Günter Brus’ work is inseparably linked to his experience of music. In his drawings and picture-poems, a multitude of musical terms can be found, acoustical perceptions, tributes to composers, translations in drawing form, even fragmentary notation.
The exhibition The Distant Sound is devoted for the first time to this as yet unnoticed aspect of his creative output. The musical epiphany for Brus occurs in 1956, when he first hears Franz Schreker’s early opera Der ferne Klang (The Distant Sound) on Austrian radio. The discovery of this multifaceted tonal art, which touches the limits of atonality, opens up new perspectives for him. A life-long engagement with music begins, which, in the most varied shapes and forms, becomes an indispensable source of inspiration for his work.
By means of some 150 works, the exhibition throws a retrospective light on Brus’ output, showing works from the 1960s to the present day.
