This was a group of performance artists , but in my opinion many of their actions were created specifically for shooting or filming. So we can treat some of their art action as kind of strategies for creating staged photography. The indication is that for them the main goal was to achieve some fleeting emotional states during the action and not just to create aesthetically beautiful photographs. But after many years these images are still attractive, even for people unfamiliar with the details and assumptions of the plan of action. This is because they have a unique emotional expression, and are visually stunning images. It feels as if to create it required a lot of special attention. They were created in order to make them objects of art, not just documentary photographs. But to understand them better it is worth taking a closer look at the objectives pursued by their creators.
Viennese Actionism is one of the most important contributions of Austrian art to the international neoavantgarde of the 1960s that expanded the concept of art with multi-media, process-oriented and performative means of expression. The aim of the protagonists of this movement was to use their mode of expression as representative of the post-war generation, to protest against the prevailing understanding of art at that time, and to express opposition to the Catholic-bourgeois way of life in post-war Austria.
‘Vienna Actionists’ or ‘Viennese Actionism’ (‘Wiener Aktionismus’). These names applied to a group performance artists who worked together in the 1960s and who represent the most unsavoury, sadomasochistic trends in the genre. The three main members of the group were Gunter Brus, Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch, who first collaborated in 1961, and in 1966 began calling themselves the ‘Institut für Direkte Kunst’ (Institute for Immediate Art). Since the 1960s the artists organised a series of actions which became notorious because of their disgusting, sadomasochistic content, involving nakedness, blood and the dead bodies of animals.
The movement was also known as ‘Wiener Aktionismus’ - the central idea that inspired the creators was ‘material action’, according to which the rituals and ceremonies shown by them were real, not pretended events as in conventional drama. The artists were interested in artistic activities which blurred the boundaries between art and life. They sought to overcome the illusionism of the easel picture – and arrived at performative works intended to enable a perception of reality as unadulterated as possible.
Muehl stated that Actionism was "not only a form of art, but above all an existential attitude". And Hermann Nitsch asked once “Do you feel that your performances can only exist as the performance itself, or can a videotape or film also work as an expression of your art?” The answer was “Film and video are only representations of the event. The event is a feast for the senses. It's very important to be in my performance to fully realize my art and my work. Without the smells of the carcasses and flowers, without the taste of the fresh meat and the wine, you are left with very little of the performance. To hear it, to taste it, to feel it, to see it... it is a feast of existence.”
“The events they staged were frequently ritualistic in character, incorporating elements from ancient Greek ceremonies, Dionysian rites and Christian symbols such as blood, wine and the cross. In a number of performances the group enacted animal sacrifice, self-mutilation and drank urine.”
For these artists, the performances - that often violated social taboos - were some kind of catharsis. They liberated the instincts that have been repressed by society. Ritualized actions often mimic traditional religions and cults and can at times present a highly theatrical view of the artist's role as a ‘shaman’, capable of redeeming society.
In one of his action in 1962 Hermann Nitsch “aimed at an ecstatic redemption through the powerful emotional experience of the physical contact with blood and by assuming the role of Christ. He replaced the canvas with his body and presented the artist as the locus of his work, whose inscription with bloody paint could generate an internal spiritual healing through the enactment of a pagan-Christian rite. Nitsch used a slaughtered lamb as a literal replacement for the Christ figure. He would skin and disembowel the carcass, splashing blood and entrails liberally over himself and the surrounding audience in order to provoke a direct visceral sensory experience that would allow emotions to surface and be released.”
For me, in retrospect these actions now seem a little shocking and naïve. But thanks to a fixation on photography and some understatement which this medium offers, these situations started to stimulate the imagination in isolation from their original context.
Perhaps the memory of those events is still alive in an attractive form, through this understatement in showing the whole picture that characterises the photo’s message. Revealing the truth only in a fragmentary way leaves the imagination plenty of room for conjecture. And perhaps in this lies magic of photography.
text from b.s.
Viennese Actionism is one of the most important contributions of Austrian art to the international neoavantgarde of the 1960s that expanded the concept of art with multi-media, process-oriented and performative means of expression. The aim of the protagonists of this movement was to use their mode of expression as representative of the post-war generation, to protest against the prevailing understanding of art at that time, and to express opposition to the Catholic-bourgeois way of life in post-war Austria.
‘Vienna Actionists’ or ‘Viennese Actionism’ (‘Wiener Aktionismus’). These names applied to a group performance artists who worked together in the 1960s and who represent the most unsavoury, sadomasochistic trends in the genre. The three main members of the group were Gunter Brus, Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch, who first collaborated in 1961, and in 1966 began calling themselves the ‘Institut für Direkte Kunst’ (Institute for Immediate Art). Since the 1960s the artists organised a series of actions which became notorious because of their disgusting, sadomasochistic content, involving nakedness, blood and the dead bodies of animals.
The movement was also known as ‘Wiener Aktionismus’ - the central idea that inspired the creators was ‘material action’, according to which the rituals and ceremonies shown by them were real, not pretended events as in conventional drama. The artists were interested in artistic activities which blurred the boundaries between art and life. They sought to overcome the illusionism of the easel picture – and arrived at performative works intended to enable a perception of reality as unadulterated as possible.
Muehl stated that Actionism was "not only a form of art, but above all an existential attitude". And Hermann Nitsch asked once “Do you feel that your performances can only exist as the performance itself, or can a videotape or film also work as an expression of your art?” The answer was “Film and video are only representations of the event. The event is a feast for the senses. It's very important to be in my performance to fully realize my art and my work. Without the smells of the carcasses and flowers, without the taste of the fresh meat and the wine, you are left with very little of the performance. To hear it, to taste it, to feel it, to see it... it is a feast of existence.”
“The events they staged were frequently ritualistic in character, incorporating elements from ancient Greek ceremonies, Dionysian rites and Christian symbols such as blood, wine and the cross. In a number of performances the group enacted animal sacrifice, self-mutilation and drank urine.”
For these artists, the performances - that often violated social taboos - were some kind of catharsis. They liberated the instincts that have been repressed by society. Ritualized actions often mimic traditional religions and cults and can at times present a highly theatrical view of the artist's role as a ‘shaman’, capable of redeeming society.
In one of his action in 1962 Hermann Nitsch “aimed at an ecstatic redemption through the powerful emotional experience of the physical contact with blood and by assuming the role of Christ. He replaced the canvas with his body and presented the artist as the locus of his work, whose inscription with bloody paint could generate an internal spiritual healing through the enactment of a pagan-Christian rite. Nitsch used a slaughtered lamb as a literal replacement for the Christ figure. He would skin and disembowel the carcass, splashing blood and entrails liberally over himself and the surrounding audience in order to provoke a direct visceral sensory experience that would allow emotions to surface and be released.”
For me, in retrospect these actions now seem a little shocking and naïve. But thanks to a fixation on photography and some understatement which this medium offers, these situations started to stimulate the imagination in isolation from their original context.
Perhaps the memory of those events is still alive in an attractive form, through this understatement in showing the whole picture that characterises the photo’s message. Revealing the truth only in a fragmentary way leaves the imagination plenty of room for conjecture. And perhaps in this lies magic of photography.
text from b.s.
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