Rudolf Schwarzkogler (13 November 1940 â€" 20 June 1969) was an
Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese
Actionism group that included artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and
Hermann Nitsch.He is best known today for photographs depicting his
series of closely controlled "Aktionen" featuring such iconography as
a dead fish, a dead chicken, bare light bulbs, colored liquids, bound
objects, and a man wrapped in gauze. The enduring themes of
Schwarzkogler's works involved experience of pain and mutilation,
often in an incongruous clinical context, such as 3rd Aktion (1965) in
which a patient's head swathed in bandages is being pierced by what
appears to be a corkscrew, producing a bloodstain under the bandages.
They reflect a message of despair at the disappointments and
hurtfulness of the world.Chris Burden once remarked that a 1970s
Newsweek article, which had mentioned himself and Schwarzkogler, had
misreported that Schwarzkogler had died by slicing off his penis
during a performance. A scene in Schwarzkogler's foto-performances had
been starry-eyed misinterpreted. The castration theme in some of them
â€" for example, in Aktion 2 he posed with a sliced open fish covering
his groin â€" have additionally fueled this myth. Additionally, the
protagonist of the Aktion in which the cutting of a penis was
simulated was not Schwarzkogler himself, but his friend and model, the
renowned photographer Hans Cibulka. When Schwarzkogler died, the
series of performances had long been concluded. He was found beneath a
window from which he had fallen, seemingly the victim of an accident.
His death generated speculations and further myths.
Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese
Actionism group that included artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and
Hermann Nitsch.He is best known today for photographs depicting his
series of closely controlled "Aktionen" featuring such iconography as
a dead fish, a dead chicken, bare light bulbs, colored liquids, bound
objects, and a man wrapped in gauze. The enduring themes of
Schwarzkogler's works involved experience of pain and mutilation,
often in an incongruous clinical context, such as 3rd Aktion (1965) in
which a patient's head swathed in bandages is being pierced by what
appears to be a corkscrew, producing a bloodstain under the bandages.
They reflect a message of despair at the disappointments and
hurtfulness of the world.Chris Burden once remarked that a 1970s
Newsweek article, which had mentioned himself and Schwarzkogler, had
misreported that Schwarzkogler had died by slicing off his penis
during a performance. A scene in Schwarzkogler's foto-performances had
been starry-eyed misinterpreted. The castration theme in some of them
â€" for example, in Aktion 2 he posed with a sliced open fish covering
his groin â€" have additionally fueled this myth. Additionally, the
protagonist of the Aktion in which the cutting of a penis was
simulated was not Schwarzkogler himself, but his friend and model, the
renowned photographer Hans Cibulka. When Schwarzkogler died, the
series of performances had long been concluded. He was found beneath a
window from which he had fallen, seemingly the victim of an accident.
His death generated speculations and further myths.
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