SwissArtGallery · Documented identity

Günter Brus

Born : 1938Died : 2024Documented citizenships : Austria

The Austrian artist Günter Brus, born in 1938 and deceased in 2024, was one of the founding members of Viennese Actionism. In the early 1960s, his work was associated with the emergence of body art, an approach in which the body becomes an artistic medium through which to experience the suffering of the artist or of the individual in contemporary society.

His actions put this exploration into play in public space. On 5 July 1965, for Promenade à Vienne, he walked through the city centre wearing a suit covered in white paint, crossed by a black line running from his skull to a toe. The action ended when a police officer issued him with a citation for disturbing public order; this intervention, anticipated by Brus, was an integral part of the action. Selbstbemalung (Self-Painting), performed in December 1964, and Selbstverstümmelung (Self-Mutilation), in spring 1965, are also among his actions. After his exile to Berlin in 1969, he performed Zerreißprobe in Munich in 1970, presented as his final action.

From the early 1970s, Brus devoted himself to drawing and writing, which he sometimes brought together in the Bild-Dichtungen, or “picture-poems”. Heilige Sankt Moritz, dated 1974, bears witness to his work on paper: this signed and dated coloured-pencil drawing measures 148 × 100 mm. Writing also features in his publications. Irrwisch appeared in Frankfurt am Main in 1971, followed by a facsimile reprint in Klagenfurt in 2000. Die Geheimnisträger, published in Salzburg in 1984, is presented as a novel with fragmented modes of narration.

His career was the subject of a first retrospective, Der Überblick, held in Vienna in 1986. Further exhibitions were held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1993, at the Albertina in Vienna in 2003, and at MACBA in Barcelona in 2005 under the title Günter Brus – Nervous stillness on the horizon. In 2004, he received the Oskar Kokoschka Prize.

This profile brings together identity references for Günter Brus and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.

19 references are documented at Germann, Kornfeld, Piguet, Lempertz. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.

Works recorded at auction

Photograph : Germann · Enlarge image ↗

Germann · Lot 221

Saint Moritz, 1974

Coloured pencil on paper

Original catalogue wording

Heilige Sankt Moritz, 1974
Farbstift auf Papier.

Catalogue period : 2025-06-24

Published result : 1400 CHF

Hammer price, excluding fees

Estimate : CHF 1400–1800

Günter Brus

Works recorded at auction

Saint Moritz, 1974

Erscheinungsvergiftung

Die wortwörtliche Welt hat kein Zuhause, selbst die Dusche steht unter der Brause

Vom Leiden der Dichtung als Zeichnung

Die wahnsinnige Kate (nach Füssli)

Bruchteil- Harmonien

Untitled

Die rote Tödin

"Das Schlimmste am tageslicht...",

Peter von Cornelius, Faust und Mephisto, 1977

Eisblumenwarte, 1979

Der Lügner, 1975

Tag der offenen Einsamkeit, 1975

Rasende Geduld, 1980er Jahre

Gott und Halbgott, 1979

Baal, 1979

Asthmus, 1979

Zur 13. Nachtwache, 1975

Aulicht 3, 1977

Sources and references

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