cultural backdrop of conservative backlash against the recent civil rights, feminist, and gay liberation movements, these performance driven works undermined societal taboos and restrictions surrounding sexuality and gender within the art world and beyond. DeSana, Schneemann, and Wilson's campy, provocative, and collaborative works claimed their autonomous subjectivity within spaces that were not accustomed to such commanding presence. By dressing up and dressing down, the artists in Strip simultaneously undressed assumed systems of authority, transforming them into sites of radical liberation.
Jimmy DeSana
101 Nudes (detail), 1972
56 offset prints
12 3/4 × 8 1/2 ins. each
32.4 × 21.6 cm each
Jimmy DeSana (1949-1990) grew up in Atlanta, GA, and received his bachelor’s degree from the Georgia State University in 1972 before relocating to New York’s East Village in the early 1970s. Recent solo exhibitions include Jimmy DeSana: Submission at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY, 2023, accompanied by a catalogue co-published by the Brooklyn Museum and DelMonico Books; The Sodomite Invasion: Experimentation, Politics and Sexuality in the work of Jimmy DeSana and Marlon T. Riggs, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, Canada, 2020; and Remainders, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, 2016. DeSana’s work can be found in numerous public collections including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Ruin of Rooms, a major two-person exhibition of the work of Jimmy DeSana and Paul P., at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, was on view in 2024.
Carolee Schneemann
ICES STRIP / ISIS TRIP, 1972
20 gelatin silver photographs by Anthony McCall with text by Wittgenstein
11 3/4 x 14 3/4 ins. each
29.8 x 37.5 cm each
Carolee Schneemann (1939- 2019) received a BA in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and a MFA from the University of Illinois. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, and is in the permanent collection of major public institutions including Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA; Tate Museum, London, UK; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; among many others. The comprehensive retrospective Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting traveled from Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria (2015), to the Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2017) and MoMA PS1, New York (2018). And in 2022, the major survey Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics was on view at the Barbican Art Centre, London, UK. In 2017, Schneemann was awarded Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion, honoring lifetime achievement. Of Course You Can / Don’t You Dare, an exhibition highlighting Schneemann’s early painting constructions, drawings, and works surrounding gesture, movement, and materiality, building up to the making of the artist’s iconic film Fuses in 1964, was on view at P·P·O·W in early 2024. Her work was recently on view in her first solo exhibition with Lisson Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
Martha Wilson
Transformance: Claudia (detail), 1973
in collaboration with Jacki Apple
36 photos matted on black board, and 33 related texts on 8 1/2 x 11 ins. sheets (69 panels, overall)
17 x 15 x 1 5/8 ins. each
43.2 x 38.1 x 4.1 cm each
Martha Wilson (b. 1947) began making videos and photo/text works in the early 1970s while in Halifax in Nova Scotia, and further developed her performative and video-based practice after moving in 1974 to New York City, embarking on a long career that would see her gain attention across the U.S. for her provocative appearances as political personae. In 1976 she founded, and as Founding Director Emerita, continues to help direct Franklin Furnace, an artist-run space that champions the exploration, promotion and preservation of artists’ books, installation art, video, online and performance art, further challenging institutional norms, the roles artists play within society, and expectations about what constitutes acceptable art mediums. For four decades, Wilson has performed nationally and internationally in the guises of Alexander Haig, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Tipper Gore, among others. In the Fall of 2021, the Centre Pompidou in Paris presented Martha Wilson in Halifax, 1972-1974, the first institutional presentation of Wilson’s groundbreaking early installation Halifax Collection. In 2023, Wilson’s work was the subject of Invisible—Works on Aging 1972–2022 at Frac Sud in Marseille, France.
