(Grodnau 1925–2013 Moncarapacho, Portugal)
Self-portrait (O Sensibility), monogrammed, dated m 83, 24.10., oil on canvas, 128 x 140 cm, framed, (K)

Provenance:
Private Collection, Austria
Otto Muehl
Self portrait (O Sensibility) 1983

Theo Altenberg extract from „Notizen zu Werkprozessen“ (Notes on Work Processes)

In 1983 Otto Muehl dedicted himself intensively to painting. At almost the same time he began a new phase of reflection on his works of Vienna Actionism. He saw the late films (Der geile Wotan (Lascivious Wotan), O Sensibility, Investment Fond, etc.) and the screen prints of the 12 Actions folder.

This led to discussions over the depiction of violence in art. Over the male-warrior addiction to bloodlust, the continuing destruction of species, the brutal und arrogant designation of „animals for slaughter“ and the longing for redemption through the obliteration of overpowering nature.

At first man is a gatherer and feeds on plants. His Fall is when he becomes a hunter. The killing of „our genetic relatives with souls“ is one of the symptoms of magical thinking. Man exculpates himself in the archetype through the giving of sacrifices. And through painting! Why, above all in early cave pictures, do we see representations of animals? The artists of then were carrying on an imaginary dialogue with them. The second Fall is in the form of fratricide. With consciousness of one’s own ego and putting oneself above the collective comes “Evil” and the schizophrenic and separated „Homo sapiens violensis“.

As a result Muehl painted this extraordinary self-portrait whose point of reference was the Aktion „O Sensibility“ (he overpainted a second version later). The picture depicts an execution of a creature. In archaic pose: a naked man in an aggressive red. Gripping a white goose with his hands like a strangler he traps it between his legs.

The protagonists are of the same size, the goose is over-sized and the man is compressed, with no ribcage. Muehl shows the „equal worth“ of perpetrator and victim. The squat, abnormal body reminds one of images of dwarfish devils. Reflections on the idea of Beelzebub. The killer’s head is over-sized. His look radiates brutality and aggression, as well as horror at his own bloodlust. The white wing on the perpetrator’s back evokes images of Lucifer, the fallen angel of the Old Testament.

Muehl uses the symbolism of violence and the killing of animals in his Aktions of the 60s primarily as a provocation against the sanctioned violence of the „Kleinfamiliengesellschaft“ (petit bourgeois society), in the present work he reflects his own potential for violance.

© Theo Altenberg