Günter Brus. Nervous stillness on the horizon

‘The actor performs and himself becomes material: stuttering, stammering, burbling, groaning, choking, shouting, screeching, laughing, spitting, biting, creeping, rolling about in the material.' These are the words Austrian artist Günter Brus used to describe his work. In 1964 he began to carry out individual performances that revolved around ritual and social catharsis. As this publication documents, in these performances – of which sketches, photographs and films remain – his body became the means to condemn Western social, political and religious taboos.