Writings of the Vienna Actionists (Paperback)

~ Brus (Author), Nuehl (Author), Nitsch (Author), Schwarzkogler (Author), Malcolm Green (Editor), et al., Hermann Nitsch (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Brus, Muehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler: four artists who, during the Sixties, became notorious for pushing the definition of art to an extreme which has yet to be surpassed. Variously fined, gaoled, and forced into exile, they were ignored by the art establishment of the day, only to be hailed in recent years as one of the most outstanding and unique contibutions to post-war art in Europe. Exaggeration and myth still obscure their activities, however, and their actual motives for an art centred on the examination of taboos, the "hidden" secrets of the body, the aesthetics of destruction and the possibilities of regeneration have remained elusive. Subsequent generations of artists have claimed them as their forefathers or unscrupulously borrowed their ideas (but without approaching the intensity of their actions), and while international exhibitions have reclaimed their work for the visual arts, their writings have remained largely unpublished since they first appeared! in small mimeographed editions, or are long since out of print.

This anthology of photo-documentation and writings — which includes manifestos, theoretical texts, action scores, even police and psychiatric reports — has been assembled in collaboration with the three surviving artists. It provides the first comprehensive survey of their work, and for the first time illuminates their differing intentions. These texts employ humour and vitriol to elaborate a position in total opposition to contemporary social, political and aesthetic mores. A lucid narrative emerges of a determined exploration of these conditioning factors, by means of an art that used life itself as material.

About the Author

The Vienna Actionists were indeed unique — at the very outset of post-war performance art they trod a path very different from the "Happenings" in the USA or the belated neo-Dada pranks of many of their contemporaries. They not only established a new territory for art but they explored it so thoroughly as to make most subsequent "body art" simply irrelevant.

Product Details

• Paperback: 257 pages
• Publisher: Atlas Press (October 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1900565102
• ISBN-13: 978-1900565103
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,255,572 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shocking?, January 20, 2003

By	"bert56" (Capelle a/d IJssel Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This must by far be the best and most comprehensive book on Viennese Actionism available until now. As I understand from the colophon, even after 35 years the publisher was unable to find a printer in the UK that was prepared to agree to produce the book without excluding "some of the photographs". A shocking fact indeed, in my opinion. Fortunately, the remaining pictures are very good. In combination with the text a very enlightening book on the workings and especially the real intentions of this art movement, which has been feared, incriminated and/or discredited far too long now. A healing book.

5.0 out of 5 stars A good source, October 2, 2007

By	Oldant - See all my reviews

There is not too much available information on the Vienna Actionists, and this book stepped in and filled a necessary vacuum. Especially good since it is illustrated generously, and still shockingly so - as I found out by reading it on the NYC subway.