Scheme to Annihilate Magnificent Distances

How does one emancipate herself when the constrictions of society are too great to bear? A Scheme to Annihilate Magnificent Distances is both a memoir and the reflection of an era of social and political unrest. Thea’s memories of growing up in post-World War II Brooklyn emerge in poetry-like texts that live beside her story of breaking into the male-dominated New York City art scene in the late 1960s. This combined narrative style, which moves between stream-of-consciousness and structured prose, establishes the rhythm and tone of the book. Thea’s art, much of which is exhibited in this volume, received immediate recognition. Her feminism and her role in the women’s rights movement are telling of the times and deeply personal, and understanding this is central to understanding her art. Following the death of her mother, the nature of Thea's creative output shifts, and she produces critical rhetoric for the art world in which she was so immersed. A Scheme to Annihilate Magnificent Distances is a record of the artist's memories and experience, of her art and activism, and it is yet another way in which she has expressed her perception of the world she inhabits.

Carolee Thea is a New York City-based artist, writer, curator, and art critic. In her three decades as a multimedia artist, her work was exhibited across the country in galleries, museums, art centres, sculpture gardens, and universities. In the late 1960s, she entered the New York art world and received recognition for her contributions to the development of contemporary art and to the growing feminist movement. Her work spanned sculpture, film, photography, performance, and public earthworks, breaking with tradition by blurring formal conventions and precipitating urgent conversations about gender, authorship, and corporeality. In the second half of her career, Ms. Thea transitioned to art writing, ultimately writing three books of interviews with some of the most significant curators in the world: Foci: Interviews with Ten International Curators (2001), On Curating (2006), and On Curating 2 (2016). Her writing has been featured in such publications as Artnet, ArtAsiaPacific, NYArts Magazine, Sculpture Magazine, among others, and she served on the editorial board of the fifth issue of Heresies. She has taught at Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Art, and the College of New Rochelle, among others. Thea attended Skidmore College and Columbia University, and in 1976, she earned her MA from Hunter College, City University of New York. Her books continue to be relevant to contemporary debates around globalization and the role of the international curatorial apparatus.