Johann Jascha
The early work of Johann Jascha from the late 1960s and early 1970s is characterized by a performative stance that stems from the tradition of that era’s Viennese Actionists. Jascha’s actions were of an existential quality—beginning with his diploma project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1967, which he presented as a piece of paper announcing that he had become an academic painter while leaning crookedly on the ground like a person in dire straits. In his performances, Jascha’s striking physical presence—with his long disheveled hair and beard—was paired with a great deal of screaming
along with a variety of shocking gestures that many of those in his audiences found bewildering. Jascha’s facial (and bodily) expressions were of the utmost importance when he enacted his screaming and shouting performances in front of the audience or for the camera. And for viewers and passers-by, a great number of his actions were quite hard to take—while they often amounted to extreme bodily experiences for the artist himself. Jascha’s actions were unannounced and spontaneous, meaning that spectators had no clue what to expect. In some cases, it became important to clarify afterwards that such actions were artistic in nature rather than being drug- or alcohol-induced. In 1970, the artist performed "Jascha’s Geburtung" [Jascha’s birthing], in which he broke through and out of a rubber skin that covered his body while squatting in an oversized and misshapen toilet- or bidet-like plaster object that was reminiscent of a Franz West sculpture. From 1969 to 1974, the artist created the environment "Schöner Wohnen" [Better Living] in his small Viennese apartment, where he brought together an accumulation of bottles, cigarette butts, beard stubble, scraps of paper, coasters, and other rubbish from floor to ceiling. This environment also served as a backdrop for his performances. He kept these relics for six years and viewed this compulsive artistic hoarding as an antithesis to bourgeois living and its inherent consumer stress. In 1975, this environment was packed into plastic bags and transferred to the New Gallery of the City of Linz for an exhibition that featured the local avant-garde of the time. Above and beyond his early performances in front of an audience as well as for photo sequences, Jascha is also known for his drawings, paintings, and sculptures. W.S.
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