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Slought Foundation, a non-profit organization rethinking contemporary art, presents “Primal Secretions: A Günter Brus Retrospective,” an exhibition featuring original photographs and video documentation of past performances by Günter Brus, on display in the main galleries from September 23, 2006-December 23, 2006. The public reception for the exhibition will take place on Saturday, September 23rd, 2006 from 6:30-8:30pm, with introductory remarks on the exhibition by Cecilia Novero at 7:15pm addressing the post-war Austrian context within which Günter Brus developed his controversial body- and self- analyses. This exhibition has been curated by Osvaldo Romberg, Senior Curator at Slought Foundation, and features photographic and video documentation of performances including Selbstbemalung, 1965; Kunst und Revolution, 1968; and Zerreissprobe, 1970.
"This show is a reminder of how an artist with such elementary tools (paint, the body, and a dramatic capacity) can supersede his own identity and iconography and can demonstrate, consciously or unconsciously, a new pathway for the next generations of artists and intellectuals to come. In preparing for this exhibition, I have come to view Günter Brus today not just as a great performance or body artist, or a pioneering Actionist, but also as one of the great political artists and one of the prophets of twenty-first century art." -- Osvaldo Romberg
Slought Foundation is also pleased to announce a special film premier and lecture on the work of Günter Brus on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 from 7:00-9:00pm. Cecilia Novero will explore the historical and cultural context that informed the work of Viennese Actionist Günter Brus, followed by the United States premier of BODYANALYSIS, a documentary about the work of Günter Brus realized by Peter Kasparak (Here for more information).
This exhibition and related programs have been made possible in part through the generous support of Heike Curtze Gallery (Austrian representative) and Peter Kasparak (Cosmos Factory GMBH Filmproduktion / Günter Brus Studio). Information on "Die Aktionen: 1962-2003," a 2005 retrospective at Slought Foundation on the work of fellow Viennese Actionist Hermann Nitsch, is available online: http://slought.org/content/11274/.
Read the full curatorial essay
Günter Brus, an Austrian performance artist, draughtsman, painter and film maker, was born in 1938. With Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler he was a founder-member of the Aktionismus group (Viennese Actionism), and with Muehl he helped found the Institut für Direkte Kunst in 1966. To a certain extent, Brus conceived of his Aktionen in terms of paintings or tableaux, where the body occupied the centre of a clearly defined space. Just as he had scratched and degraded the fabric of his paintings to the point of destruction, in his Aktionen he portrayed various acts of self-mutilation. This development was encapsulated in the title of his exhibition in 1965 at the Galerie Junge Generation in Vienna: Malerei, Selbstbemalung, Selbstverstümmelung (Ger.: painting, self-painting, self-mutilation).
In his Aktionen after 1967, Brus pushed himself to further physical and mental extremes as he analyzed his own body and its functions, while colleagues such as Hermann Nitsch and Otto Muehl concentrated on the role of the body in the construction and analysis of psycho-dramas. Symbolism was generally dispensed with in the performances, as Brus publicly urinated, defecated and cut himself with a razor-blade, for example. The first of these Aktionen to be performed in public, Citizen Brus Looks at his Own Body, was performed in Aachen and Düsseldorf in 1968; in June of the same year his Art and Revolution, performed at Vienna University, led to his arrest and a six-month prison sentence for degrading the symbols of the State. The culmination of these body-analysis Aktionen came in 1970, when Brus stopped his live performances and returned to painting, drawing and the production of artists' books. His first exhibition of drawings at the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne, and his book Irrwisch, both in 1971, formed a link between the bleak Expressionism of the Aktion and the book form by joining grotesque sexual humor, cathartic intention, and at times narrative depictions of his performances and fantasies.
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To Cite this Page using MLA Style:
Günter Brus. "Primal Secretions: A Günter Brus Retrospective." Slought Foundation Online Content.
[23 September 2006;
Accessed 20 July 2008]. <http://slought.org/content/11316/>.
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This program was made possible in part through the generous sponsorship of Heike Curtze (Austrian representative), Peter Kasparak (Cosmos Factory GMBH Filmproduktion / Gunter Brus Studio), and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
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