Actionism - II
Performanse art
Body art

Rudolf Schwarzkogler 1940 – 1969
Renate Bertlmann b.1943
Marina Abramovic b.1946
Rebecca Horn b.1944
Penny Slinger b. 1947
Helen Chadwick 1953 – 1996
Linder Sterling b.1954
Leigh Bowery 1961 – 1994

Rudolf Schwarzkogler
1940 - 1969

Rudolf Schwarzkogler

Rudolf Schwarzkogler (b.1940 - d.1969) was an Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese Actionism group. He is best known today for photographs depicting his series of closely controlled aktions (actions) featuring such iconography as a dead fish, a dead chicken, bare lightbulbs, coloured liquids, bound objects, and a man wrapped in gauze like a mummy.

There is a myth that Schwarzkogler died by slicing off his penis during a performance. The castration themes in some of his aktions — for example, in Aktion 2 he posed with a sliced open fish covering his groin — may have helped to fuel this myth. Ironically, the protagonist of this aktion was not even Schwarzkogler himself but rather a friend and model by the name of Hans Cibulka. In reality Schwarzkogler died when he either fell or leapt from a window, possibly with the desire to emulate Yves Klein's Leap into the Void.

Rudolf Schwarzkogler

Renate Bertlmann
b.1943

Renate Bertlmann

(born 1943, Vienna, Austria) is an Austrian feminist avant-garde visual artist, who since the early 1970s has worked on issues surrounding themes of sexuality, love, gender and eroticism within a social context, with her own body often serving as the artistic medium. Her diverse practice spans across painting, drawing, collage, photography, sculpture and performance, and actively confronts the social stereotypes assigned to masculine and feminine behaviours and relationships.

Bertlmann represented Austria at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. That year her exhibition 'Hier ruht meine Zärtlichkeit [Here lies my Tenderness]' inaugurated the new State Gallery of Lower Austria in Krems.

Renate Bertlmann is represented by Richard Saltoun Gallery, London and Galerie Steinek, Vienna.

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Renate Bertlmann

Marina Abramovic
b.1946

Marina Abramović

(Serbian Cyrillic: Марина Абрамовић, pronounced; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist.
Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.
Being active for over four decades, Abramović refers to herself as the "grandmother of performance art". She pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on "confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body". In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a non-profit foundation for performance art.

Abramović was born in Belgrade, Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia, on November 30, 1946. In an interview, Abramović described her family as having been "Red bourgeoisie." Her great-uncle was Varnava, Serbian Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Both of her Montenegrin-born parents, Danica Rosić and Vojin Abramović were Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. After the war, Abramović's parents were awarded Order of the People's Heroes and were given positions in the postwar Yugoslavian government.

Abramović was raised by her grandparents until she was six years old. Her grandmother was deeply religious and Abramović "spent [her] childhood in a church following [her] grandmother's rituals—candles in the morning, the priest coming for different occasions". When she was six, her brother was born, and she began living with her parents while also taking piano, French, and English lessons. Although she did not take art lessons, she took an early interest in art and enjoyed painting as a child.

Life in Abramović's parental home under her mother's strict supervision was difficult. When Abramović was a child, her mother beat her for "supposedly showing off". In an interview published in 1998, Abramović described how her "mother took complete military-style control of me and my brother. I was not allowed to leave the house after 10 o'clock at night until I was 29 years old. ... [A]ll the performances in Yugoslavia I did before 10 o'clock in the evening because I had to be home then. It's completely insane, but all of my cutting myself, whipping myself, burning myself, almost losing my life in 'The Firestar'—everything was done before 10 in the evening."

In an interview published in 2013, Abramović said, "My mother and father had a terrible marriage." Describing an incident when her father smashed 12 champagne glasses and left the house, she said, "It was the most horrible moment of my childhood."

Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović
Rhythm Series

Rhythm 10, 1973
In her first performance in Edinburgh in 1973, Abramović explored elements of ritual and gesture. Making use of twenty knives and two tape recorders, the artist played the Russian game, in which rhythmic knife jabs are aimed between the splayed fingers of one's hand. Each time she cut herself, she would pick up a new knife from the row of twenty she had set up, and record the operation. After cutting herself twenty times, she replayed the tape, listened to the sounds, and tried to repeat the same movements, attempting to replicate the mistakes, merging past and present. She set out to explore the physical and mental limitations of the body – the pain and the sounds of the stabbing; the double sounds from the history and the replication. With this piece, Abramović began to consider the state of consciousness of the performer. "Once you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do."

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 10,
Performance, 1 hour

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 10, 1973 Performance photograph

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 10,
Performance, 1 hour

Rhythm 5, 1974
In this performance, Abramović sought to re-evoke the energy of extreme bodily pain, using a large petroleum-drenched star, which the artist lit on fire at the start of the performance. Standing outside the star, Abramović cut her nails, toenails, and hair. When finished with each, she threw the clippings into the flames, creating a burst of light each time. Burning the communist five-pointed star represented a physical and mental purification, while also addressing the political traditions of her past. In the final act of purification, Abramović leapt across the flames into the center of the large star. At first, due to the light and smoke given off by the fire, the observing audience did not realize that the artist had lost consciousness from lack of oxygen inside the star. However, when the flames came very near to her body and she still remained inert, a doctor and others intervened and extricated her from the star.

