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The title of this large-scale work by the Austrian action artist Otto Muehl, “Kopulierendes Paar in Rot-Gelb” (“Copulating Couple in Red and Yellow”), seems almost superfluous due to the clear contours of two people, and the clearly recognisable body position and facial expression of the two figures – and all this in the bold colours so characteristic of Otto Muehl, which he applied directly from the tube to the canvas. Red and yellow predominate. The blue and green colour fields form the background of the expressive pictorial composition.

The artist’s biography is complex, even scandalous at times. Already in the early 1960s, he became a pioneer of Viennese Actionism, with sensational art events and a manifesto entitled “Die Blutorgel” (“The Blood Organ”). Together with companions such as Hermann Nitsch, Adolf Frohner and Günter Brus, Otto Muehl questioned the traditional concept of art. In order to realise his social ideals, such as free sexuality and the abolition of the nuclear family, he first founded the “Aktionsanalytische Organisation” (“Action Analytical Organisation”) and later the “Kommune Friedrichshof” (“Friedrichshof Commune”), which visibly influenced his painting thematically. In 1983, the year in which this painting was created, the commune comprised about 600 members.

(Clarissa Mayer-Heinisch)