Essai

Authenticity and Verfremdung

Öyvind Fahlström’s performance Kisses Sweeter than Wine (1966)

Per Bäckström

Performance art has been regarded as solidly rooted in the “Hier und Jetzt”, asserted by Walter Benjamin as the only remaining condition for the Aura. However, as Philip Auslander observes, every performance today is always already mediatized in one way or another, and still we might experience liveness and then also authenticity. Mediatization is, therefore, a (necessary) condition for authenticity. In my discussion on the Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström’s (1928–76) performance Kisses Sweeter than Wine 1966, I nonetheless argue that...