Viennese Actionism

The term Viennese Actionism describes a short and violent movement in 20th century art that can be regarded as part of the many independent efforts of the 1960s to develop "action art" (Fluxus, Happening, Performance, Body Art, etc.). Its main participants were Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. As "actionists", they were active between 1960 and 1971. Most have continued their artistic work independently from the early 1970s onwards.

Documentation of the work of these four artists suggests that there was no consciously developed sense of a movement or any cultivation of membership status in a "actionist" group. Rather, this name was one applied to various collaborative configurations among these four artists. Malcolm Green has quoted Hermann Nitsch's comment, "Vienna Actionism never was a group. A number of artists reacted to particular situations that they all encountered, within a particular time period, and with similar means and results."^[1]

Art and the Politics of Transgression

The work of the Actionists developed concurrently with -- but largely independently from -- other avant garde movements of the era who shared an interest in rejecting object-based or otherwise commodifiable art practices. The practice of staging precisely scored "Actions" in controlled environments or before audiences bears similarities to the Fluxus concept of enacting an "event score" and is a forerunner to Performance Art.

The work of the Viennese Actionists is probably best remembered for the wilful transgressiveness of its naked bodies, destructiveness and violence. Often, brief jail terms were served by participants for violations of decency laws, and their works were targets of moral outrage. In June 1968 Günter Brus began serving a six-month prison sentence for the crime of "degrading symbols of the state", and later fled Austria to avoid a second arrest. Otto Mühl served a one month prison term after his participation in a public event, "Art and Revolution" in 1968. After his "Piss Action" before a Munich audience, Mühl became a fugitive from the West German police. Hermann Nitsch served a two week prison term in 1965 after his participation with Rudolph Schwarzkogler in the Festival of Psycho-Physical Naturalism. The "Destruction in Art Symposium", held in London in 1966, marked the first encounter between members of Fluxus and Actionists. It was a landmark of international recognition for the work of Brus, Mühl and Nitsch.

While the nature and content of each artist's work differed, there are distinct aesthetic and thematic threads connecting the Actions of Brus, Mühl, Nitsch and Schwarzkogler. Use of the body as both surface and site of art-making seems to have been a common point of origin for the Actionists in their earliest departures from conventional art practices in the late 50s and early 60s. Brus' "Hand Painting Head Painting" action of 1964, Mühl and Nitsch's "Degradation of a Female Body, Degradation of A Venus" of 1963 are characterized by their efforts to reconceive human bodies as surfaces for the production of art. The trajectories of the Actionists' work suggests more than just a precedent to later performance art and body art, rather, a drive toward a totalizing art-practice is inherent in their refusing to be confined within conventional ideas of painting, theatre and sculpture. Mühl's 1964 "Material Action Manifesto" offers some theoretical framework for understanding this:

...material action is painting that has spread beyond the picture surface. The human body, a laid table or a room becomes the picture surface. Time is added to the dimension of the body and space. ^[2]

A 1967 revision of the same manifesto Mühl wrote:

... material action promises the direct pleasures of the table. Material action satiates. Far more important than baking bread is the urge to take dough-beating to the extreme.^[3]

Brus and Mühl participated in the "Kunst und Revolution" (Art and Revolution) event in Vienna, June 1968, issuing the following proclamation:

... our assimilatory democracy maintains art as a safety valve for enemies of the state ... the consumer state drives a wave of "art" before itself; it attempts to bribe the "artist" and thus to rehabilitate his revolutionising "art" as an art that supports the state. But "art" is not art. "Art" is politics that has created new styles of communication.^[4]

Actionists and Experimental Film in Vienna

Much of the existing moving-image documentation of Viennese Actionist work survives because of strong ties between the Actionists and art/experimental filmmaking of the 1960s. The Austrian filmmaker Kurt Kren participated in the documentaion of Actions as early as 1964, producing a body of Actionist related works that stand as historic avant-garde films in their own right for their use of rapid, in-camera editing. As well, Otto Muehl produced a significant body of Actionist related film work that has been celebrated in Amos Vogel's Film as a Subversive Art. Films of and related to Actionist performance remain available through the Vienna based Sixpack film distributor and the U.S. distribution cooperatives Canyon Cinema and The Film-makers' Coop. In 2005 the Actionist films of Kurt Kren were issued on video by the Austrian publisher INDEX DVD.

