The Vienna Actionism Museum (WAM) has been controversial since it opened in March 2024, which is perhaps not an entirely surprising outcome given the postwar movement’s penchant for violent, graphic performance art.
A new scandal is brewing as the museum prepares for its fall exhibition, dedicated to the work of Otto Muehl, one of the co-founders of Viennese Actionism. The show “Otto Muehl: Art on the Precipice” will feature 150 paintings, objects, film, and prints, some from the museum’s own extensive collection, others loaned by private collectors. It’s set to open on September 10 and will be on view through January 10, 2027.
The controversy goes beyond the fact that many may find Muehl’s artwork involving graphic nudity, violence, and the use of blood and excrement as materials distasteful. He also founded a notorious commune in Friedrichshof, outside of Vienna, that was active in the 1970s and ‘80s. In 1991, Muehl was convicted of sexual offenses against minors, rape, and illegal drug use; he ultimately served seven years in prison, and then moved to Portugal, where he died in 2013.
As documented in a pair of articles published earlier this month in the daily newspaper Der Standard, the controversy is wrapped up in the insensitive way in which the show is being marketed. Former victims of the Friedrichshof commune, many of whom are alive, have spoken out against the museum for glossing over Muehl’s crimes in favor of the art historical significance of his “perpetrator art.” The Der Standard articles poke holes in the idea that one could reasonably separate “the life of the cult leader and his art,” and question the ethics of organizing an exhibition that stands to grow the market for Muehl’s work.
The Vienna Actionism Museum, for its part, acknowledges that an Otto Muehl retrospective is a “challenging project,” to say the least. The press release emphasizes that the show does not include images that depict abuse, and that no works from the painting series “Accidents in the Home” (1986), in which teenage victims posed as models in scenes of domestic violence, are in the show. The museum also claims that any recognizable subject has given permission to be in the show, though Der Standard questions if and how heirs of certain identifiable figures gave consent.
Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the former director of the Albertina and current director of the WAM, hopes that visitors will feel empowered “to form their own judgments regarding Otto Muehl’s art.”
