In autumn 2026, the WIENER AKTIONISMUS MUSEUM will be undertaking a challenging project: an exhibition of Otto Muehl’s artistic oeuvre. Over 150 of his paintings, objects, films and prints will be presented and opened up for discussion.

Six chapters trace Muehl’s artistic development from the early 1960s up to his arrest and conviction in 1990. Beginning with Actionist painting and the destruction of the panel painting, through selected actions from the heyday of Viennese Actionism, to the extensive series of portraits of politicians – from Ho Chi Minh and Konrad Adenauer, via Charles de Gaulle and Moshe Dayan, to Mao Zedong and Prince Charles – Muehl’s creative years prior to the commune form the first and most extensive part of the exhibition.

A separate section is devoted to the founding of the commune, its development at Friedrichshof, its societal and socio-theoretical background, and the failure of the commune project following Otto Muehl’s conviction for the sexual abuse of minors.

A separate chapter is devoted to the founding of the commune, its development at Friedrichshof, its socio-cultural and socio-theoretical background, and the failure of the commune project following Otto Muehl’s conviction for the sexual abuse of minors.

Drawing on the commune’s two decades of existence, the exhibition will focus on two cycles: Muehl’s return to painting and his engagement with the Neo-Expressionism of the Neue Wilde in the early 1980s, and – in contrast – two late series in which linear drawing dominates formally. In terms of content, these two cycles contrast the tranquillity and beauty of the Parndorf Heath with a world that has been thrown off balance and is reeling: an expression of the loss of illusory stability and security, both biographically and socially.