Art and revolution

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The action art and revolution , also known under the name Uni-Ferkelei , coined by the tabloid media , took place on June 7, 1968 in front of around 300 spectators in lecture hall 1 of the NIG (new institute building) of the University of Vienna and was initiated by the actionists Günter Brus , Otto Muehl , Peter Weibel and Oswald Wiener . Furthermore was Malte Olschewski involved.

The action went down in Austrian art history as one of the most famous post-war performances.

The action

At the invitation of the Association of Socialist Students (SÖS ) to help in the political agitation of the student body , Peter Weibel staged the "Art and Revolution" campaign. Almost all protagonists of Viennese actionism are involved.

In the lecture hall made available at the University of Vienna , the artists broke several taboos at once : nudity, relieving urgency, masturbation , whipping, self-mutilation, smearing one's own excrement on one's own naked body and vomiting through irritation of the esophagus - and all of that singing the Austrian national anthem and the extended Austrian national flag. One of the scenes consisted in the participant Malte Olschewski (“Laurids”) reading a text (with bandages wrapped around his head) while Otto Muehl tried to tear the sheet of paper with a belt, but hit the reader. This led to the designation “Masochist Laurids” for the - initially unknown - Olschewski.

Otto Mühl and Peter Weibel confront the audience with speeches that mock Robert Kennedy and Austrian Finance Minister Stephan Koren . The action readings "carnivalize" the serious political theater of Realpolitik. Peter Weibel describes the campaign as follows in an interview:

Brus mutilated himself, Mühl simulated a masturbation scene, and I gave a lecture with a burning glove, a rant against the Austrian government.

Not all parts of the action were that radical. Wiener, for example, gave an incomprehensible lecture on input-output theory.

Some of the speeches are also incomprehensible in terms of content, since Valie Export directs the light from a spotlight onto a light-sensitive resistor during one of Weibel's speeches. Since Weibel's microphone can be turned on or off via this resistor, the audience can turn off the microphone's amplifier system by shouting to Export. Therefore Weibel's speech can only be heard mutilated.

Profil describes how Oswald Wiener had devised a special security system in order to thwart disturbances from right-wing radical students: the doors were barricaded using specially made wooden pegs so that they could no longer be opened from the outside.

reaction

The Federation of Socialist Students (SES) distanced itself after the scandal-part on the actions of the artists. Journalists present in the lecture hall reported negative about the action (the Kronenzeitung coined the expression “Uni-Ferkelei”). Especially the newspaper ? Express ?? With the reporter Michael Jeannée, "incited the popular mood to ?? a pogrom climate ??", says Peter Weibel: "?? A wave of Austro-Fascism in which democracy, constitution and basic rights were shouting."

Kulturpool describes the historical context:

“Last Friday's excess lecture hall will have the most serious consequences for the student sex communists”, wrote the Austrian Boulevar newspaper “Express” in 1968 (which later merged with the “Kronen Zeitung”) about the event organized by Viennese actionists under the title “Art and Revolution ":" Vienna's police chief Josef Holaubek has personally instructed the Inner City commissariat: 'Find them out, question them and punish them ...' "

The "main protagonists of the? Fecal Festival of the Sex Communists?" (Quote from Jeannée), Günter Brus, Oswald Wiener and Otto Muehl, were brought to court in August 1968. The controversial court expert and psychiatrist Heinrich Gross was commissioned to appraise the actionists for the court. He even attested Günther Brus "psychopathy". He said in an interview:

I only found out about Gross' atrocities during the Nazi era later. I am not surprised that he of all people was put on me at the time. Then there was a second forensic psychiatrist who - as I later learned - was known in Viennese bars as a glass smasher. So he wasn't completely "flawless" either.

Wiener was acquitted. Otto Muehl was sentenced to four weeks of unconditional imprisonment for "despising the national anthem". Günter Brus was awarded for singing the national anthem while he defecated for "?? degradation of state symbols" ?? sentenced to six months of unconditional imprisonment. Brus then fled into exile in Berlin. It was not least this radicalization and the confrontations that went with it that led to the end of the era of Viennese actionism in the early 1970s.

Historical relevance

The Upper Austrian News called the 2018 campaign "Summit and end of student protests". Even the mirror the action calls a highlight of the Austrian student movement and the action is discussed in the context of radical European art after 1945 repeatedly in journalistic and academic publications and presented in artistic retrospectives.

As "Uni-Ferkelei" the action has passed almost "mythologically" into the Austrian cultural memory and, according to Johannes Grenzfurthner in his documentation Glossary of Broken Dreams , represents a classic example of radical art in a conservative disciplinary society. The action can only do it for him must be viewed in a historical context, because 50 years later, in a neoliberal control society, the content of the performance would no longer be socially upset. Even for the art historian Schrage, it is difficult to convey today how radical the action was. Journalist Peter Michael Lingens , who was the courier's court reporter at the time , says, however, that to this day he has not succeeded in seeing such an important art event in it and he "considers all those involved to be artistically extremely insignificant."

