Wiener Gruppe


The Wiener Gruppe was a small and loose avant-garde constellation of Austrian poets and writers, which arose from an older and wider postwar association of artists called Art-Club. The group was formed around 1953 under the influence of H. C. Artmann in Vienna and existed for about a decade. Besides Artmann are Friedrich Achleitner, Konrad Bayer, Gerhard Rühm, Ingrid Wiener and Oswald Wiener regarded as members.
This group showed interest in Baroque literature, as well as in Expressionism, Dadaism and Surrealism. Important impulses also came from upholders of linguistic scepticism, linguistic criticism and linguistic philosophy, such as Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Fritz Mauthner or Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The linguistic awareness of the Wiener Gruppe was also displayed in the members' notion of language as optic and acoustic material. Already in the early 1950s concrete poetry became an exciting new element of at least the works of Rühm, Achleitner and Wiener. Readings and recordings became important parts of the activity. With the charm of novelty, several members also made use of the richness of sounds and vocabulary of their own Bavarian and Vienna dialect. Furthermore, the group was trying out text.

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