Gallerist Philipp Konzett, co-initiator and managing director of the Vienna Actionism Museum, which will open in March, confirmed corresponding reports to the APA on Sunday morning.
- HONEY: Actionist Günter Brus is dead
Brus, born on September 27, 1938 in Ardning in Upper Styria, together with Muehl, Nitsch and Schwarzkogler, shocked the public in the 1960s with body art that became world-famous as Viennese Actionism. “Günter Brus was the only one of the four actionists who carried out his actions on himself. He went to his personal limits in order to show psychopathological dimensions,” says Konzett, who, like the management of the Universalmuseum Joanneum, Marko Mele and Josef Schrammel, showed deep concern. The mayor of Graz, Elke Kahr (KPÖ), also expressed sadness. Last year, Günter Brus was awarded the City of Graz’s Ring of Honor at a ceremonial meeting of the local council.
After Brus was sentenced to months in prison in Austria for an art event at Vienna University, he fled to Berlin in 1969 with his wife and child, from where he only returned in 1979. Brus was one of the most important contemporary Austrian artists and created a work that broke boundaries in many ways.
Since autumn 2011, his own museum in Graz, the Bruseum, has been dedicated to him. For his artistic work, Brus has received, among others, the Great Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts (1996) and the Oskar Kokoschka Prize (2003). Most recently he lived with his daughter Diana and his wife Anna on the northern outskirts of Graz.
As the Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB) announced on Sunday, the announced show “Günter Brus” will open as planned next Friday (February 16). The construction work for the exhibition with almost 500 works from all of Brus’ creative phases is in full swing, it was said. The exhibition was developed together with Günter Brus and the Bruseum and honors the most important phases of his extraordinary work, said KUB director Thomas D. Trummer. “Günter Brus and his wife Anna made a significant contribution to the selection; a large part of the loans come from their personal collection. It is an infinite pity and sadness that Günter Brus can no longer experience the exhibition, which opens a week following his death “, says Trummer.