The ORF writes in an analysis:

Today, the "Art and Revolution" campaign is considered to be the central - and final - moment of Viennese Actionism; it has long since entered the art history books. And Brus has now received the Austrian State Prize.

literature

  • Herbert Lackner: The fifth man. In: profile. The independent news magazine in Austria. Issue No. 23 from June 2, 2008. Volume 39. ISSN  1022-2111 . Pages 30-32.
  • Thomas Dreher: Performance Art after 1945. Action theater and intermedia . Fink , Munich 2001, pp. 273-280, ISBN 3-7705-3452-2 (description and interpretation of the actions in "Art and Revolution" ) ( online ).

documentation

  • Mein Leben - Peter Weibel (ZDF / ORF / arte, 50 min., 2010, a film by Marco Wilms; Heldenfilm), contains short film recordings of the "Art and Revolution" campaign.
  • Glossary of Broken Dreams - Johannes Grenzfurthner's political documentary is dedicated to a. the phenomenon of the art scandal and uses "art and revolution" as a starting point.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Art and Revolution. KÖR Art in Public Space Vienna, June 7, 1968, accessed on March 5, 2017 .
  2. ↑ 50 years of "Art and Revolution": The actionist Anna Brus - derStandard.at. Retrieved March 5, 2019 (Austrian German).
  3. ↑ 68er- "Uni-Ferkelei" revisited: "Entered into art history" - derStandard.at. Retrieved March 5, 2019 (Austrian German).
  4. ↑ 1968/2018 - Historian Paulus Ebner: Actionism and Awakening | Science.apa.at. Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Matthias Beilein: 86 and the consequences: Robert Schindel, Robert Manasseh and Doron Rabinovici in the literary field in Austria . Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH & Co KG, 2008, ISBN 978-3-503-09855-2 ( google.at [accessed on March 7, 2019]).
  6. ↑ denied by the participant Olschewski in The fifth man , page 32.
  7. ↑ The Fifth Man , p. 32.
  8. ↑ 68er- "Uni-Ferkelei" revisited: "Entered into art history" - derStandard.at. Retrieved March 7, 2019 (Austrian German).
  9. ↑ Mühl, Otto: Verification of Robert Kennedy and the Kennedy family, University of Vienna, Vienna, Universitätsstrasse 7, June 7, 1968. In: Hoffmann: Destruktionskunst, p. 177; Kellein: Wissenschaft, p. 133; Noever: Mühl, pp. 150,152; Weibel: Art, p. 57; Weibel / Export: Vienna, p. 262.
  10. ↑ : The artist and curator Peter Weibel, 65, about nerd, sport and a university piggy . In: Der Spiegel . April 27, 2009 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 6, 2019]).
  11. ↑ 68er- "Uni-Ferkelei" revisited: "Entered into art history" - derStandard.at. Retrieved March 7, 2019 (Austrian German).
  12. ↑ Weibel, Peter / Export, Valie: Verification by Stephan Koren, Vienna, Universitätstrasse 7, June 7, 1968. In: Dreher: Performance Art, p. 273ff. with note 492; Hoffmann: Destruktionskunst, p. 177; Year out: Aktion, p. 26; Noever: Mühl, pp. 150,152; Weibel: Art, p. 57f .; Weibel / Export: Vienna, p. 263, chap. Texts (selection), o.p.
  13. ↑ Our 68er - The cozy revolution against anti-Semitism and misogyny. March 1, 2008, accessed March 6, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Our 68er - The cozy revolution against anti-Semitism and misogyny. March 1, 2008, accessed March 6, 2019 .
  15. ↑ State Prize for University Piglets - Culture Pool. Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Stefan Weiss: "Some of the people are a fool". Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Stefan Weiss: "Some of the people are a fool". Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Markus Brunner: "... return to those residuals from which the worlds are actually moved and shaped ..." - Viennese actionism between criticism and metaphysics. Published in: Emde, Annette & Krolczyk, Radek (ed.) (2013): Aesthetics without resistance. Texts on reactionary tendencies in art. Berlin (criminal), pp. 172–192.
  19. ^ "Uni-Ferkelei" - summit and end of the student protests. Retrieved March 7, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Markus Brunner: "... return to those residuals from which the worlds are actually moved and shaped ..." - Viennese actionism between criticism and metaphysics. Published in: Emde, Annette & Krolczyk, Radek (ed.) (2013): Aesthetics without resistance. Texts on reactionary tendencies in art. Berlin (criminal), pp. 172–192.
  21. ↑ My body is the event: booklet accompanying the MUMOK exhibition. 2015, accessed March 17, 2019 .
  22. ↑ 68er- "Uni-Ferkelei" revisited: "Entered into art history" - derStandard.at. Retrieved March 7, 2019 (Austrian German).
  23. ↑ Austria's 1968 scandal. Retrieved March 7, 2019 .