Oh Sensibility! 2
Muehl, Otto
Vienna. By the artist. 1970
The very rare portfolio of original photographs documenting the Aktionist performance 'Oh Sensibility!'.
From the edition limited to 25 numbered copies, each numbered to the portfolio and signed and numbered by Muehl in turquoise ink to the title leaf.
'Oh Sensibility!' as an action was performed five times, twice in Muehl's apartment in Vienna, twice in Frankfurt and for a final time at the 'Wet Dreams Festival' in Amsterdam. Two of the performances were filmed and a film, 'Oh Sensibility!' directed by Muehl and Kurt Kren was also issued. Gerd Frey, who signs the introductory text as 'einer der grösten maler der welt' (one of the greatest painters of the world), was one of the participants. The present portfolio of photographs shows the second of the two Frankfurt performances at the Ostheimer Gallery in Frankfurt on August 20th, 1970.
'In O Sensibility (1970) [sic], Mühl rises up, spirit-like, behind a woman as she makes love to a goose, passionately kissing it on the beak with questionable consent from the animal. Mühl then licks the goose, thrusts it onto his pelvis, embraces it like a child, lashes it with a strap, and gives it over to a communal group where it is finally decapitated and its stump bloodily utilized to masturbate the woman. Though suggestive of mystic, pagan rites of purification and primitivism, the film, like all true surrealism, outrageously defies attempts at pigeonholing analysis and close reading. Unlike the simplistic, mock-Christian allegory of Thierry Zeno’s pig-fucking Vase de noces (1974), Mühl’s zoophilic act is tautegorical, not allegorical, restating selfhood in different, non-linguistic terms whose only offense is unapologetic naturalness.' (Andrew Grossman on the film 'Oh Sensibility!).
Although the majority of Muehl's actions were controversial, intentionally so, 'Oh Sensibility!' proved especially shocking - even to the participants and the gallery that staged it - with the slaughter of a goose as part of the action. The iteration presented here was the penultimate performance although the eponymous film has ensured that the action continues to provoke.
'As Mühl says in his 'Material Action Manifesto' of 1964, 'the material action works with symbols (its difference from theater), which in themselves constitute the storyline, a consecutive series and mingling of symbols as self-existing realities … they do not aim to explain anything, they are what they appear to be.'' (Otto Muehl quoted by Andrew Grossman).
'For the action O Sensibility I did not use a plastic blow-up doll or a dummy for the swan, but a real goose. It was a transgression of boundaries in the direction of reality ... The goose was no aesthetic object ... When I performed dance-like movements with it, it became calm. It no longer fluttered, and went about with me willingly. It sat quietly on my shoulder. Its tranquility affected me in return, and put me in a trance as well. With this, I became Jupiter, and it became the symbol of woman. I became the priest who would not kill it in order to devour it, but rather to carry out a kind of magic ritual with it ... I used it as a dildo after I cut off the head. I stage myself pornographically in order to show truths. I provoke the moralists who do the same thing on a daily basis. I hold the mirror before them ... I make no accusation, but I demonstrate the two-sidedness, the split in which human beings live. The public was appalled by my intentions. The spectators rejected the slaughter of the goose. If I think of the killing of human beings in the prisons of the USA, that is a crime. I do not condone animal murders. I show the sentimentality and hypocrisy. With tears in their eyes they gobble up their geese! Actionism is provocation and performance, the representation of moral double standards.' (Otto Muehl)
Rare on the market, we locate no examples of 'Oh Sensibility! 2' in museums or libraries. The portfolio for 'Oh Sensibility! 2' was assembled by hand: created from card painted on both sides with yellow paint that has then been cut and folded to make front and rear covers with a spine and flaps. Environmental factors and age have caused the painted card to contract and become stiff with the result that the cover has detached from the spine, the photographs show that the original glue was applied carelessly with some resultant bleed and the thin paper of the introductory text leaf shows the same. Nevertheless this example of 'Oh Sensibility! 2' is intact and well-preserved with the photographs in excellent condition.
[Gray 2423; see 'Die Schastrommel' No. 3, October 1970; see Andrew Grossman's 'An Actionist Begins to Sing: An Interview with Otto Mühl' in Bright Lights Film Journal, 2002].
From the edition limited to 25 numbered copies, each numbered to the portfolio and signed and numbered by Muehl in turquoise ink to the title leaf.
