Immersed in ‘intense’ work

JOSHUA Lowe heard about Austrian artist Her- mann Nitsch’s 150. Action performance the way many people did — through media reports.

But Mr Lowe, a performance artist, said he grew tired of the constant criticisms of the work — which involved a dead bull, its entrails and 500 litres of blood — from m people he said were ignor- ant.

“A lot of people were making claims and making ng judgments without knowing what was happening in the artwork at all,” he said.

“It’s a very challenging work. The value of this artwork is that it makes people think and it gets conversations started.”

Mr Lowe said the best way for him to talk to people about the artwork was to get involved. He was a paid performer during the more than three-hour performance last Saturday, which was part of Dark Mofo.

“In some ways it was quite a profound experience and in some ways I didn’t find it that out of the ordinary,” Mr Lowe said.

The first hour of the performance involved blindfolded participants, some naked, others dressed in white robes, on crosses and stretchers having blood and milk poured into their mouths.

Later in the performance, participants “rummaged” through the innards of the bull carcass — an experience Mr Lowe said was “intense”.

He said he had to scrape the fat off his forearms after the performance.

“I had blood everywhere — in my mouth, eyes, ears … The hardest thing was combing all the chunks of meat and gristle out of my hair,” he said.

Mr Lowe said he welcomed the protests by people who were opposed to animals being used for human consumption, but consumers of meat and animal products who were opposed to the performance were “not thinking hard enough”.