Barbara Schurz was born 1973 in Klagenfurt

Klagenfurt

-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...

, Carinthia

Carinthia (state)

Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...

. She is an artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 and self-described "revolutionary

Revolutionary

A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...

 activist" from Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

At Vienna University she pursued Slavic Studies and Women's Studies

Women's studies

Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...

. Subsequently, she studied conceptual art

Conceptual art

Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

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

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, in addition to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

.

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

Alexander Brener

Alexander Davidovič Brener born 1957 in Alma-Ata, is a Russian-Jewish performance artist. His performances of note include defecating in front of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, having sex on city streets, and vandalizing art work.He was jailed in 1997 for...

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

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...

, and focus their attacks largely on capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

 and imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

. 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.

Books

• Was tun? (1999, ISBN 3-85266-101-3)
• Furzende Völker (2000, ISBN 3-85266-130-7)
• Tattoos auf Gefängnissen (2001, ISBN 3-85266-157-9)
• Bukaka Spat Here (2001, Austria, ISBN 3-9501567-1-2; 2002, UK, ISBN 0-9520274-4-5)