My body is the event

mumok is presenting its collection focus on Vienna Actionism in the context of international developments in performance-based art. Whereas previous mumok shows of Vienna Actionism always concentrated on the pictorial artifacts of the movement’s main protagonists, the focus of this exhibition is on the performative aspects of their creative work. Actions by Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, Otto Muehl, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler will be contrasted with works by significant international practitioners of performance art, with works by Marina Abramovic, Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Jon Grigorescu, Shigeko Kubota, Paul McCarthy, Ana Mendieta, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Gina Pane, Neša Paripovic, Ewa Partum, Carolee Schneemann, and VALIE EXPORT. The exhibition will be divided into several thematic sections that look at the questions that generally shaped a broad range of action art in the 1960s and 1970s. A comparison with parallel international movements will show that the Viennese artists were not only right up with the times but in many ways developed pioneering positions.