Curator Lina Albrikienė: Exhibition “Hermann Nitsch. Gesamtkunstwerk”

Hermann Nitsch. Gesamtkunstwerk
Lina Albrikienė

The exhibition is exclusively for visitors aged 18 and above.

The period following the Second World War in Austria featured complex, strongly conservative politics, and contrasting traditional and radically new cultures and movements. In post-war Austria, part of the art scene reflected the nation’s efforts to confront its past and redefine its cultural identity. Artists were eager to move beyond and challenge the constraints of traditionalism and the shadows of the Nazi regime, embracing modernist and avant-garde approaches. In the 1950s, Wiener Gruppe (Vienna Group), a circle of writers, friends and collaborators of artists and filmmakers, emerged. Instead of revealing their writing and theatrical art in linear and narrative form, as was traditionally Austrian, the members of Wiener Gruppe demanded its texts and art be perceived and experienced in their materiality, visuality, and performativity. Because of this, the creative approaches of the group were not accepted by wider society – the members of the Wiener Gruppe were seen as frustrating disrupters of old traditions. Nevertheless, by the 1960s, Vienna became a centre for experimental art, with movements such as boundary-breaking Viennese Actionism, whose leaders included Hermann Nitsch, Günter Brus, Otto Muehl and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. They used provocative performances and media works to confront societal taboos, explore primal human instincts and challenge conventional art forms. The main figure of this movement was Hermann Nitsch, who began his artistic practice with figurative painting but developed it into abstraction. From there he moved through a process of going beyond the panel pictures into actions – to his Orgies Mysteries Theatre.

When we look at the biography of Hermann Nitsch, starting from his childhood experiences, we notice the first meaningful roots of his philosophy, which might be what brought him to his artistic genre – actions. This is an artist who was born shortly before the Second World War, in 1938. He experienced running to the air raid shelters, listening to his devastated mother crying out, “God has to help us now,” 1 watching people praying in whispers, seeing burning houses: “Everything was scorched when we came out of the basement. […] Black clouds. Everything was burnt. A lot of the buildings were completely destroyed, or half razed to the ground […]. The world was mocked in its entirety and reduced to pure absurdity.” 2. The horrifying scenes of war must have been traumatizing for Hermann Nitsch. He remarks: “Many people ask me why my work has to be so explosive and seemingly cruel. Maybe it has something to do with my childhood memories.” 3. His experience of the war might be even more influential, since Nitsch’s father died due to war in 1944. His mother, a somewhat practicing Catholic, was extremely disenchanted and blamed God for her husband’s death. Nitsch’s grandfather mostly took care of him after these tragic circumstances. His grandfather was a self-taught intellectual, the one who brought knowledge to Nitsch of nature, animals and Greek mythology, which would later become the main research doctrine behind his creation of the O. M. Theater. Even though his grandfather was an atheist, Nitsch was very interested in the Passion of Jesus from an early age. When he was in his first year of graphic arts school, he painted several works on the theme of crucifixion, and loved the idea of becoming a church painter. After his studies, when Nitsch was working as a graphic designer in 1956, he started down his long path towards his Orgies Mysteries Theatre, starting with just a tentative draft for the overall concept of a play.

In 1960 after a two-year break from painting, Hermann Nitsch began his action paintings by splattering red paint, and calling his first results Kreuzwegstationen 4 (Stations of the Cross). In 1962, the idea of blood as paint was introduced into his action scene painting. “the process of painting became so very important that it escalated into action. the conservative thought and image world of the picture surface was abandoned, broken through, the allegory of the picture gave way to direct reality. in place of paint blood, hot water, raw meat and entrails were utilized. liquids sprayed in the room. by allowing these real events to be viewed a gesamtkunstwerk automatically emerges. reality is experienced by all the senses,” 5 stated Hermann Nitsch. Action paintings became a prologue for the Orgies Mysteries Theatre, “the very first cell of the action.” 6. The first action happened in 1962 and lasted 30 minutes; it took place at Otto Muehl’s apartment in Vienna. In 1998, the whole play was finally revealed as the “100^th Action 6 Days Play” – a play which took 40 years to be finalized in reality in the Schloss Prinzendorf and its surroundings, where Hermann Nitsch lived as of the 1970’s. The score of the six-day play is 1,595 pages. Rehearsals took 21 days in Prinzendorf Castle with 100 actors, 180 musicians and about 1,000 guests/ participants in attendance.

