With its second exhibition, the WAM delved deeper into the subject. The opening exhibition, WAS IST WIENER AKTIONISMUS?, had initially provided an overview of the multifaceted developments of this movement in the 1960s, presenting the individual actions only through representative photographs. Now, under the title VIER AKTIONEN, a series of exhibitions began that presents selected actions along with all available historical materials. This made it possible for the first time to trace the events in all their rich detail. The aim of the exhibition was to open up new perspectives on the reception of Viennese Actionism by shedding precise light on individual actions.

Photographs and the Sequence of the Actions

On display were all available photographs of actions from the first half of the 1960s: Günter Brus, Silber; Otto Muehl, Mama und Papa; Hermann Nitsch, 3. Aktion (Fest des psychophysischen Naturalismus); and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, 4. Aktion. The sequence of events—or the individual scenes—was also described in words, thereby revealing their complexity in terms of content

Film and Documentary

The moving images captured during the performances once again demonstrated that the filmmakers—unlike the photographers—did not comply with Brus, Muehl, Nitsch, and Schwarzkogler’s wish for their performances to be depicted as documentarily as possible.