Die Blutorgel.

Vienna.: Self-published (Hermann Nitsch, Josef Dvorak, Otto Muehl & Adolf Frohner)., 1962. Two horizontal sheets each (24.5 x 60.3 cm), printed double-sided. Folded.. The manifesto Die Blutorgel (The Blood Organ) was published in late May 1962 by Adolf Frohner, Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch together with the psychoanalyst Josef Dvorak. It remains the first printed document published by the Vienna Actionists. The broadsheet contains Nitsch’s explanation of the concept behind the Orgies Mysteries Theater, and Muehl’s text “Der M.-Apparat”, a self-ironic consideration of his artistic approach. It also includes Frohner’s essay “Der Schrei der Kunst”, and Dvorak’s text “Blutorgelei als Daseinsgestaltung” (Blood Organing as Existential Design), written under the pseudonym Frtiz Graf. All these texts are preceded by the announcement of the forthcoming four-day ‘Blutorgel’ action which was to take place the following month at Muehl’s studio. On June 1 1962, the front entrance to Muehl’s basement studio on Perinetgasse in Vienna was bricked up and the windows were blacked; only a back entrance remained accessible. Screened off from the public and supplied with debris delivered to the basement, Adolf Frohner and Otto Muehl worked on sculptures. Meanwhile Nitsch created a nine-metre-long drip-and-pour painting. On the final day he acquired the carcass of a lamb, and for the first time Nitsch substituted blood for paint in one of his actions. Visitors on this final day could enter through the re-opened door to view the works. The Blutorgel broadsheet, presented here, is composed of two double-sided pages in an extreme horizontal format. They were originally distributed rolled up at the re-opening or ‘unbricking’ of the studio’s door on June 4. The manifesto’s graphic layout was determined by Adolf Frohner, although the print’s original design was embellished by the other artists: Nitsch doused it with paint, and Muehl wiped his paint-smeared hand on it, all of which is reproduced on the printed broadsheet. (Rare. WorldCat lists 2 copies at MoMA New York, and University of Chicago). [Ref. Vienna Actionism. Art and Upheaval in 1960s’ Vienna. Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, pp. 43-49].