Otto Muehl

A portrait of the Austrian avant-garde artist Otto Mühl/Muehl (1925-2013), whose work combined sex, violence, gastronomy and bodily effluence with unbridled abandon.

Communal property, free sexuality, dissolution of the nuclear family - these were the basic principles of the Friedrichshof, the largest commune in Europe founded by the Viennese Actionist Otto Muehl in the 1970's. Because of these principles Paul-Julien Robert, who was born into this commune, for a long time didn't know who was his biological father.

A collection of shorts by Kurt Kren. Some are based on performaces by Viennese Actionists such as Günter Brus and Otto Mühl.

In the commune of the Viennese action-ism-artist Otto Muehl the children should remain 'unspoilt from the nuclear family', in order to be brought up to a completely new human being. Setting out as a free collective in the early 70ies, soon the social experiment emerged as a totalitarian system, which, 20 years later, ended in a dramatic failure. Through the eyes of these children, the film looks back at the community and examines what has become of the children of this utopia.

A close look at the Austrian far-left Friedrichshof Commune which was set up in 1972 by artist Otto Muehl. It was dissolved in 1990 when Muehl was convicted of the abuse of teenagers who lived in the commune.

No synopsis available yet.

A comprehensive documentation of new art movements from 1945 to the present day. Beginning with the "Internationale Situationniste," "Cobra," "Spur," and "Wiener Gruppe" groups in Europe, and moving on to the international Happening and Fluxus movements, including the Viennese Actionists, and from 1970 onward to international Body and Performance Art, which also encompassed media art—film and video—the documentary presents film and photographic material from these art movements.

Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.

About a group of graduates from Cambridge University who go back to their college to visit a friend who has stayed on there. Otto Muehl founded a community of artists in Vienna in 1970 with the aim of exploring a completely free life practice. Since 1972, this society experiment at the Friedrichshof in Burgenland, 60 kilometers from Vienna, further developed. From the mid-1970s, other municipalities were founded in 30 European cities. At Friedrichshof itself lived at times up to 240 members and visitors.

No synopsis available yet.

The winner of the Miss World Virginity contest marries, escapes from her masochistic husband and ends up involved in a world of debauchery.

Mondo-type shockumentary claiming to be an explicit manifesto of sex in Germany today.

This film is a kind of anthology about Vienna, from the invention of film to the present day. The aim is to break down the usual clichéd "image of Vienna" such as that found in the traditional "Vienna Film" by juxtaposing documentary footage, newly shot material and subjective sequences created by various artists. Individual, self-contained sections of the film gain new meaning within the context of historical material. Familiar sites appear estranged when edited together with historical scenes. Other scenes appear like a persiflage or satirical. The film does not incorporate any commentary whatsoever. It is a collage of diverse materials aimed at conveying a distanced image of Vienna to the viewer

Free sexuality is an ethical, moral undertaking. The artist clears away taboos. What really shocks is being confronted with the facts.

No synopsis available yet.

The broker Erich arrives with his prostitute at an apartment, already populated by three men. Abusive games, dancing and flirting occur. Things eventually degenerates completely.

"The Manopsychotic Ballet" was the last important action by Otto Muehl before he retired from the art world after a decade of painting and performance and focused on his commune as an alternative way of living. It marked the end of a very prolific phase of actions that followed the legendary Art and Revolution action by the Viennese Actionists in Vienna in 1968. As a result of this performance, Muehl and Günter Brus were prosecuted and could no longer exhibit publicly in Austria.

One of Otto Muehl's actionist films, where a man and a woman play around with the bird in a rather unwholesome way

The Austrian avant-gardist Otto Muehl may well be the most scandalous filmmaker to ever work in cinema, and Sodoma stands as his most famous work. This creation takes the experiments a bit further down the road.

‘Kunst & Revolution is a documentation on the famous action known as the “filthy uni mess”, which led to a jury court trial. I only had a few metres of film with me and they were quickly spent, but still the film gives one a rough impression of the events. As a whole mythology quickly arose around the event, I altered the material to counteract this effect (through repetition, and adding other material, for instance from a film about keeping dogs, and my own leftover footage from the Muehl action number 54 ‘Im Freudenauer Wasser’).’ In film 16 of his anthology Ernst Schmidt Jr. documented the actions of Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, Peter Weibel and Oswald Wiener.

Four men, one woman and a cat in a room. The men drink and discuss. Things get a bit violent. The masochist acts out his desires by himself. Random fuss and sex occurs. Suddenly the woman gets her baby to change diapers. Odd things around the child. The cat gets abused. This is Otto Muehl going Fassbinder.

A kind of home movie made in Brus' apartment. Brus' Christmas wishes can be seen on a poster which he painted and which he holds for a short time in front of the camera.

In May 1965, Ernst Schmidt Jr. films the Otto Muehl performances Rumpsti Pumsti and Body Building. In this period Muehl conceives his actionist works almost exclusively for photographic and film documentation. The necessity of a spontaneous confrontation with the public, which plays a major role in Muehl's later actions, does not apply to these works.

An experimental and bizarre shooting of an association between the sexes.

In the first action he filmed, 6/64 Mama und Papa, Kren’s editing leads to many interlocking continuous shots; central takes recur like a leitmotif, circular motion and networking can be observed throughout the film. Kren painstakingly weaves the fury in front of his camera lens into dense geometrical figures. Shot/countershot sequences alternate, lumping back and forth between single (!) frames, they turn the Actionist turmoil into ornaments, rigid geometrical patterns, the equivalent in time to what Mondrian used to distill on canvas in space. (Peter Tscherkassky)

Four young men affected by psychological motorcar reactions and effluents that get more excited, crazy and freaked out as times passes.

After the violent death of a prostitute, her father tries to find the people who are responsible for the fall of the young woman.

Based on a Muehl Happening. The almost convulsive use of juxtaposition reappears here, but the captured gesture assumes a more erotic sensitivity, though the "action" itself was primarily a gradual destruction of the erotic.

A Materialaktion (an art performance/happening in which objects are used to create an art piece) by Viennese Aktionist Otto Muehl. The setting is a solemn Christmas celebration.