Otto Muehl

Otto Muehl

Born: June 16, 1925
Died: May 26, 2013
in Grodnau, Mariasdorf, Austria
Otto Muehl/Otto Mühl was an Austrian artist, who was known as one of the co-founders as well as a main participant of Viennese Actionism and for founding the Friedrichshof Commune.

Movies for Otto Muehl...

My Fathers, My Mother and Me
Title: My Fathers, My Mother and Me
Released: November 4, 2012
Type: Movie
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.
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Becoming Otto
Title: Becoming Otto
Released: June 1, 2010
Type: Movie
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.
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The Children of the Commune
Title: The Children of the Commune
Released: October 26, 2009
Type: Movie
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.
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Slaves in Paradise
Title: Slaves in Paradise
Released: October 12, 1999
Type: Movie
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.
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Die Tage der Kommune
Title: Die Tage der Kommune
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
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Liligomera: Eine reale Utopie des Otto Mühl
Title: Liligomera: Eine reale Utopie des Otto Mühl
Character: Himself
Released: March 30, 1989
Type: Movie
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Back to Fucking Cambridge
Title: Back to Fucking Cambridge
Character: Sigmund Freud
Released: November 15, 1987
Type: Movie
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.
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Home Movies 1971-81
Title: Home Movies 1971-81
Released: January 1, 1985
Type: Movie
Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.
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ViennaFilm 1896-1976
Title: ViennaFilm 1896-1976
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1977
Type: Movie
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
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Die AA-Kommune
Title: Die AA-Kommune
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 1975
Type: Movie
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Sweet Movie
Title: Sweet Movie
Character: Member of Therapie-Komune
Released: June 12, 1974
Type: Movie
The winner of the Miss World Virginity contest marries, escapes from her masochistic husband and ends up involved in a world of debauchery.
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Psychotic Party
Title: Psychotic Party
Released: June 9, 1970
Type: Movie
Free sexuality is an ethical, moral undertaking. The artist clears away taboos. What really shocks is being confronted with the facts.
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Sex Freedom in Germany
Title: Sex Freedom in Germany
Character: Self
Released: April 24, 1970
Type: Movie
Mondo-type shockumentary claiming to be an explicit manifesto of sex in Germany today.
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Sodoma
Title: Sodoma
Released: April 5, 1970
Type: Movie
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.
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Otto Muehl's Manopsychotic Ballet
Title: Otto Muehl's Manopsychotic Ballet
Released: March 2, 1970
Type: Movie
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.
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Manopsychotisches Ballett
Title: Manopsychotisches Ballett
Released: March 2, 1970
Type: Movie
"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.
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Oh Sensibility
Title: Oh Sensibility
Character: Otto
Released: January 1, 1970
Type: Movie
One of Otto Muehl's actionist films, where a man and a woman play around with the bird in a rather unwholesome way
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Investmentfonds oder: Erich kommt
Title: Investmentfonds oder: Erich kommt
Released: January 1, 1970
Type: Movie
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.
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Stille Nacht
Title: Stille Nacht
Released: January 1, 1969
Type: Movie
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.
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Amore - Aktion mit einem Masochisten
Title: Amore - Aktion mit einem Masochisten
Released: April 1, 1968
Type: Movie
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.
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Shameless
Title: Shameless
Released: February 8, 1968
Type: Movie
After the violent death of a prostitute, her father tries to find the people who are responsible for the fall of the young woman.
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Satisfaction
Title: Satisfaction
Released: January 1, 1968
Type: Movie
An experimental, bizarre and a very different shooting of an association between the sexes.
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Kunst & Revolution
Title: Kunst & Revolution
Released: January 1, 1968
Type: Movie
‘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.
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Bodybuilding
Title: Bodybuilding
Released: June 20, 1967
Type: Movie
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.
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Psycho-motorische Geräuschaktion
Title: Psycho-motorische Geräuschaktion
Released: January 1, 1967
Type: Movie
Four young men affected by psychological motorcar reactions and effluents that get more excited, crazy and freaked out as times passes.
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10c/65: Brus wishes his Christmas on you
Title: 10c/65: Brus wishes his Christmas on you
Character: himself
Released: January 1, 1965
Type: Movie
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.
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6/64: Mom and Dad (An Otto Mühl Happening)
Title: 6/64: Mom and Dad (An Otto Mühl Happening)
Character: himself (as Otto Mühl)
Released: January 1, 1964
Type: Movie
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)
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7/64: Leda and the Swan
Title: 7/64: Leda and the Swan
Released: January 1, 1964
Type: Movie
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.