FRF: Susan Jarosi, “The Toothpaste and the Tube: Brushing Up on the Myth of Rudolf Schwarzkogler’s Self-Castration”

“The Toothpaste and the Tube: Brushing Up on the Myth of Rudolf Schwarzkogler’s Self-Castration”

Dr. Jarosi’s paper pursues an extended case study of Austrian artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler and the photographs of his infamous Action #3 (1965). It argues that the formation and circulation of the fictitious story of Schwarzkogler’s self-castration functions as an example of myth today, and one which continues to exert a potent influence on the creation and reception of contemporary performance art. Her close examination of the Schwarzkogler myth illuminates a range of persistent and pervasive misrepresentations of the medium of performance art that survive intact in the twenty-first century.