Barbara Schurz (Russian

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

: Барбара Шурц) (born 1973) is an Austrian artist and self-described " revolutionary activist".

Life and work

At Vienna University she pursued Slavic Studies and

Women's Studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...

. Subsequently, she studied

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. She began traveling around the world, living as an artist and author in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, in addition to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. Schurz is best known for her books, co-written with

Alexander Brener Alexander Davidovich Brener (russian: Александр Бренер) (born 1957, in Alma-Ata, Kazak ASSR, Soviet Union), is a Russian performance artist and a self-described political activist. He is considered one of the main figures of Mos ...

, that address the boundary between art and politics from an activist perspective. These are heavily influenced by poststructuralism, particularly the writings of Michel Foucault, and focus their attacks largely on

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

and imperialism. Schurz accompanied Brener to the 'Violence to Endurance: Extreme Curating' art lecture at the ICA to both protest and involve themselves in the lecture. While there Brener defecated in front of the audience while Schurz threw peanuts at the lecturers.Lecture: 'Violence to Endurance: Extreme Curating' at the ICA
on Spoonfed.co.uk

Books

* ''Was tun?'' (1999, ) * ''Furzende Völker'' (2000, ) * ''Tattoos auf Gefängnissen'' (2001, ) * ''Bukaka Spat Here'' (2001, Austria, ; 2002, UK, )

References

1973 births Living people 21st-century Austrian women artists Austrian contemporary artists Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni {{Austria-artist-stub