"Wiener Spaziergang"

Photographer: Ludwig Hoffenreich

gelatin silver print on cardboard

signed (pencil) and stamp on mount verso

In 1965, the "Galerie der Jungen Generation" (Vienna, Börseplatz) made a half-hearted attempt to bring "Viennese Actionism" out of the underground. I was given the opportunity to carry out a self-painting in the gallery's rooms. Of course, the event was seen more as an opening spectacle for my exhibition "Painting-Self-Painting-Self-Mutilation". On display were the paintings I created in 1963 for "Painting in a labyrinthine space", some drawings and a number of photographs of my actions by Ludwig Hoffenreich. To round off the whole thing, a discussion with a "team of experts" was held after the action.
The preparation for this action was, of course, accompanied by more or less great nervousness. Otto Muehl helped me color my figure. Ludwig Hoffenreich said in between sighs: "Children, children, it's either a madhouse or prison!" I admit that I was not entirely free of his visions. John Sailer transported the living picture from Perinetkeller to Heldenplatz, with me crouching down in front of a traffic light at every stop. Excitedly, my wife and some friends followed the action from a reasonable distance. Hoffenreich and Ronald Flei chmann took photographs, Muehl and Schwarzkogler filmed with a cine camera. Of course, the press didn't want to know anything about the deeper meaning of this action. They saw my appearance as a funny publicity stunt for my exhibition.
Mautner - I think he was a student at the university - intended to publish a new magazine called "Le Marais" (The Marsh). The first issue, which was also already a special issue, formally served as a catalog for my exhibition "Painting-Self-Painting-Self-Mutilation". I took the opportunity to include not only my activities but also those of my friends (Muehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler, Priesnitz, Schürer) here.
The gallery issued an invitation to the opening on June 30, 1965 with the following words: "Dear friends of the gallery, On Tuesday, July 6, 1965, Günter Brus will hold a self-painting in our gallery at 7 p.m. on the occasion of the opening of his exhibition. We are well aware of the problematic nature of these borderline cases of contemporary painting, but we consider a simple concealment of these things to be bad on principle alone. Moreover, it attaches more importance to these efforts than we think they deserve. We have therefore invited you to a forum discussion after the self-painting, in which Dr. Retter, Dr. Albert Massiczek and Dr. Robert Waissenberger will participate under my direction. We hope that this will help us to objectify the problem. We would be delighted if you would like to be our guest on this evening. Yours, Otto Staininger"
The day before the opening of this exhibition with action and discussion, I decided to prevent the compromise character of this undertaking, so to speak, in order to give my artistic intentions more clarity. You could say that the hermaphroditic activity of this gallery drove me from the rat cellars to the street. I decided to walk through Vienna's city center as a living picture, as it were, past a number of historically significant buildings. The starting point of my walk was Heldenplatz. My route would take me through the Burgtor, past the Spanish Riding School and the Dorotheum to Stephansplatz. I gave myself no information about what was to happen there, rightly suspecting that the watchful eye of a guardian of public order would soon catch sight of the living painting and arrest it. This happened at the corner of Bräunerstraße and Stallburggasse. A policeman led me to a nearby police station to the amusement of passers-by. They took my personal details and ordered a cab to drive up.
(Günter Brus, from the leaflet accompanying the folder "Wiener Spaziergang", 1989, translated with deepl.com)