Rudolf Schwarzkogler

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Rudolf Schwarzkogler (born November 13, 1940 in Vienna ; † June 20, 1969 there ) was an Austrian photographer and artist who is counted among the Viennese Actionists .

Life

Rudolf Schwarzkogler was born the son of a doctor who was born in 1942 from Rudolf's mother Anna, nee. Tögel separated and the following year after a serious war injury in which he lost both legs, he took his life near Dubinniskij-Stalingrad. In 1951 Schwarzkogler's mother moved with her son to Lienz , where she married the sculptor Johann Unterweger and Rudolf attended the first three years of high school. In 1954 he moved back to Vienna to live with his paternal grandmother and in 1956 to live with his other grandmother in Vienna. He continued to attend high school and in 1956 the federal trade school (building construction department) for one year .

In 1957 he moved to the graphic teaching and research institute , department for commercial graphics, and in the following year again to the paternal grandmother.

In 1960 he met Hermann Nitsch , who had completed the "Graphische" in 1958, and became friends with him. The following year he left graphic arts without a degree and worked in the summer as a student trainee (graphic designer) for the company CF Boehringer and Soehne GmbH in Mannheim. In October he enrolled at the Academy for Applied Arts Vienna , but only attended it briefly. He did his military service in the armed forces and met Edith Adam in the fall . They shared an apartment in 1964. He worked as a graphic artist and took part in actions by Viennese actionists such as Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch. Shortly afterwards he started his own actions.

From 1965 Schwarzkogler devoted himself entirely to free art and quit his job. He started out with horse betting and was interested in winning systems. In 1968 he took part in film projects. In 1969 he died after falling from the window of his apartment.

Actions

Six of Schwarzkogler's actions, mostly with his “model” Heinz Cibulka , were staged for the medium of photography from the outset ; the resulting image was intended as a kind of stage. At his first wedding , friends were present as an audience, for the following actions no audience was planned and only few or no friends were present.

1st action, February 6, 1965, wedding : Schwarzkogler shows a private ritual with religious, shamanistic and alchemical elements at a table covered with a white tablecloth, on which there are dead fish, a dead chicken, various animal organs, eggs, colored liquids, a knife and scissors.

2nd action, summer 1965; 3rd action, summer 1965; 4th action, summer 1965; 5th action, autumn 1965; 6th action, 1966

After this series, Schwarzkogler wrote artistic concepts that he no longer carried out. “He was interested in eating, drinking and fasting, he prescribed himself obscure cures and ablutions and other very simple physical experiences; it wasn't about fitness, but about purity ”. As conceptual photography, his work can be related to conceptual art .

In 1972 texts, sketches and photos were posthumously shown by him for actions, 1965 - 1969 as an official contribution to Documenta 5 in Kassel in the Individual Mythologies department .

Myths

A verifiable misinterpretation of the photos of a performance possibly gave rise to the legend through an article in the news magazine Newsweek in 1972 that Schwarzkogler amputated his penis during an action and died from it. Other sources attribute the misinterpretation to Time Magazine in 1972 . Schwarzkogler's actually fatal fall from a window in his apartment also led to mythical interpretations. It could not be determined whether an accident or a suicide had occurred.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Claudius Seidl: Purgatory of Sensuality. In: Der Spiegel . No. 7, 1993 of February 15, 1993, pp. 234-237.
  2. ^ Heinz Cibulka: Memory of Rudolf Schwarzkogler. Accessed on November 2, 2008 : "For him, the picture becomes the stage for his (...) ideas."
  3. ↑ Untitled, from the performance Hochzeit (Marriage), 1965. In: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed October 17, 2008 .
  4. ^ Gunter Brus, Hannah Stegmayer, Rudolf Schwarzkogler: Conceptual photography . In: Kunstverein Rosenheim. (Ed.): Catalog for the exhibition at the Kunstverein Rosenheim . 2002, ISBN 3-9807187-7-8 (German, English).
  5. ↑ ACTIONISM CURRENT: Schwarzkogler is alive! In: Falter 9/02 of February 27, 2002. Falter Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, archived from the original on April 13, 2012 ; accessed on February 10, 2017 .

literature

  • Hannah Stegmayer, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Conceptual Photography. , Rosenheim 2002, ISBN 3-9807187-7-8
  • Eva Badura-Triska, Hubert Klocker, Rudolf Schwarzkogler - Life and Work , publisher Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Ritter Verlag Klagenfurt, 1992, ISBN 3-85415-103-9

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schwarzkogler, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian photographer and artist
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 20th June 1969
Place of death Vienna