Hi all,
After Alex's post yesterday I've been musing on the Vienna Actionists some
more and dug out a load of links for you to pursue if you're interested.
I think the Actionists work is fairly problematic...obviously there are
certain elements which have no moral or ethical issues attached but not
much. Actionism is often considered as parallel to Fluxus activities and
Happenings but it is altogether so much more extreme that one wonders what
the links really are, perhaps they are conceptual only. Certainly the
Actionists were the only ones to kill and disembowel animals in the name of
art as well as explore a range of unusual social and sexual behaviour that
even today many would still consider shocking. BTW - I chose the links below
because none of them contain any images that may offend anyone or cause
embarrassment should you be viewing this site in the company of less
open-minded friends or acquaintances.
I'd imagine that it is the Actionist's desire to shock society into
something new that drove most of their activities. Conceptually they seem to
me closer to Dada and Surrealism than to post-war movements especially in
the way they target religion etc.
Anyway here are links I've found which may prove interesting to some of you:
-------------------------------
General stuff about Actionism, good introduction to some concepts:
http://users.hartwick.edu/stoltea/performanceart.htm
------------------------------
Michael Portnoy's response to an exhibition of actionist work, I'm including
this as there are descriptions of some Actionist Actions within this text
http://home.earthlink.net/~chthong/carrpse.html
-------------------------------
More accounts of actionism, also there is one image on this page that some
may find offensive...I include the link because of the text only.
http://bme.freeq.com/news/softtoy/005/
-------------------------------
Interesting criticisms of Actionism, criticisms of the questionable
ethics/morality that surrounded Actionism
http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e8426940/kuhner3.html
--------------------------------
Description and analysis of actions by Jessica Grace Wing...this text file
is part of her work entitled
T H E C U T T I N G E D G E O F A R T:
THE USES OF ACTUAL VIOLENCE IN PERFORMANCE ART
http://www.end.com/~jessica/text/thesis4.txt
(There seems to be no front page to this stuff so
use http://www.end.com/~jessica/text/ to get a directory listing to look at
the other files of this text if you're interested.
---------------------------------------
Well, a few links to stimulate discussion I think. Often I cannot make up my
mind how I feel about certain of the more extreme cultural manifestations
such as Actionism. I can't say I agree with killing animals for performances
but then again I think the actionists were really trying to get at an
exploration of very primitive emotions lust, violence etc. so I suppose
there are only so many ways you can do this on stage. What strikes me about
most of their work is a similarity to William Burroughs' preoccupation with
social taboos in his writings.
It is interesting to note what Alex said:
>but I found his staged
Aktion photos to be beautiful and sad. Evidently he was suffering from
mental illness and did things like reduce his diet to milk and bread, <
I know that Actionists wanted to bring the acts of the asylum into the
streets but you wonder where they draw the line between exploring the
behaviour of those in mental states which they have not experienced and
their own mental state in these situations. After all there is no correct
mental state just a consensus of a certain way of viewing the world.
Anyway I've gone on too long. If anyone has more to add, or if you've
explored some of these areas in your own performance I think these things
would be interesting to discuss. In many ways this approach to performance
and the problem of art and life shares an approach with Fluxus and yet
Fluxus just did not explore certain areas. Also I think there's a general
cultural difference between Europe and America which makes European artists
more interested in a darker side of humanity which doesn't seem to concern
American artists in the same way........I'm just speculating here of course
so I really want to know what others think...i.e. tell me where I'm wrong
etc.
Oh, just thought.....I wonder where the performances of people like Bob
Flanagan are positioned theoretically in relation to Actionism? Any ideas?
Okay, looking forward to your comments,
cheers,
Sol.
