Maria-Empfängnis-Aktion Hermann Nitsch (1970)

Overview

Since 1963, the Austrian avant-gardist Hermann Nitsch has created a series of live happening, which (like Otto Muehl's Sodoma) combine cruelty, sexuality, defilement, and visual shock for purposes of purification, and "ab-reaction" of sado- masochist impulses. This is a film record of his most controversial creation: the crucifixion of a young woman, the disembowelling of a lamb carcass, and her defilement with it. —Peter Gorsen, Sexualaesthetik, 1972