Günter Bru's
Ordeal, 1970

Artist
Günter Brus

Title
ordeal

Year of creation
1970

Technology and dimensions
folder with photographs of the action

Year of acquisition
2004

Günter Brus is a co-founder of Vienna Actionism. He is one of the most important artists of the post-war period and one of the taboo breakers. When he painted himself for the first time in 1964, Brus entered a new historical dimension. He did not paint an object from the everyday world, but rather his own human body. The identity conflict between the idea of ​​form and the perception of form, between painting and sculpture, between visual and physical behavior, between object and material and action, which preoccupied many artists of the 1960s at the time, especially American and Italian artists, was resolved with Brus' self-painting. By putting himself really into the picture, he unsettled his own identity.

Was he a painting, a sculpture or a person? The series of actions between 1964 and 1970 were documented photographically by Hans Eschen and they have been acquired in their entirety by the Nationalgalerie in the form of portfolios in recent years. The ordeal was Günter Brus' last action in 1970. The portfolio was only published in 2001 and was acquired by the Friends Association in 2005 to complete the other works.