After he was sentenced to months in prison for an art event at Vienna University, he fled to Berlin in 1969 with his wife and child, from where he did not return until 1979. In the decades that followed, the persecuted man became one who was often honored and appreciated. Brus, one of the most important contemporary Austrian artists, died yesterday at the age of 85.
In his actions in Vienna in the 1960s, Günter Brus used his own body and his body fluids as material for his art, pushing the limits of what was physically and psychologically tolerable – both for himself and for the audience: The The co-founder of “Vienna Actionism” used a scratching razor blade on his own body as a replacement for the drawing pencil and excrement was also used in the actions. And he always went one step further from action to action.
Image: OÖN/L. Hopefully
In the actions, Brus addressed the suffering caused by the social rules and constraints of the late 1960s, but also by physical vulnerability and exposure. At the same time, he turned existing artistic conventions on their head by declaring his body to be the medium of art.
His name is inextricably linked with “Vienna Actionism”. But the Styrian-born artist didn’t want to be pigeonholed into art history, because his work goes far beyond that. His extensive oeuvre includes extensive groups of works, starting with the early informal pictures, the body art of the 1960s, tens of thousands of “image poems” located on the border between literature and fine art, as well as works for the stage. Added to this is the extensive literary work of the imaginative language artist, bizarre word creator and phrase smasher.
- HONEY: Günter Brus is dead
Günter Brus was born on September 27, 1938 in Ardning in Upper Styria, precisely in Pürgschachen. Between 1953 and 1958 he attended the School of Applied Arts in Graz and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, dropping out of the latter early. After an informal phase of work, he shocked the public with his boundary-breaking body art in the 1960s, together with Muehl, Nitsch and Schwarzkogler. “I reacted to the compulsion out of inner compulsion,” Brus once said in an interview with the APA. His “Vienna Walk” is also legendary, in which he walked through the city center of Vienna as a living painting, so to speak.
Image: ORF/Günter Brus
Participation in the “Art and Revolution” campaign at the University of Vienna (1968), in which Brus cut himself, drank his urine and smeared himself with his feces while singing the national anthem, ended badly for the artist: he was arrested for ” Violation of morality and modesty” was sentenced to six months in prison. Brus escaped imprisonment by fleeing to Berlin. There he founded the “Austrian Government in Exile” and its “government magazine” called “Die Schastrommel” with Oswald Wiener and Gerhard Rühm. He ended his activism in 1970 with the “Order Test” in Munich. It was not until 1976 that his wife was able to get the Federal President to have his prison sentence converted into a fine. In 1979 the artist returned to Austria with his family and settled in Graz.
Image: APA/ANNEMARIE HAPPE
After turning away from activism in 1979, Brus transferred his messages to paper. It began with the portfolio “Irrwisch” (1970 – 1972), and from then on drawing – and especially his cycles of picture poetry – were the focus of his work. Brus was represented at the most important international art exhibitions such as the documenta (1982 and 1992) and the Venice Biennale (1980). As a set designer, he designed, among other things, the Gerhard Roth premiere of “Memories of Humanity” at the steirischer herbst in 1985, but also Arnold Schönberg’s “Expectation” and Leos Janacek’s “The Cunning Little Vixen”.
His list of works as an author includes, among others, the novel “The Secret Carriers” (1982), the short prose collection “Amor und Amok” (1987) as well as his “Schmähmoiren”, “The Good Old Times” (2002) and “The Good Old Vienna” (2007), a fantastic, nightmarish look back at his years in Vienna.
Bild: APA/Hans Punz
In autumn 2011, Brus got a museum in Graz, the Bruseum, which not only regularly shows his works and places them in the context of other artists, but also conducts research. When the Vienna Actionism Museum (WAM) opens in March, Brus’ action “Self-painting” will be the subject of the opening exhibition “What is Viennese Actionism?”. “In this exhibition and in our museum, Günter Brus and his work will not only live on – it will be honored and discussed. The WAM will show what important contribution Viennese Actionism, including Günter Brus, made to the concept of art following 1945,” said co-initiator and managing director Philipp Konzett.
Image: Belvedere
For his artistic work, Brus has received, among others, the Great Austrian State Prize for Fine Arts (1996) and the Oskar Kokoschka Prize (2003). In 2018 he was awarded the Medal of Honor for Science, Research and Art from the State of Styria and in 2023 he was awarded the Ring of Honor from the City of Graz.
In recent years, Brus lived with his daughter Diana and his wife Anna on the northern outskirts of Graz. Shortly before his birthday in the fall, he fell ill with Covid-19 and had to cancel his participation in the planned events. Most recently he is said to have suffered from pneumonia.
