13 short films (1967-1970) by Otto Muehl

To watch the following Otto Muehl films click here.

1. Manopsychotisches Ballet (Fotograf by Hans Sohm and Kamera Jörg Siegert) (1970)
2.Investmentfonds (Fotograf by Ludwig Hoffenreich and Kamera Hermann Jauk) (1970)
3.Psychotic Party (1970)
4.Stille Nacht (Fotograf by Gebhardt and Kamera Hans Peter Kochenrath) (1969)
5.Kardinal (Kamera by Helmut Kronberger) (1967)
6.Psycho-Motorische Gerauschaktion (Kamera by Peter C. Fluger) (1967)
7.Sodoma (1969)
8.Wehrertüchtigung (Fotograf by Ludwig Hoffenreich and Kamera Peter C. Fluge) (1967)
9.Scheißkerl (1969) (Kamera by Kurt Kren)
10.Satisfaction (1968) (Kamera by Dobrovitsch and Kurt Kren)
11.Oh Sensibility (1970) (Fotograf by Ludwig Hoffenreich and Kamera Hermann Jauk)
12.Unknown Title, (Unknown Date)
13.Der Geile Wotan (1970) (Kamera by Kurt Kren)

"I set my sights on the human body and realized things
were moving at last, during my first material action,
I soiled a female body with mud, paint, rubbish and paste,
and tied it up in old rags and ropes dipped in mud."

- Otto Muehl, 1963

Otto Muehl (born June 16, 1925, at Grodnau, Burgenland, Austria) is an Austrian artist, who is best known as one of the co-founders as well as a main participant of Viennese Actionism. In 1972 he founded the Friedrichshof Commune, which has been viewed by some as an authoritarian sect that existed for several years before falling apart in the 1990s. Muehl himself was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for sexual offences with adolescents. He was released after serving six and a half years and set up a smaller commune in Portugal.

In 1943, Otto Muehl served in the Wehrmacht and in 1944 he was sent to the Front. After the war, he studied teaching German and History, and Pedagogy of Art at the Wiener Akademie der bildenden Künste.

In the sixties his aim was 'to overcome painting on canvas through staging the process of its destruction'. He made rhizomatic structures with scrap iron ("Gerümpelplastiken"), but soon proceeded to the "Aktion" in the vein of the New York Happenings. In 1962, when he was 37, the first "Aktion" "Die Blutorgel" was performed in Muehl's atelier in the Perinetgasse by Muehl himself, Adolf Frohner and Hermann Nitsch. The "Fest des psycho-physischen Naturalismus" and "Versumpfung einer Venus" followed in 1963. From 1964 to 1966 many "Malaktionen" were filmed by Kurt Kren and photographed by Ludwig Hoffenreich. In 1966 a new concept of Aktion was developed with Günter Brus: instead of the canvas, the body became the scene of action. In 1968, Muehl, Brus and Oswald Wiener organised an Aktionsveranstaltung "Kunst und Revolution" in the University of Vienna, which caused a scandal in the press; they were arrested and Brus emigrated to Berlin.

Gradually, Muehl began to distance himself from "Aktion". He regarded the "happening as a bourgeois artform, mere art". The "transition from art to life" resulted in the founding of the commune as a kind of anti-society. All members submitted to the so-called Aktionsanalyse. The declared aim was the destruction of bourgeois marriage and private property, free love, and collective education of the children. In 1974 he played a small role as a member of an anarchic/therapy commune in Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie. In the eighties, tensions within the commune increased until they culminated in a revolt under the direction of Altenberg. When, on top of that, Muehl was arrested and imprisoned in 1991, the commune fell apart. In 1997, when he was 72, Muehl moved to Faro, Portugal to start a new commune experiment. Despite suffering from Parkinsons disease, Muehl continued his art work, and in 2002 developed "electric painting films", a new technique in which he paints digital photos from actions using a computer tablet and pen and edits the process into films.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Muehl

Selbstverstümmelung: Self-Mutilation (1965) by Günter Brus and Kurt Kren

1965 action of Vienna Actionist artist Günter Brus
shot and edited by Kurt Kren.

Günter Brus (born September 27, 1938, Ardning, Styria) is an Austrian painter, performance artist, graphic artist and writer.

He was the co-founder in 1964 of Wiener Aktionismus (Viennese Actionism) together with Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. His aggressively presented actionism intentionally disregarded conventions and taboos. Sentenced to 6 months in prison after the "Kunst und Revolution" event at the University of Vienna in 1968, he fled to Berlin with his family and returned to Austria in 1976. Brus urinated into a glass then proceeded to cover his body in his own excrement, and ended the piece by drinking his own urine. During the performance Brus also sang the Austrian national Anthem while masturbating. Bruce ended the piece by vomiting and his arrest. Through this piece and other performance works Brus hoped to reveal the still fascist essence of the nation. Brus also was editor of the "Schastrommel" (author's edition) from 1969 on. In his "Bild-Dichtungen" he achieves a synthesis between poetry and painting.

Brus was awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1997. Most of his works contain aspects that are seen as controversial and out of ones comfort zone but this just seems to add to the somewhat endearing factor of his Art.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter_Brus
For more on structuralist film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structur...

music later added: Arvo Part - Da Pacem,
To watch as originally intended, mute it.

Sentimental Punk (1979) by Kurt Kren

"It was in San Francisco at a punk festival. I was already high and the air was so thick in the rooms that you could cut it with a knife. I had a photograph camera with me; I stood in a corner of the entrance hall and took 36 pictures on slide film. At home I put the slides into a slide projector. I took out the lens and filmed the slides by filming directly from the projector - using single frames according to a certain plan. "
-Kurt Kren

Kurt Kren (September 20, 1929 - died in Vienna on June 23, 1998) was an Austrian avant garde filmmaker. He is best known for his involvement with the Vienna Aktionists and the group of films that resulted.

Kurt Kren was born in 1929 in Vienna, Austria to a family of a Jewish father (a bank employee) and German mother. From 1939 till the end of World War II Kren lived in Rotterdam, where he was sent with one of the Children's Transports. In 1947 Kren returned to Vienna, and his father provided him a job at the National Bank.

He began a film career in the early 1950s creating experimental short 8mm films. In 1957 he moved to the 16mm format.

In 1966, Kren participated in the Destruction in Art Symposium in London. In 1968 he visited the USA for the first time, showing his films in New York and St. Louis. After a participation in a happening "Kunst und Revolution" ("Art and Revolution") at the University of Vienna in 1968, Kren's films were confiscated and he was fired from the National Bank.

Kren participated in 1970 in the International Underground Film Festival (London, UK) and 1971 in the Cannes Film Festival. He moved to Cologne, Germany for five years.

Retrospective screenings took place in 1976 in National Film Theatre, London, 1978 in New York, 1979 in Museum of Modern Art, New York.

From 1978 until 1989 Kurt Kren lived in the USA, sometimes just in a car, traveling, making presentations and lectures at universities and film schools.

From 1983 until 1989 Kren did work as a security officer at the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, USA).

Kren returned to his native Vienna in 1989. In the 1990s his works were presented worldwide, also by the major museums and cinematheques. He was a co-founder of the Vienna Institute of Direct Art and the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative.

Kurt Kren died from pneumonia in Vienna, Austria in 1998.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Kren