"Aktion in einem Kreis"

Perinetkeller, Vienna
Photographer: Ludwig Hoffenreich

gelatin silver print (analogue) on cardboard

signed and stamp on mount verso

Notes on "Action in a circle"
On September 2, 1966 Muehl, Nitsch and I organized a press conference on the occasion of our participation in the 1st DESTRUCTION IN ART SYMPOSION (DIAS) in London (September 9 to 11, 1966). Each artist carried out a short action. Only one art critic accepted our invitation, namely Johann Muschik of the daily newspaper "Neues Österreich". The event took place in the Perinetkeller [Vienna note]. My contribution was the ACTION IN ONE CIRCLE, which was photographed by Ludwig Hoffenreich.
Muschik provided a description of this action in his review:
(Günter Brus)

The most gripping pantomime was that of Günter Brus. He had cut packing paper round and laid it on the floor, which in a way became a circular arena. In the middle of the circle Brus had driven a white painted wooden stake into the ground, to which he tied his bound feet, so that he only had the possibility to move within the circle. At the periphery of the circle were plastic bags of white, yellow, and green paint, instruments of torture, nails, a plate with hair, a plate with an egg. A bottle of milk was placed. In a bucket next to the stake was white paint, which Brus smeared all over himself. He crawled around in a circle on all fours, hurled himself, slurping and screaming in agony, at the paint bags he stabbed and tried to slurp their contents. A game with the sacks and the objects else that were on the wrapping paper began. Brus was still crawling, slurring his words, he jumped up, he crawled again. In a spiral he returned to the stake in the centre, collapsed, as it were, into himself, tried to stretch his limbs, remained lying down while yellow paint poured over him.
The self-mutilator decuvriated the mutilation of the world, a spectator at one of Brus' actions once said. The socio-critical aspect of what the Viennese happening people do is also occasionally emphasized. They say that by embellishing objects, by taking their make-up away from them, by "de-masking" them, defiling them, "degrading" the material, they are deprived of their mercantile usability. This means social criticism, because mercantile usability is the essence of objects in the capitalist world.
(Johann Muschik)