Hi Alex,
Thanks for the reference....re: Gutai etc.
On the Vienna Action stuff the following looks good...I don't own a copy but
believe it is the most comprehensive thing around and it was put together in
consultation with those actionists still alive today:
Here's the blurb put out by Atlas Press who published it (this was
pre-release info so the title is different to the reference for the book
after publication given below):
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ARKHIVE: VIENNA ACTIONISTS (FORTHCOMING)
DIRECT ART: BLOOD, ORGIES, MYSTERIES. Edited by Malcolm Green in
consultation with the artists. Manifestos, action scripts, handbills,
posters and photographic documentation by Gunter Brus, Otto Muhl, Hermann
Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. 192 pp.
Viennese Actionism more or less spanned the ten years of the sixties, a
period in which its main protagonists - Gunter Brus, Otto Muhl, Hermann
Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarz-kogler - performed in some 150 actions which
shocked, fascinated and nauseated well beyond the borders of Austria. They
caused major scandals, were fined, gaoled and forced into exile, yet
remained virtually ignored by the art critics of the day and are still
largely misunderstood as a curiously Austrian form of anti-art, the
half-cousin of Happenings and Fluxus, or even the last gasp of Dada.
However, the Actionists' rejection of the formal art situation, which led
them to extend art into real life and use life as art, and finally to view
their actions as life in a very direct form, constitutes one of the most
challenging and fascinating ventures in post-war culture.
This anthology offers the chance of a major reappraisal, for it will
concentrate on primary material which is unpublished or almost totally
unavailable, in particular the numerous books they published themselves in
extremely small editions. By presenting the Actionists as they presented
themselves, it will avoid placing them in a safe art history context and
attempt to focus as directly as possible on their work. The three living
artists are giving their support to this project.
-------------------------------------------
and now the title and amazon link of course:
Writings of the Vienna Actionists
by Brus, Nuehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler, Malcolm Green (Editor), Hermann
Nitsch, Otto Muehl, Gunter Brus, et al., Hermann Nitsch
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1900565102/qid%3D961490773/102-322147
4-9567343
Hope it's useful. I've been meaning to get a copy myself but then there're
so many books I want .......and of course there are certain financial
restrictions in play etc. etc.
cheers,
Sol.