Notes

1. ^ Brus Mühl Nitsch Schwarzkogler. Writings of the Viennese Actionsts London, Atlas Press, 1999. Malcolm Green, ed.
2. ^ Malcolm Green
3. ^ Malcolm Green
4. ^ Malcolm Green

External links

The Vienna Aktionists rare two DVD compilation available
The Vienna Actionists
Ubuweb: The Vienna Actionists Contains video files of Action films by Kurt Kren, Otto Mühl and others. Also contains the complete text of a 2002 interview with Otto Mühl.
Bright Lights Film Journal Andrew Grossman, 2002 interview with Otto Mühl as it was originally published.
Sixpack Film, Vienna - English language site Austrian based film distributor, catalogue includes works of Kurt Kren and Gunter Brus.
Index DVD - English language site Distributor of Kurt Kren's Action films on video.
The Film-Makers' Cooperative New York City based distributor of films by Otto Mühl and Kurt Kren.
Canyon Cinema San Francisco based distributor of films by Kurt Kren.

ART is a three-letter acronym that can mean:

Medicine

Antiretroviral therapy. It is used in the treatment of HIV infection.
assisted reproductive technology

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Adaptive resonance theory

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Action art may refer to:

Action painting, a form of abstract expressionism
Performance art and art intervention

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Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s.
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In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a happening was a performance, event or situation meant to be considered as art. Happenings could take place anywhere, were often multi-disciplinary, often lacked a narrative and frequently sought to involve the audience in some way.
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performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which one group of people (the performer or performers) behave in a particular way for another group of people (the audience).
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Body art is art made on, with, or consisting of, the human body. The most common forms of body art are tattoos and body piercings, but other types include scarification, branding, scalpelling, shaping (for example tight-lacing of corsets), full body tattoo and body painting.
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Günter Brus (born September 27, 1938, Ardning, Styria) is an Austrian painter, graphic artist and writer. Co-founder in 1964 of Wiener Aktionismus (Viennese Actionism) together with Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler.
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Otto Muehl (born June 16, 1925, at Grodnau, Burgenland, Austria) is one of the co-founders, and an important member, of Wiener Aktionismus or Viennese Actionism. In 1972 he founded the famous commune Friedrichshof that flourished for several years before falling apart in
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Hermann Nitsch (b. 1938) is an Austrian artist who works in experimental and multimedia modes. He is associated with the Vienna Actionists, and like them conceives of his art outside traditional categories of genre.
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Rudolf Schwarzkogler (13 November 1940 in Vienna – 20 June 1969) was an Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese Actionism group that also included artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and Hermann Nitsch.
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Malcolm Green may refer to :

Malcolm L H Green (born 1936), British Professor of inorganic chemisttry
Malcolm Green (physician), Professor of thoracic medicine, Head of the British Heart & Lung Institute

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For the Marxist definition of a commodity, see .

A commodity is something for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a given market.
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Performance art is art in which the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. It can happen anywhere, at any time, or for any length of time.
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München
Munich
Frauenkirche and Town Hall steeple
Coat of arms Location

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worldwide view of the subject.
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A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions. Manifestos are often political in nature.
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Kurt Kren (September 20, 1929 - died in Vienna on June 23 1998) was an Austrian avantgarde filmmaker.

Biography

Kurt Kren was born in 1929 in Vienna, Austria to a family of a Jewish father (a bank employee) and German mother.
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Amos Vogel (born 1921 in Vienna, Austria, as Amos Vogelbaum) is among the most influential cineasts of the 20th century. He is best known for his book Film as a Subversive Art
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Film as a Subversive Art is a 1974 film history book by Amos Vogel with mini-essays on over 600 films.

External links

The Subversive Nub

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Art and the Politics of Transgression

Actionists and Experimental Film in Vienna

Notes

Further reading

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Biography

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