Günter Brus

Günter Brus introduced the body as a central medium of expression in art and used materials such as paint, bodily fluids, and everyday substances in his practice. In doing so, he blurred the boundaries between image, body, and space, as well as between motif and artist. Together with Oswald Wiener, Peter Weibel, and Otto Mühl, he performed his ​“Körperanalysen” (Body Analyses) in 1968 in Lecture Hall 1 of the New Institute Building at the University of Vienna as part of the ​“Kunst und Revolution” (Art and Revolution) action. By deliberately breaking social taboos, they provoked a scandal and were sentenced to six months in prison. Brus subsequently moved to Berlin, where he founded the so-called ​“Österreichische Exilregierung” (Austrian Government-in-Exile) together with Oswald Wiener, Gerhard Rühm, and others.

In the 1970s, Brus began creating drawings that he linked to his literary work, thereby coining the term Bild-Dichtung (picture poetry). In this practice, image and text meet without explaining one another or being dependent on one another. Brus maintains his process-oriented, action-like approach in this cross-media practice.

The exhibition features a variety of drawings created in the 1980s and 1990s. It becomes clear that Brus has been grappling with questions of introspection and self-awareness over a long period of time. The act of experimentation also plays a central role, as is evident in two of the works. In Vom Ende der Selbstversuche im Halbschattengewächshaus (On the End of Self-Experiments in the Semi-Shaded Greenhouse), these are tied to external objects such as a board and a dumbbell-like form, while an inner restlessness is visualized in the brain of the depicted person. In Radikaler Versuch, selbst ein Glockenklang ohne Schwingung sein zu können (Radical Attempt to Become a Bell Tone Without Vibration), the experiment is directed at the self and pursues a disembodied goal that requires a high degree of introspection.

In the work Aus mir entsteht nichts, aber ich kann alles machen (Nothing Emerges from Me, but I Can Make Everything), a subject can be discerned who finds themselves in a kind of tension between physicality and systemic logic: An ​“I” that observes itself, analytically dissects itself, and in the process possibly also transforms into a technoid, cybernetic sculpture. Insight appears as a cybernetic process of reduction in which the body becomes the technoid carrier of control and feedback structures.

Vom Ende der Selbstversuche im Halbschattengewächshaus, 1990
Pencil and colored pencil on paper
63 × 44 cm, framed

Radikaler Versuch, selbst ein Glockenklang ohne Schwingung sein zu können, 1990
Oil pastels on paper
70 × 50 cm, framed

Das klassische Erbe oder Allegorie auf die Schlußfolgerung, 1983
Oil pastels on paper
40 × 30 cm, framed

Aus mir entsteht nichts, aber ich kann alles machen, 1994
Oil pastels and gouache on paper
40 × 30 cm, framed

All works Courtesy Private Collection, Graz