Günter Brus

Co-founder of Viennese Actionism alongside Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. Brus began with abstract painting before turning to extreme body-based performance in the early 1960s. His first self-painting (Selbstbemalung) took place in 1964. His 1968 action Art and Revolution, in which he simultaneously defecated and sang the Austrian national anthem, led to a six-month prison sentence he avoided by fleeing to Berlin, returning to Austria only in 1976. A permanent gallery, the Bruseum, at the Joanneum in Graz is dedicated to his work.