Graz Bruseum

Difficult time of transition to a new form

The subject of the exhibition in the Graz Bruseum

(Bild: Universalmuseum-Joanneum/N. Lackner)

Günter Brus is known as an actionist and as a visual poet. The difficult time in between is now the subject of the exhibition "Ein irrer Wisch" at the Bruseum in Graz (from 18 years). It opens on Wednesday (May 8), preceded the day before by a top-class commemorative event at 6.30 pm.

With the book "Irrwisch", Günter Brus entered a new phase in his work at the beginning of the 1970s. However, at the Bruseum in Graz, curator Roman Grabner is not showing the drawings from the book, but sheets that were created at this time and document the difficult path of transition.

Sexual depictions as a deliberate provocation
These are very explicit drawings of torture scenes and sexual depictions that Brus used deliberately to provoke. It is his way of settling accounts with fascism, bigotry and the state power that condemned him and forced him into exile. And it is his way of drawing the many accompanying injuries from his soul.

Artist Günter Brus died in February at the age of 85.

(Bild: Universalmuseum Joanneum/C. Nestroy)

At an exhibition in 1971 at Michael Werner's gallery in Cologne, these drawings sold like hot cakes and financed a vacation in Spain for the Brus family. There he developed a new formal language in his new drawings for the series "The Balcony of Europe", which was not well received by his gallery owner (too few explicit depictions of sex). Annoyed by this, Brus began to write texts for these pictures and put them together - the birth of the picture poems.

Even today - 50 years after their creation - these drawings from the transitional phase will once again cause quite a stir. But if you dare to look beneath the surface, you will see many highly topical issues that should be discussed again, especially in these times of an emerging Neo-Biedermeier.

Commemorative event
The (adult) exhibition will be opened on Wednesday (8th) at 7 pm. Already on Tuesday from 6.30 pm, a high-caliber memorial event for the artist, who died in February, will be held in the Bruseum with actor Daniel Doujenis, the Schallfeld Ensemble, Cantando Admont and Mélange Oriental. Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler, Governor Christopher Drexler and City Councillor for Culture Günter Riegler will also be in attendance.