2nd Action

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Artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler (1940 Wien – 1969 Wien)

Object typeBlack and white photo
MediumB&W photograph
Dimensions
30,3 × 39,4 cm
Signatureunlabelled
Inventory number8877/2/11
Location Currently not on display
Rudolf Schwarzkogler’s art articulates a critical view of society with provocative ritualistic violations of taboos; it features insinuated acts of castration, electroshock therapy, dead animals, and bandaged heads. The Viennese actionist’s work insistently surveys the field between the poles of illness, injury, and healing. The bodies of friends serve him as the models on which he carries out actions he has planned with scrupulous precision. After a first performance held before a live audience, the camera’s lens becomes the only witness to Schwarzkogler’s actions. In 1966, the photographer Ludwig Hoffenreich, whom he has hired for the purpose, gathers sixty-one photographs from five different actions in this portfolio.