"Primal Secretions: A Günter Brus Retrospective," opening reception Sat., Sept. 23, 6:30-8:30 p.m., film premiere and lecture Wed., Sept. 27, 7-9 p.m., exhibit runs through Dec. 23, Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut St., 215-222-9050, www.slought.org

To truly host a retrospective of Günter Brus' early work, you would need to hang the artist himself.

Slought Foundation will do the next best thing by featuring video and photographs from the Austrian performance artist's late-'60s self-mutilating Aktionen movement.

According to Slought's Osvaldo Romberg, who's curating the show, the work of Brus and his group was a "purification" of their generation after the Holocaust and the Second World War. But he feels that Brus' works are relevant today due to the "real violence and mutilation which pervade today's news."

"They have an enormous emotional relationship with the execution of terrorism, the way that local wars are going on all over the world, killing a lot of civilians and so on," says Romberg. "I believe that it is very positive, in a sense, to make people feel the horrors of mutilation and war."

Forty years after their realization, Brus' performances show up the bloodless images beamed home from overseas. Spare a few unflinching moments—still want to talk about desensitization?