In Dialogue: Viennese Actionism

In conjunction with the retrospective of the American-Cuban artist Ana Mendieta the Museum der Moderne Salzburg focused for the first time on its collection holdings of the ground-breaking art movement of the Austrian post-war period referred to as Viennese Actionism. In addition to this movement dominated by male artists, one gallery exhibited works by women artists who introduced an entirely different concept of the body and a new image of women, while articulating a media critique. This special focus on radical art of the Austrian post-war period in the Museum der Moderne Salzburg’s collection provided access to astonishing holdings, impressive in range and with hitherto rarely shown material. Thus, its diversity made us read a history of the representation of body-based art and its various articulations in the museum context during the past decades.

This exhibition took place parallel to the retrospective of Ana Mendieta and in dialogue with her work. During her studies with Hans Breder at the Intermedia Program of the School of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, US, which Breder ran from 1968 for more than three decades, Mendieta encountered the work of artists such as Vito Acconci, Mary Beth Edelson, Hans Haacke, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Wilson, but also with the Viennese Actionists. Clear resonances are evident in Mendieta’s performances and artistic practice. A few of the connections that we are able to recognize today are—to name a few—the radical use of the body as artistic means, the precise selection of photographs assigned the task of mediating performance-based works in the gallery and museum context, and the experimental use of concepts and disciplines.