Günter Brus, with
Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkolger, formed the principal
members of Viennese Actionism, Aktionimus.
Active during the 1960s, the group engaged in public performances, which they
titled Aktions, with the goal of
exploring repressed desires and rejecting conventional cultural taboos,
aesthetics and morality.

In this series Brus probes painting as ritual,
making himself the canvas, the recipient of his actions as a painter. Here the
photograph serves to preserve the performance, becoming the only way the
performance could be disseminated visually. By rejecting the conventional
definition of fine-art painting and performing actions on his own body that are
usually done on or to a canvas—such as cutting and painting—Brus is both
creator and object created.