The ‚Blutorgel‘ is considered the hour of birth of the ‚Viennes Actionism‘ Muehl, Otto. – Die Blutorgel.

One can say that this is the founding document of the Viennese Actionism, when Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch and Alfred Frohner let to mure themselves in a cellar in Viennese’s 21st district and stayed there for three days. The documentation of this ‚Action‘ was The Blood Organ, a multi-day performance in 1962 by the Viennese actionists Adolf Frohner, Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch, which was very controversial as performance art. A manifesto of the same name was published for the art campaign. It had its premiere in 1962 in a three-part campaign, with the three artists being imprisoned in Muehl’s basement studio at Perinetgasse No. 1 in Vienna-Brigittenau on June 1, 1962. In the second part, Frohner made object assemblies in the basement, Muehl made junk sculptures and Nitsch made a bulk painting. In the third and most important part, on June 4, 1962, the artists and their works that had previously been walled up were uncovered by the public as they were being walled up; In combination with the presentation of the previously created pouring painting by Nitsch (blood organ painting: 9 × 2 m, blood, dispersion, mud chalk on jute) the artists carried out a crucifixion, disembowelment and tearing apart of a dead lamb. The slaughtered and skinned lamb was crucified head down and nailed into an arch, the innards placed on a table and doused with blood and hot water. The central element of the campaign is also some white fabrics that reinforce the contrast of the colors. Originally coming from the Happening and Fluxus, actions like these by the Viennese Actionists, who were acting quite isolated at the time, were summarized under the term “Orgy-Mystery Theater”. It was a conscious aim of the artists to move away from action painting, such as: B. Frohner practiced developing an action theater that was understood as political theater, whereby sadomasochistic or exhibitionist elements could certainly irritate the Austrian audience at the time.