The Vienna Actionists
BRUS, Gunter, MUEHL Otto & NITSCH Herman [ed. And translated GREEN, Malcolm] Atlas Arkhive Seven: Brus Muehl Nitsch Schwarzkogler: Writings of the Vienna Actionists. London:Atlas Press1998
Square 8vo. Original publishers white wrappers with signatures of Brus, Muehl and Nitsch to front wrapper; pp. 257 [ads. 5], [7]; enclosed in original black slipcase; accompanied by separate booklet of banned photographs; fine.
First limited edition, numbered 90 out of 100 slipcased, numbered and signed. Loosely inserted booklet limited to one hundred copies to accompany this signed edition and a further one hundred copies marked 'H.C', as is this copy.
Arguably the most intense performance artists of the 20th century, The Viennese Actionists pushed boundaries of performance art, using it as their own version of action painting, specifically through explicit exhibitions of the body. As four of the most radical and revered Actionists, Brus, Muehl, Nitsch and Schwarzkogler caused wide controversy by confronting a number of unspoken taboos. The Actionists fought to encourage an uncomfortable audience to acknowledge repressed memory of trauma through lack of inhibition often involving acts as extreme as mutilation.
Gunter Brus served a six-month prison sentence following the performance Art and Revolution in 1968 during which he sang the Austrian National Anthem whilst uniformed in his own faeces. Equally, Nitsch was imprisoned for enacting brutal sexual scenes as well as masturbating during a piece of performance art. In the Hamburg Film Festival, merely a year later, in Piss Aktion, Muehl stood naked and urinated into Brus' mouth live on stage. These are just a few of the contentious incidents surrounding this iconic movement. Here is a revolutionary complete compilation of their extensive body of art.
"I never intended to provoke. I always looked for intensity. The intensity in historical art always fascinated me. The tragic plays of antiquity, the Passion of Christ…intense art always had my love. If one of my actions provoked the people at one point, well, so be it. But provocations were never cooked up at the drawing board."- Hermann Nitsch, interview at Vice Magazine, Jonas Vogt, Alexander Nussbaumer, 2010.
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