Abramović later commented upon this experience: "I was very angry because I understood there is a physical limit. When you lose consciousness you can't be present, you can't perform."

Rhythm 5
Marina Abramović

Rhythm 5
Marina Abramović
Performance, 1 ½ hours

Rhythm 5
Marina Abramović
Performance, 1 ½ hours

Rhythm 5
Marina Abramović
Performance, 1 ½ hours

Rhythm 2, 1974
Prompted by her loss of consciousness during Rhythm 5, Abramović devised the two-part Rhythm 2 to incorporate a state of unconsciousness in a performance. She performed the work at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, in 1974. In Part I, which had a duration of 50 minutes, she ingested a medication she describes as 'given to patients who suffer from catatonia, to force them to change the positions of their bodies.' The medication caused her muscles to contract violently, and she lost complete control over her body while remaining aware of what was going on. After a ten-minute break, she took a second medication 'given to schizophrenic patients with violent behavior disorders to calm them down.' The performance ended after five hours when the medication wore off.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 2, 1974
Performance, 7 hours (total).

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 2, 1974
Performance, 7 hours (total).

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 2, 1974
Performance, 7 hours (total).

Rhythm 4, 1974
Rhythm 4 was performed at the Galleria Diagramma in Milan. In this piece, Abramović kneeled alone and naked in a room with a high-power industrial fan. She approached the fan slowly, attempting to breathe in as much air as possible to push the limits of her lungs. Soon after she lost consciousness.

Abramović's previous experience in Rhythm 5, when the audience interfered in the performance, led to her devising specific plans so that her loss of consciousness would not interrupt the performance before it was complete. Before the beginning of her performance, Abramović asked the cameraman to focus only on her face, disregarding the fan. This was so the audience would be oblivious to her unconscious state, and therefore unlikely to interfere. Ironically, after several minutes of Abramović's unconsciousness, the cameraman refused to continue and sent for help.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 4, 1974. Performance, 45 minutes.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 4, 1974. Performance, 45 minutes.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 4, 1974. Performance, 45 minutes.

Rhythm 0, 1974
To test the limits of the relationship between performer and audience, Abramović developed one of her most challenging and best-known performances. She assigned a passive role to herself, with the public being the force that would act on her. Abramović placed on a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use in any way that they chose; a sign informed them that they held no responsibility for any of their actions. Some of the objects could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were a rose, a feather, honey, a whip, olive oil, scissors, a scalpel, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed audience members to manipulate her body and actions without consequences. This tested how vulnerable and aggressive human subjects could be when actions have no social consequences. At first the audience did not do much and was extremely passive. However, as the realization began to set in that there was no limit to their actions, the piece became brutal. By the end of the performance, her body was stripped, attacked, and devalued into an image that Abramović described as the "Madonna, mother, and whore." As Abramović described it later: "What I learned was that ... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you. ... I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."

In her works, Abramović affirms her identity through the perspective of others, however, more importantly by changing the roles of each player, the identity and nature of humanity at large is unraveled and showcased. By doing so, the individual experience morphs into a collective one and creates a powerful message. Abramović's art also represents the objectification of the female body, as she remains motionless and allows spectators to do as they please with her body; the audience pushes the limits of what one would consider acceptable. By presenting her body as an object, she explores the elements of danger and physical exhaustion.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.
Table with the 72 objects to be used by audience members during the performance.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974.
Performance, 6 hours.

Freeing the Voice 1975
‘Freeing the Voice’ is one of three significant performances enacted in 1976 in which Abramović attempted to achieve a mental cleaning through the exhaustion of the three main faculties of expression, voice, language and body. In ‘Freeing the Voice’ the artist lay on her back and screamed continuously until she completely lost her voice. The process took 3 hours.

Freeing the Voice
Marina Abramović
1975

Lips of Thomas
Marina Abramovic, 1975

In the performance 'Thomas Lips', Marina Abramovic undertakes a range of actions that push her physical limits to an extreme and finally result in the transgression of bodily boundaries. She starts off with eating 1 kilo of honey, followed by the consumption of 1 litre of red wine. Then, she breaks the wine glass with her hand. The actions become more violent and masochistic, including, in an image that has become iconic in the history of performance art, cutting a five-pointed star into her stomach with a razor blade.

Referring to various Christian themes and rituals of repentance, the live performance also includes Abramovic whipping herself until she eventually lies down on a cross made out of ice blocks. While a heater is pointed towards her stomach, mking the cut star bleed, the underside of her body is starting to freeze. In the original 1975 performance, after 30 minutes on the ice blocks, the artist was carried away by members of the audience, who cannot stand the situation any longer. At this point, it becomes clear that in 'Thomas Lips', Abramovic is not only threatening the integrity of her body and, thus, destabilizing the binary opposition between inside and outside, but is also questioning the distinction between public and performer. As in other performances, like 'Rhythm 5', the members of the audience can no longer hide behind their passive status as observers, but are forced to make the decision to intervene.