47.aktion stand studio morra düsseldorf 1974

47.aktion
düsseldorf
friday, 18 october, 1974

morra had asked me to perform a couple of actions in his berth in düsseldorf (at the art fair). body art was the in-thing at the time. i seized the opportunity and wanted to produce a kind of well-tempered, vivid example of body art. above all because in vienna we had begun, long before it had become generally fashionable, to work in this direction, far more radical than it is performed today. we had 3 days at our disposal. cibulka and myself gave 4 performances every day. each lasted between 30 and 45 minutes. a large throng of people came to each performance. finally we could bypass the press and visitors to the fair were able to have unfiltered access to my actions. i reckon that at least 1000 people, if not more, saw the performances. it was all great success, actually one that spread slowly but surely.

performance: in cibulka i had the ideal partner who knew exactly what it was all about. strictly speaking, i didn’t have a concept for each of the actions, so that each one was improvised from the outset. i think that all of the actions were performed to perfection. the technique of improvisation did me the world of good, allowed me to work freely and uninhibited. the series of actions prompted that the galerie stadler invited me to paris.

duration: 4 x 30-45 minutes over 3 days