'Oh Sensibility!' as an action was performed five times, twice in Muehl's apartment in Vienna, twice in Frankfurt and for a final time at the 'Wet Dreams Festival' in Amsterdam. Two of the performances were filmed and a film, 'Oh Sensibility!' directed by Muehl and Kurt Kren was also issued. Gerd Frey, who signs the introductory text as 'einer der grösten maler der welt' (one of the greatest painters of the world), was one of the participants. The present portfolio of photographs shows the second of the two Frankfurt performances at the Ostheimer Gallery in Frankfurt on August 20th, 1970.
'In O Sensibility (1970) [sic], Mühl rises up, spirit-like, behind a woman as she makes love to a goose, passionately kissing it on the beak with questionable consent from the animal. Mühl then licks the goose, thrusts it onto his pelvis, embraces it like a child, lashes it with a strap, and gives it over to a communal group where it is finally decapitated and its stump bloodily utilized to masturbate the woman. Though suggestive of mystic, pagan rites of purification and primitivism, the film, like all true surrealism, outrageously defies attempts at pigeonholing analysis and close reading. Unlike the simplistic, mock-Christian allegory of Thierry Zeno’s pig-fucking Vase de noces (1974), Mühl’s zoophilic act is tautegorical, not allegorical, restating selfhood in different, non-linguistic terms whose only offense is unapologetic naturalness.' (Andrew Grossman on the film 'Oh Sensibility!).
Although the majority of Muehl's actions were controversial, intentionally so, 'Oh Sensibility!' proved especially shocking - even to the participants and the gallery that staged it - with the slaughter of a goose as part of the action. The iteration presented here was the penultimate performance although the eponymous film has ensured that the action continues to provoke.
'As Mühl says in his 'Material Action Manifesto' of 1964, 'the material action works with symbols (its difference from theater), which in themselves constitute the storyline, a consecutive series and mingling of symbols as self-existing realities … they do not aim to explain anything, they are what they appear to be.'' (Otto Muehl quoted by Andrew Grossman).
'For the action O Sensibility I did not use a plastic blow-up doll or a dummy for the swan, but a real goose. It was a transgression of boundaries in the direction of reality ... The goose was no aesthetic object ... When I performed dance-like movements with it, it became calm. It no longer fluttered, and went about with me willingly. It sat quietly on my shoulder. Its tranquility affected me in return, and put me in a trance as well. With this, I became Jupiter, and it became the symbol of woman. I became the priest who would not kill it in order to devour it, but rather to carry out a kind of magic ritual with it ... I used it as a dildo after I cut off the head. I stage myself pornographically in order to show truths. I provoke the moralists who do the same thing on a daily basis. I hold the mirror before them ... I make no accusation, but I demonstrate the two-sidedness, the split in which human beings live. The public was appalled by my intentions. The spectators rejected the slaughter of the goose. If I think of the killing of human beings in the prisons of the USA, that is a crime. I do not condone animal murders. I show the sentimentality and hypocrisy. With tears in their eyes they gobble up their geese! Actionism is provocation and performance, the representation of moral double standards.' (Otto Muehl)
Rare on the market, we locate no examples of 'Oh Sensibility! 2' in museums or libraries. The portfolio for 'Oh Sensibility! 2' was assembled by hand: created from card painted on both sides with yellow paint that has then been cut and folded to make front and rear covers with a spine and flaps. Environmental factors and age have caused the painted card to contract and become stiff with the result that the cover has detached from the spine, the photographs show that the original glue was applied carelessly with some resultant bleed and the thin paper of the introductory text leaf shows the same. Nevertheless this example of 'Oh Sensibility! 2' is intact and well-preserved with the photographs in excellent condition.
[Gray 2423; see 'Die Schastrommel' No. 3, October 1970; see Andrew Grossman's 'An Actionist Begins to Sing: An Interview with Otto Mühl' in Bright Lights Film Journal, 2002].
Small folio. (300 x 240 mm). Leaf of white card with silkscreen title in red recto (as for the portfolio cover), leaf of rose paper with purple mimeograph text by G. Frey mounted to sheet of card and 11 original monochrome photographs, each 286 x 224 mm or the reverse, each mounted to larger sheet of card and titled 'Oh Sensibility' and signed and dated '1970' by Muehl in pencil or blue ink to mount beneath; sheet size: 299 x 239 mm or the reverse. Loose as issued in publisher's yellow-painted card portfolio with flaps, silkscreen titles and justification in red to front cover, numbered '14' in red ink to lower right corner.
#48788
