Rudolf Schwarzkogler

Rudolf Schwarzkogler

Rudolf Schwarzkogler (13 November 1940 in Vienna – 20 June 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" featuring such iconography as a dead fish, a dead chicken, bare lightbulbs, colored 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'.

"Art as life ritual. The conventional artist looks for his own style; he wants to achieve something but does not ask what. He thus serves the ruling institutions by making his products attest to the concepts on which these institutions have built up their existence. And he is repaid for this, honoured and pensioned. However, art is above all justified through the enjoyment of art and not through the pressure of a style. Art as experience, training, and as the destruction of all established ideas about life... painting as threapy. Art is a cure against addiction... a series of elementary chains of experience."

Myth and Fact.

Myth.

Peeling his skin off with a razor blade he got 1/4 of the way through before he died... It was very strongly rumoured that he cut his penis off... CLE 3A, October 1979
Dedicated to Rudolf Schwarzkogler who killed himself in the name of art by successive acts of self mutilation. Nurse With Wound lp cover note on 'to the quiet men from a tiny girl'

Fact.

Schwarzkogler died when he jumped or fell from the window of his bedroom.

A number of Schwarzkogler's actions can be seen clicking here


the source: http://www1.freewebs.com/vienna-actionists/rudolfschwarzkogler.htm

i remember seeing some of his works(some photos i guess) when i visited the modern art museum from vienna( last year-fall) and i find them very touchy.now i understand very well why.is it necessary for sending a message in it's purest form, to apply it to yourself by leaving a visible trace?does suffering is the premise of real art?maybe, alongside with happiness,sadness or rage.i almost burst into tears watching him acting.