Nitsch’s 1968 New York performance staged raw animal slaughter as avant-garde theater

Evidence

Mekas had no such luck, although Nitsch provided the full show. In lieu of a stage was an impromptu altar of two tables covered white butcher block paper. A lamb carcass dangled from the ceiling. Another was splayed against the wall. Brains and entrails were piled on the tables; mounds of kidneys and chunks of liver lay on the papered floor. Dressed in black save for an ostentatiously clean white shirt, Nitsch unhurriedly poured red liquid over everything, then dove into the bloody morass. … Let the cathartic sado-masochistic rumpus begin! Hendricks stuffed offal into his pants and pulled it out through his fly. A young woman in white lay on her back, staring up as bloody lamb goo dripped over her face and torso. A glistening coil of lamb intestines covered her crotch. Enforced incantatory aural domination was supplied by twenty musicians, louder than the Motherfuckers, banging on bongos, pots, pans, and washboards. Above the din the shrill whistle of the Austrian Trillerpfeife. There were no words, only screams. Evidently, the action went on for hours. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1188

Categorization

• CANDY: A genuinely surprising description—avant-garde theater using actual lamb carcasses and offal in 1968 New York—fun party fact about how far the scene went.