Some far-out contestants in the ‘World Bodypainting Festival’ held in Austria.
 
So first of all yes, an event known as the “World Bodypainting Festival” is a real thing and has been since getting its start in Seeboden, Austria back in 1998. It’s still going strong today. Who knew?

Originally conceived to help draw tourists to the region during the summer months the fledgling event was the first of its kind in the world. Quickly rising in popularity by the early 2000s it was rebranded as the “World Bodypainting Festival” which draws tens of thousands of fans and professional body painters from over 40 locations around the globe to its new home in Pörtschach, Austria. Pörtschach is a dreamy place where you can observe the spectacle of beautiful people cavorting around with their (nearly) nude bodies covered in works of artistic expression that range from pop art and fantasy to other colorful concepts, which are particularly mind-blowing when you consider the canvasses they appear on.

The festival just celebrated its nineteenth anniversary and plans are already underway for the next year’s “20 Year Jubilee”. If this is your kind of thing (or if you’re just discovering that this is your kind of thing) tickets for the formal events that occur over a three-day period start at about $50 a pop. Tons of images from the festival follow, some of which are slightly NSFW.
 

An image of Andy Warhol (and I believe FLOTUS Michelle Obama) on a model at the ‘World Bodypainting Festival,’
 

 

Bodypainting by artist Daniel Pucher.
 
More after the jump…

 
Earlier this month an amusing police incident was reported in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. Sometime last year, in the Austrian province of Lower Austria, a 35-year-old farmer and mother of two needed some work done on her farm, so she devised a rather creative way to get the labor she needed: she went online and solicited her services as a dominatrix. “Instead of providing pleasurable pain,” wrote Der Standard, “the men who had responded to the ad were put to work mowing grass while wearing rubber masks and stacking wood naked.” News reports prominently featured the term Arbeitssklaven, or “work slaves.”

At some point one of the men went to the police to file a complaint for fraud. A police spokesman stated, “We have identified two to three counts of illegal prostitution.” The police report refers to “15 submissive men,” one of whom apparently financed a roof extension on the farm!

Some wags commenting online in the Der Standard article thread wondered whether any fraud could truly be said to have taken place…. good point! Another commenter suggested that Ulrich Seidl, the Austrian movie director who recently completed an acclaimed trilogy called Paradise: Love / Faith / Hope that cast a particularly critical eye at Austrian life, may just have found the subject for his next movie.

The woman said that it was her husband’s idea.

via Spiegel Online

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Shame Wave: Greg Barris and the Dominatrix
Music Drives Me Crazy: Austrian Space Disco Band Ganymed

This demented 1992 clip from the German “Peter Alexander Show” features Johnny Cash getting down with Austrian jams while some crazd Austrian stuff happens behind him. White horse behind him says HURRR I’M A HOERS.

Also, check out this file of Mr. Cash singing hits from his back catalog in German.

(Austrian Johnny Cash via Swens Blog)