The medium of photography played a decisive role for the Viennese Actionists in documenting their ephemeral actions and thus permanently recording them for posterity. Ludwig Hoffenreich (1902-1975) was a photographer who worked particularly closely with the four artists. Although he basically worked as a journalist and was never trained in photography, he photographed their most important actions and also proved to be a friend and confidant with a great understanding of the artistic vision of the Vienna Actionists. Hardly anything is known about his personality to this day, except that he was already a 60-year-old, well-to-do middle-class gentleman when he met the artists in Vienna, who were almost forty years younger and revolted against social conventions.
The Swedish journalist and writer Gunnar Bolin reports on his search for an answer to the question of how his great-granduncle ‘Luigi’ Hoffenreich became one of the most important photographers of the Vienna Actionists.
Lecture with documentary material and audio recordings of interviews Bolin conducted with Günter and Anna Brus and Hermann Nitsch in 2007.
Gunnar Bolin
born in 1957, studied film and literature. Since 1987, he has worked as an award-winning cultural journalist for Swedish Public Broadcasting (SR). From 2001 to 2003, he lived in Berlin as a foreign correspondent.
His grandfather Ernst Hoffenreich (1890 – 1958) was a social democratic politician who represented the socialist party in the Burgenland parliament from 1922 to 1934. His cousin was the journalist Ludwig Hoffenreich.
In 2007, Bolin went in search of family traces and realised a documentary about his great-uncle Ludwig Hoffenreich, who went down in art history as an important photographer of the actions of the Vienna Actionists.
Jakob Steiner (ORF)
born 1982 in Stockholm, lives in Vienna since 2003. After his diploma thesis in history with Prof. Rathkolb on the European integration of Austria, he studied at the University of Applied Arts (sculpture/transarts) and worked as a freelance journalist for Vice.com and sveriges radio. He is editor of the ORF archive and is increasingly focussing on contemporary history (and its art industry).
Language: DE
Costs: free of charge
Francesco Conz on the left, Ludwig Hoffenreich on the right.
Photographic estate of Hoffenreich, photographer unknown
Copyright 2025 WA-M Wiener Aktionismus Museum GmbH
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15.03.2024 – 31.01.2025
February 2025
Opening: 13.02.2025, 6:30 pm
Exhibition: 14.02.2025 – 18.05.2025
Four Actions
With its second exhibition, the WAM is now going into greater depth. The opening exhibition WHAT IS VIENNA ACTIONISM? first offered an overview of the multi-layered developments of this movement in the 1960s, whereby the individual actions were only presented with exemplary photos. Now, under the title FOUR ACTIONS, an exhibition series is being launched that presents selected actions with all the available historical material. In this way, it will be possible for the first time to understand the actions in all their detail. The aim of the exhibition is to open up new perspectives on the reception of Vienna Actionism through the precise examination of individual actions.
February 25, Thursday, 5:00 pm
Tour through the current exhibition.
March 2025
March 08, Saturday, 4:00 pm
Tour through the current exhibition.
March 09, Sunday, 4:00 pm
Our director Julia Moebus-Puck gives a personal insight into the development of Vienna Actionism.
March 15, Saturday, 3:00 pm
Tour through the current exhibition.
March 16, Sunday, 4:00 pm
Our director Julia Moebus-Puck gives a personal insight into the development of Vienna Actionism.
March 29, Saturday, 3:00 pm
Tour through the current exhibition.
March 30, Sunday, 4:00 pm
Our director Julia Moebus-Puck gives a personal insight into the development of Vienna Actionism.