DIE SCHASTROMMEL NR 8 AKTIONEN 64 – 70. 1973.

Wein/Bolzano: Die Schastrommel, 1973
29.4 x 21cm, 182pp. Original screenprinted wrappers. Illustrated throughout. A compilation of the three previously released issues designated as 8 a, b & c of Die Schastrommel. Brus was the first artist to use bodily fluids in works like ‘Zerreissprobe’ and ‘Körperanalysen’. His performance of the latter – during which he lacerated himself, smeared himself with his own shit, and masturbated as he sang the Austrian national anthem – at the University of Vienna’s 1968 event Kunst und Revolution resulted in a psychiatric evaluation and criminal charges, on which he was sentenced to six months’ strict confinement. “So at the beginning of 1969, Brus left the country illegally with his family to settle in Berlin. There he met with Gerhard Rühm and Oswald Wiener on May 27, 1969, to establish the “Austrian Government in Exile” and its official mouthpiece, the magazine Die Schastrommel.” This is one of 500 such copies released with the other covers from the three releases all present as silkscreen inserts. Scarce. Fine.