Peter Weibel

Greed God

Artists
Peter Weibel
Title
Greed God
Year
1967/1972
Medium / Material / Technic
video, digitized, b/w, sound,
Size / Duration
00:00:52

»Grüß Gott« [Greet God] is a text action performed in 1967 and repeated, videographically documented in 1972 in which words are turned into baked objects. The actors in the performance, Susanne Widl and Peter Weibel, meet on a street and show the two words »Gruß« [greet] and »Gott« [God] baked from bread dough. Widl begins to eat the word »Gruß« and swallows it. Weibel takes the word »Gott« in his mouth and spits it out again. Obviously he does not like it. In a very literal way the action deals with complex questions of faith and the human relationship to God and how religion inscribes itself into language or rather language constructs religion.