Venice, at Giudecca a major exhibition on Hermann Nitsch

A major exhibition of Hermann Nitsch (Vienna, 1938), the father of Viennese Actionism, is being held in Venice at the Oficine 800 space at Fondamenta San Biagio on the island of Giudecca. The event, titled 20th Painting Action runs from April 19 to July 20, and announcing it is Zuecca Projects, which is in charge of organizing the show, in collaboration with Helmut Essl’s private collection and Galerie Kandlhofer. As part of the exhibition, the 20th pictorial action, the only pictorial action of the artist whose works are entirely kept in the same collection, will also be presented, and through the exhibition, it will be possible to see the works for the first time in Italy since their creation.

“To every age, its art. To art, its freedom”: this is the motto of art critic Ludwig Hevesi that can be read above the portal of the Wiener Secession in Vienna. Only a few artists have tested the boundaries of freedom as consistently as Hermann Nitsch (and been attacked for doing so, including criminal charges, protests and threats). Despite all the resistance, Nitsch clung to his idea of the fusion of all the arts and stands today as one of the major figures in 20th-century art history. With his Orgien Mysterien Theater, Nitsch created a total work of art for all the senses; he expanded the traditional parameters of painting and theater; he brought worship, found at the beginning of the evolution of art, back into contemporary art; he fused art with life. Nitsch, as recalled, was the pioneer ofViennese Actionism: on November 18, 1960, influenced byArt Informel, he made his first action, during which the painting no longer depicted anything outside the painting itself but represented pure color, the immediate gesture and its precise occurrence in time.

In 1957 Nitsch began to elaborate the idea of his Orgien Mysterien Theater. Influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, Greek tragedy and the concept of the “total work of art” developed by Richard Wagner, Nitsch conceived of a gigantic totalizing theatrical act, a synaesthetic experience lasting several days. Among the themes he pours intoOrgien Mysterien Theater are the story of Oedipus, the saga of the Atrides, the Christian tale of the Passion, the Grail legend and the legend of the Nibelungen, overlapping religion and myth in a grand cultural collage. The fundamental purpose of the broad mass of ideas that makes up his Orgien Mysterien Theater is the intensification of the experience of life and the increased joy of existence that comes with it. Through the O. M. Theater, art takes on the same functions performed by religions. Beginning in 1963, he abandoned painting for twenty years, devoting himself exclusively to his actions and working on the creation of his last 6-Tages -Spiel (Six-Day Theater). In the early 1980s, Nitsch returned toaction painting-a decision to be interpreted not only as functional to his work, but also as a critical response to the painting of the Neuen Wilden (New Savages), who dominated the art market at the time. The 20. malaktion he made at the Wiener Secession in 1987 stands out in importance because of its scope, quality, and the subjective significance Nitsch ascribes to it. With its sacred quality, the central hall of the Secession building accommodates Nitsch, contributing to what he aspired to from the beginning: the “sacralization of all art.”

For Nitsch, “the practice of art corresponds to a ritual.” The “Temple of Art” created by Josef Maria Olbrich in 1898 is thus transformed into a stage for cultic pictorial action. It also becomes the fulfillment of a long-stored wish: in fact, there is a sketch by Nitsch dedicated to an action in the Wiener Secession dated 1964. The works of the twentieth pictorial action impressively reveal their genesis, which took place between “bursts of unrestrained fury and delicate gestures.” We are immersed in an actionist pictorial environment in which the fundamental constants of Nitsch’s work visually take shape, revealing those characters of the momentary and the eternal, dynamism and contemplative calm, the real and the symbolic, purity and desecration, excessive demands and reflection. Through a large-format work (5x20 mt) made with the pouring technique and placed on the front wall, and numerous smaller splatter paintings, we are confronted with a panorama that fills the space. No other work succeeds in so condensed a representation of the very essence of Nitsch’s painting, understood as an integral part of his synaesthetic “Theater of Orgies and Mysteries.” Nitsch said, “I wanted to show how the drips, splashes, smears and splashes of red-colored liquid can evoke intense excitement in the viewer, leading him to experience very strong sensations.”

As part of his Orgien Mysterien Theater, the pictorial action aims to trigger in the audience an heightened experience of sensory reality by ideally leading them to a reflection on their own existence. This new presentation of the 20. malaktion in the historic space of the Oficine 800 on the island of Giudecca not only allows a recapitulation of his most important works, but also makes us retrace and relive Nitsch’s artistic ideas, in tension between the ecstatic and the contemplative.

Hermann Nitsch was born on August 29, 1938, in Vienna. A co-founder of Viennese Actionism, along with Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys and Günter Brus, he is among the international pioneers of Performance Art. A cornerstone of Actionism, painter, graphic designer, stage designer, writer and composer, he is one of the few universal contemporary artists. TheOrgien Mysterien Theater (Theater of Orgies and Mysteries), which he conceived and developed, is the realization of his idea of a total work of art, involving all five senses. In 1971 he bought Prinzendorf Castle in Lower Austria for his Orgien Mysterien Theater, where he produced his last six-day action in 1998 after decades of preparation. In 2007 a museum was dedicated to him in Mistelbach, Austria, where his work is presented in all its facets. In 2008 Giuseppe Morra, a longtime friend of the artist and patron of his work, created the Hermann Nitsch Museum in Naples, dedicated exclusively to his work. Nitsch has been exhibited several times at documenta and during the Venice Biennale. He has made more than 150 actions worldwide, and retrospectives have been dedicated to him at the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, the Lenbachhaus in Munich, the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin and the Albertina in Vienna. Nitsch’s works can be found in the world’s most important collections and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim Collection, New York; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Tate, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Castello di Rivoli; the GAM, Turin; and the Mart, Rovereto; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Nationalgalerie Berlin; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Staatsgemäldesammlung Munich; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Kunsthalle Hamburg; Kunstmuseum Bern; Kunstmuseum Winterthur; Albertina, Vienna; mumok, Vienna; Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna; Leopold Museum, Vienna.

For all information you can visit the Zuecca Projects website.

Image: Hermann Nitsch, Schüttbild (action painting), 20th painting action, Secession Vienna (1987; oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm). Photo by Liesl Biber. Courtesy of the Nitsch Foundation. ©Atelier Hermann Nitsch.

Venice, at Giudecca a major exhibition on Hermann Nitsch

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