Charlotte Moorman | The Topless Cellist

We were recently tasked with a research report project based on people found within Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage."  Upon denial of Marilyn Monroe, I chose Charlotte Moorman solely based on the fact that she was a musician like me.  Well, that and maybe this super awesome "cello bomb" that she used in an art piece once upon a time.

"Cello Bomb" Who woulda thunk?

Charlotte Moorman was an essential player in the world of performance art born in Little Rock, Arkansas.  She attended graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin (shout out to Texas, yawl!!) and did postgraduate studies at The Juilliard School.  She was a classically trained cellist, but made the transition into performance art during the 1960s Avant-Garde movement.  Researching her history and huge involvement in the promotion of avant garde art was largely inspiring to keep doing what I do with my own art.  Although she was arrested for performing semi-nude (interview video link), she kept pursuing what she loved and didn't stop for anything, even through her battle with breast cancer that eventually took her life.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to research an important figure that paved a way for an important period of our art history.

Charlotte Moorman with John Lennon and Yoko Ono