Mule, Otto

Born in the family of a modest Burgenland teacher. In 1943 , when he was 18 years old, Otto Mühl was drafted into the army, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant. Participated in the Ardennes operation and barely escaped Soviet captivity ^[1] .

After graduating from the pedagogical department of the Vienna Academy of Arts , for about ten years he was engaged in art therapy with children suffering from nervous diseases ^[1] .

Having met young Gunther Bruce and German Nitsch , Otto Mül with his new friends began to defuse the bourgeois atmosphere with provocative actions ranging from Dadaist antics to pagan mysteries, testing the hypocrisy and hypocrisy of fellow citizens. Mul and his new friends realized that it was time to tie up with painting. In 1962, Mühl participated in the three-day action “Bloody Organ” ^[1] . In 1963, he was first arrested for two weeks for rioting at the "Festival of Psychophysical Naturalism", during which a buffet full of flour and jam flew out of the window at the heads of an accidental audience. In 1968, Mühl received his first term, imprisoned for two months for participating in the infamous action "Art and Revolution" at the University of Vienna . Young actionists accompanied their public lecture with masturbation and defecation , including on the Austrian flag, which overflowed the cup of public patience ^[1] .

In 1970, Otto Mül founded a commune in Vienna, later called the Aktionsanalytische Organization ( Action-Analytical Organization ; AAO) ^[1] . There he carried out his most radical artistic and pedagogical experiment in the field of life-building and the cultivation of a new, completely liberated, natural person, like a beast. Initially, the Aktionsanalytische Organization was located in Vienna on Praterstrasse, then moved to the town of Friedrichshof. The Aktionsanalytische Organization was built on the principles of free love, shared ownership and the collective education of children without prejudice. In the mid-1980s, in her best years, she numbered about 700 people. In 1991, communism came to an end - the Aktionsanalytische Organization broke up, and the founder went to prison for seven years on charges of pedophilia and drug trafficking ^[1] . Otto Mül rejected all the accusations, refused to apologize and repent, painted in prison, painted and composed “Letters from Prison”. Freed, Otto Mül left Austria for Portugal, where he again settled in the commune of artists ^[1] .

Otto Mul, suffering from Parkinson's disease and heart failure, died May 26, 2013 surrounded by friends ^[2] .