Otto Muehl

My Fathers, My Mother and Me

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.

Becoming Otto

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.

The Children of the Commune

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.

Slaves in Paradise

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.

Back to Fucking Cambridge

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.

Home Movies 1971-81

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

ViennaFilm 1896-1976

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

Sweet Movie

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

Psychotic Party

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

Sex Freedom in Germany

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

Sodoma

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.

Manopsychotisches Ballett

"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.

Otto Muehl's Manopsychotic Ballet

The last important action by 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.

Oh Sensibility

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

Investmentfonds oder: Erich kommt

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.

Stille Nacht

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.

Amore - Aktion mit einem Masochisten

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.

Shameless

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

Satisfaction

An experimental, bizarre and a very different shooting of an association between the sexes.

Kunst & Revolution

‘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.

Bodybuilding

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.

Psycho-motorische Geräuschaktion

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

10c/65: Brus wishes his Christmas on you

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.

7/64: Leda and the Swan

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.

6/64: Mom and Dad (An Otto Mühl Happening)

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)