Arnulf Rainer und die Fotografie

Much has been published about the Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer as a painter. This dissertation focuses on a so far neglected part of his work: his photographic series of self-staged performances. The results of this present academic analysis should be of great interest, since Rainer`s photographs have highly influenced the visual history of the twentieth century and are nowadays apprehended in many different contexts. Apart from being the basic material for over-paintings these pictures were used as photographs in their own rights. Therefore their position within the history of photography is evaluated. These photographic series were carried out between 1968 and 1976 and comprise about 4000 photographs. The main conclusion is that Arnulf Rainer deeply analyzed the medium of photography on technical, aesthetic, conceptual and structural levels. Even if it was not he who pressed the button of the camera, his roles as stage director and actor were decisive for the photographic act of image-taking. The application of various photographic approaches is constitutive for his complex work of performed and staged grimaces and body poses. The face colorations are at the beginning of the chronological order of the photographic work, the first highlight of which being the photobooth shots. They gave finally way to the collaboration with different photographers who produced the so-called photo-seances. As Arnulf Rainer continuously searched for a perfect visual translation of his performances, he finally decided to experiment with the medium film (in this phase the collaboration with Peter Kubelka was of special interest). The questions which are raised with regard to these photographs and this film material concern the role of the photographer, the meaning of a single picture within the whole series, the discussion of a documentary approach, the process of selection and strategies of archivation. However, an exclusively phototheoretical examination of these photographs is not sufficient. It is rather necessary to position these pictures within a broader interdisciplinary context. The classification of the visual material in the fields of pathognomics, psychopathology and performativity includes medicine, the histories of science and theatre. Arnulf Rainer`s artistic investigations of the expression of the human face are discussed. By comparing them with selected positions of the visual history of the human face in motion his studies of facial expressions can be defined as grimaces. Great importance is given to Rainer`s positioning within the pathological body language. Above all the contents of psychiatric textbooks are analyzed, especially the photographic illustrations which led Arnulf Rainer to the concept of an "Autistic Theatre of Catatonia". This impact of scientific photography on art is one of the main interests of this work. The performative strategies in the photographic self-representations, with special emphasis on theatricality and the importance of the mise en scène, are treated as last subject of this academic work.