Otto Hermann Kahn

Otto Hermann Kahn kän , 1867-1934, American banker and patron of the arts, born and educated in Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1893 and in 1897 joined the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company in New York City. He was closely associated with E. H. Harriman in the reorganization of the Union Pacific and other railroads and had a part in numerous international finance organizations. Among the many theatrical and musical groups he helped underwrite were the Russian ballet and the Paris Conservatory orchestra in their American appearances. From 1903 he was active on the board of the Metropolitan Opera Company; in 1908 he brought, from Milan, Giulio Gatti-Casazza as director and Arturo Toscanini as principal conductor, launching the company on one of its most successful periods. A collection of his writings and speeches was published as Of Many Things (1926).

Bibliography: See biography by M. J. Matz (1963).

Garrick Theatre (New York). Built as the Harrigan Theatre in 1890 by Edward Harrigan after he had split up with partner Tony Hart, the romanesque‐style house on West 35th Street was designed by Francis H. Kimball and featured an intricate facade. Richard Mansfield bought the theatre in 1895 and, wishing to save money, renamed it the Garrick so that the sign needed only minimal letter changes. Charles Frohman owned the theatre until his death in 1915, and then it fell into derelict condition until millionaire Otto Kahn saved it and refurbished it in 1917. The house was later the first home for the Theatre Guild, but when that group built their own theatre, the Garrick was reduced to a burlesque house and was razed in 1932 after a fire.

Vienna Actionists (or Viennese Actionism)(Wiener Aktionismus). Names applied to a group of Austrian Performance artists who worked together in the 1960s and who represent the most unsavoury, sadomasochistic trends in the genre. The three main members of the group were Gunter Brus (1938– ), Otto Muehl (1925– ), and Hermann Nitsch (1938– ), who first collaborated in 1961 and in 1966 began calling themselves the Institut für Direkte Kunst (Institute for Immediate Art). Other people associated with them included Rudolf Schwarzkogler. The early work of the group had included crude assemblages and Action Paintings, from which they progressed to deliberately extreme and provocative performances, typically involving substances such as blood and excrement and often involving nude performers. The titles of some of Muehl's ‘actions’ give a flavour of their content: ‘Penis Action’ (1963); ‘Christmas Action: A Pig is Slaughtered in Bed’ (1969); ‘Action with Goose’ (1971). He often submitted himself to degradation and humiliation, as in ‘Libi’ (1969), in which a broken egg was dripped into his mouth from the vagina of a menstruating woman. This kind of performance led to the arrest of the participants on several occasions. Nitsch was the chief spokesman of the group. He maintained that such work could bring liberation from violence through catharsis.