In 1994, 27 paintings by the Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer were painted over in black by unknown parties at the Wiener Kunstakademie. The attackers painted a line UND DA BESCHLOSS ER AKTIONIST ZU SEIN (And that’s when he decided to become an activist), a modified Adolf Hitler quote, on one of the paintings. At the same time, Austria was hit by a series of bombings, for which the ‘Bajuwarische Befreiungsarmee’ (Bavarian Liberation Army), or BBA, which saw Austria’s ‘German identity’ at risk, claimed responsibility. Is there a connection between the attack at the academy and the BBA bombings, as Rainer and his associates suspected at first? Or was it all just a game, a hallucination or a confused dream, provoked by Vienna, that ‘laboratory of Armageddon’?
Documentary
1h 46min
16+
DE
In the 90s, first attacks on paintings in art galleries and later bombings by German identity movement shocks Austria.
In 1994, 27 paintings by the Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer were painted over in black by unknown parties at the Wiener Kunstakademie.
The attackers painted a line UND DA BESCHLOSS ER AKTIONIST ZU SEIN (And that’s when he decided to become an activist), a modified Adolf Hitler quote, on one of the paintings. At the same time, Austria was hit by a series of bombings, for which the ‘Bajuwarische Befreiungsarmee’ (Bavarian Liberation Army), or BBA, which saw Austria’s ‘German identity’ at risk, claimed responsibility. Is there a connection between the attack at the academy and the BBA bombings, as Rainer and his associates suspected at first? Or was it all just a game, a hallucination or a confused dream, provoked by Vienna, that ‘laboratory of Armageddon’?