Provocative Performance Art
BRUS, Günter, Otto MUEHL, and Herman NITSCH; Malcolm GREEN (editor and translator). Atlas Arkhive. Seven Documents of the Avant-Garde: Brus Muehl Nitsch Schwarzkogler Writings of the Vienna Actionists edited and translated … in collaboration with the artists. London: Atlas Press. 1998.
Square 8vo. Original white wrappers, in white dust-jacket signed by Brus, Muehl and Nitsch in pencil to front panel, black cloth slipcase; pp. 257, [1], [6 (translator’s notes)]; with pamphlet loosely inserted; slight discoloration to wrappers; near fine.
Limited first edition, no. 90 of 100 copies signed by the artists, accompanied by a pamphlet containing ten photographs which had been censored from the book (one of 100 hors commerce copies from a total edition of 200).
Arguably the most provocative performance artists of the twentieth century, The Viennese Actionists pushed the boundaries of performance art. As four of the most radical Actionists, Brus, Muehl, Nitsch and Schwarzkogler caused wide controversy by violently confronting the sensibilities of midstream bourgeois society, and forcing it to acknowledge repressed memories of the 1930s and '40s.
Gunter Brus served a six-month prison sentence following the performance Art and Revolution in 1968 during which he sang the Austrian National Anthem while covered in his own faeces. Similarly, Nitsch was imprisoned for enacting extreme sex acts, sometimes involving animals. In the Hamburg Film Festival, in Piss Aktion, Muehl stood naked and urinated into Brus’ mouth live on stage. Atlas Arkive Seven is a complete compilation of their extensive bodies of works.
SKU: 2121322