Meat Joy was first a performance devised by Carolee Schneemann and presented at the American Center in Paris, during the Festival de la Libre Expression on May 29th 1964. The festival was created and organised by Jean-Jacques Lebel, a central figure of the Fluxus spirit in France, an all-rounder who is an artist, performer, publisher and theatre director.

Meat Joy was repeated at Judson Church in New York the same year. It was filmed and photographed on this occasion, which resulted in a 6-minute video in colour.

The soundtrack is composed of a female voice-over, speaking alternately in English or in French. It is spliced with extracts of pop music tracks of the era.

The eight performers, dressed in dark-coloured under garments, receive the rules of the game devised by Schneemann and must then give themselves over to improvisation. They must act with pieces of meat and fish brought in by a ninth person, but these portions must not touch the ground: each performer must keep them on his or her body or transfer them to another protagonist. Next, they cover themselves in paint, roll in plastic sheets, with their bodies acting as paintbrushes in the representational space. Carolee Schneemann accords greater importance to the conception of a performance than to its execution or final result.

Carolee Schneemann describes Meat Joy as an excessive, erotic rite: a celebration of flesh as material [1].

Laetitia Rouiller

[1] From the artist's website: http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/works.html