tical relationship between the factual, neutral docu-
ment and the image as an aesthetically transformed
object. Many of their actions were so radically
conceived, and so controversial, that they were
often performed without an audience. Their work
was widely ignored by critics and treated with out-
right hostility by the public at the time it was
produced. The camera became a surrogate witness
to their work, a means of documenting their
actions, and a medium of transforming their arti-
facts into images of profound aesthetic beauty.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of negatives and
photographs remain from their work.
While Muhl and Brus seemed more interested in
challenging social norms, Nitsch and Schwarzkog-
ler shared interests in alchemy, and transformation
of the object through photography. The fundamen-
tal motivation of all of these artists was in one way
or the other connected to Nitsch’s theory of abreac-
tion—stating that a cathartic response in the viewer
produced by shock can unlock energies deep within
the psyche. In the environment of post-fascist Aus-
tria, their work was also a deliberate challenge to
the grip of social conformism that restricted artistic
freedom in the years following the war.
It is generally agreed that Viennese Actionism
was Austria’s greatest contribution to Post-war
Modernism, but this has only been a recent claim
made with many years of historical distance. The
reputation as ‘‘shock-artists’’ with no ethics, or as
pariahs gone over the edge into self-mutilation and
degradation, has been difficult to dispel. Ironically,
American critics such as Robert Hughes and Bar-
bara Rose only contributed to the misunderstanding
by their literal readings of Scharzkogler’s photo-
graphs that suggested he was mutilating his own
penis. The critics’ condescension and shock over
photographs that were fabricated by the artist ulti-
mately testified to the artist’s skill and foregrounded
the need to crack down on artistic freedom.
The legacy of Viennese Actionism will rest with
several dynamic concepts found in the collective
works of these artists: the use of deliberately
extreme actions to test the boundaries of total
artistic freedom, the use of the nude human body
as an artistic medium in public contexts, and the
use of the camera to create a ritualistic iconography
of radical artistic practice.
LaneBardenFurther Reading
Brus, Muehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler: Writings of the Vienna
Actionists. London: Atlas Press, 1999.DEBORAH WILLIS-KENNEDY
American
Deborah Willis-Kennedy is a photographer, edu-
cator, and historian specializing in African American
photographic history. Her career spans more than 20
years of creating and critiquing images, and she has
published numerous books on the history of African
American photography, such asThe Black Female
Body in Photography, (co-author, Carla Williams,
2002) andReflections in Black: A History of Black
Photographers—1840 to the Present, (2000), ad-
vancing an area of scholarship that had been pre-
viously largely ignored. In recognition of her
groundbreaking work, Willis-Kennedy was awarded
a MacArthur Foundation Grant in 2000. Besides
publishing, Willis-Kennedy has been an influential
teacher at Duke University, Durham, North Caro-
lina, and New York University, worked at the
Smithsonian Institution’s Center for African Amer-
ican History and Culture, and exhibited nationally in
solo and group shows.
Willis-Kennedy completed her undergraduate stu-
dies at the Philadelphia College of Art (now The
University of the Arts) earning a B.F.A. in photo-
graphy in 1975, and continued her education at Pratt
Institute, New York, with an M.F.A. in photography
in 1980. The early part of her career was spent as a
fine art photographer exhibiting in the New York
City area, includingWomen Photographers: Reflec-
tions of Self(Fordham University 1986),Prisoners of
War: In My Native Land and On Foreign Soil(New
School Gallery 1992), andOccupations and Resis-WILLIS-KENNEDY, DEBORAH