The Art Of Destruction: The Films Of The Vienna Action Group (Persistence of Vision) (Volume 5) (Paperback)

~ stephen barber (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The Vienna Action Group formed the most provocative, insurgent, and challenging of all the worldwide art movements of the 1960s. Their sexually charged and antisocial actions exacted a profound and irreparable upheaval in the way in which art was conceived. Using their own bodies as raw material, the Action Group undertook experiments in cruelty that disassembled the human body and its acts into compacted gestures of blood, semen, and meat.

The films of the Vienna Action Group form the essential residue, debris, and evidence of their performances. For the first time, this book focuses on those films as fully revealing the obsessions, ambitions, and outrages of the Action Group. Fully illustrated and annotated, this is a book of compelling interest to all students of film, art, and performance, and for all readers engaged with questioning social and corporate cultures.

About the Author

Stephen Barber is a noted cultural historian and the leading authority on Antonin Artaud. He is the author of many acclaimed books, including: Burning World, the best-selling biography of Edmund White; Tokyo Vertigo; the wide-selling Caligula: Divine Carnage; and Artaud: Blows And Bombs, the definitive biography.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Creation Books; annotated edition edition (March 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840680970
• ISBN-13: 978-1840680973
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 8.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #802,878 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anarchy, January 3, 2008

By	gam "Chico Migraña" (MEXICO CITY) - See all my reviews

The Viena Action Group, as the title states, was a group of artist with a provocative counter-cultural art expression: social refusal, sexual upheaval and perverse cruelty, inspired in some way by Antonin Artaud. This book gives great info on the Viena Action Group and Focuses more on the films. This group was formed in the 60's by:

-Otto Muehl
-Hermann Nitsch
-Gunter Brus
-Rudolph Schwarzkogler

Filmmakers:
-Kurt Kren
-Ernst Schmidt Jr.

The book review all of these artist's and their work, includes an extense filmography.