An assembly of work from the 1960s and 70s by the contemporaries of Carolee Schneeman

Defying conventional ideas of decorum, from the early 1960s Schneemann began using her own naked body in her work. Many of her pieces challenged dominant interpretations of women’s sexual expression and experience. Her film Fuses (1964-66) was ground-breaking: a critique of the objectification of the female body and the evasion of sexuality in American cinema, and a radical attempt to render her own erotic experience through moving image.

Schneemann was a pioneer, but also one of a generation of experimental women filmmakers in the 1960s and 70s who made body-centred films that sought to release their experiences of sexuality from the taboos of depiction. The Barbican presents a selection of these films, addressing nudity, erotic fantasy, masturbation, lesbian sexuality and more, by filmmakers including Joyce Wieland, Maria Lassnig and Chick Strand.