Willmar Sauter

Anna Odell’s Art Work as Event

An artist stages a suicide attempt by disposing her clothes in order to jump from a high bridge. Passers-by – seeing a real body in danger – call the police; the police bring the resisting body to a hospital; the next morning the doctors are told that this event was filmed as part of an art installation.

After the public media upheaval with all its pro and cons, the question remains: in what terms are we speaking about such actions? Did the artist play a role or was she herself? What was the medium of her actions? To what degree appear the observers, the police and the hospital warden as authentic – and there is obviously a certain value in this kind of authenticity, at least when one sees the video in the frame of an installation in an art gallery.

This paper might raise more questions that it can answer, but the attempt will be made to point toward (the necessity of) a new approach to acting theories. A model of possible thinking will be indicated, thereby referring to numerous bodily appearances outside the traditional playhouses.