© Georg Soulek, 2005

The title of the exhibition, “Gesamtkunstwerk,” is a German term meaning “total work of art,” which refers the aspiration of the artist to dissolve the boundaries between art forms; in other words, it expresses how multiple art forms become integrated into a single unified expression. The term became widely associated with German composer Richard Wagner, who used it to describe his vision for opera as a synthesis of all art forms, being made up of music, poetry, drama and theatrical art. Hermann Nitsch felt that Greek tragedy embodied this harmony – the unification of art forms – since the 1960’s, Nitsch also referred to his own artistic practice by this term.

Hermann Nitsch’s exhibition is now on display for the first time in Lithuania. The exhibit introduces a comprehensive collection loaned by art collectors from Graz and by the Nitsch Foundation in Vienna. Variations of techniques, diverse media, philosophical quotes from the master of Vienna Actionism representing almost 60 years of the artist’s oeuvre – the manifestation of a gesamtkunstwerk; the path towards his drama O. M. Theater and the first showing of its play in its entirety, lasting six days. In the museum we are hosting relics, relics with drawings and applications, installation, Oedipus sculptures and photo/video documentation from the 5^th, 50^th, 80^th, 100^th and 138^th actions, and 16^th and 19^th action paintings.  Jonas Mekas, a life-long friend of Nitsch, also takes part in the exposition. His film “Scenes from the Life of Hermann Nitsch” is presented in the 4 monitors installed in a separate space of the museum – the long narrow balcony reflects the path of both artists’ friendship, their explorations, experiences through travelling, celebrations, participations in Nitsch’s actions – the time they had together during more than 50 years, as Jonas Mekas said in the explanation of his film: “A casual, personal portrait of Hermann Nitsch, made with footage I took over the many years of our friendship. Footage includes early performances in New York, images of Hermann shortly after the acquisition of the Prinzendorf monastery, which has since become his main space of activity. You also see Hermann with his friends in Vienna, New York, and Napoli: Peter Kubelka, Raimund Abraham, Günter Brus, George Maciunas, Giuseppe Morra, and others.” Among these great friends was Austrian avant-garde filmmaker Peter Kubelka, who introduced Hermann Nitsch and Jonas Mekas in 1968 in New York. Credit is due to Kubelka, who arranged several places for Nitsch to release his first actions in United States in 1968. Nitsch received great success – he remarks in his biography that all the major newspapers ran stories on the actions. Hermann Nitsch felt much more confident in himself as an artist and continued working on the development of his performances and worked on drawings such as “The Conquest of Jerusalem” (1971/2008). The work depicts the plan of an underground city. This is an exceptionally theatrical and dramatic city created by Nitsch, in which architectural elements are combined with the motifs of plants and human or animal organs. The drawing, which was made in 1971 and silkscreen-printed on blood-stained fabric in 2008, seems to pulsate, as though embodying a living organism. Numerous intertwined arteries connect hundreds of chambers, and those connect with dozens of organs. The animal blood, which has faded over more than 50 years, here, as with other works with blood, reflects life and death – a theme that Nitsch constantly explored in his work. “The Last Supper” (1976/1979/2021) is also an architectural composition of an underground city, in this case conveyed through anatomically depicted human bodies with internal organs and vessels. Art historian and curator Jutta Schütt shares her insight about the figures: “References such as ‘dismembered Osiris’ are applied in the specific theatrical context of a resurrected deity like Dionysus, O.M.T.” 7 The artist himself left a handwritten message on the canvas: “a design for an underground city based on the dramatic image of the action of the last supper: the destruction and reemergence of our universe.”

In the early 1970’s when Hermann Nitsch and his wife at the time, Beate Nitsch (who died in 1977 in a car accident), purchased Prinzendorf Castle – a place perfectly suited to put on the Orgies Mystery Theater – the association for the support of the play was founded. Jonas Mekas was a part of the curatorial team. In 1975 the first and the largest action, lasting 24 hours, 50^th action of the six-day play was realized in Prinzendorf. From sunrise to sunrise… From the courtyard surrounded by participants driven by action, celebrating the significant day with wine, bread and other feasts, to the highly intense noise of orchestra and fastened male, female bodies, whose eyes were tied up with gauzes signifying the image of Oedipus – one of the main mythological characters that Nitsch reflected in his theory for theater – to underground, cellars lighted with torches and shrouded with smoke, filled with the experience of the claustrophobe. The gesamtkunstwerk materialized, conveying all possible sensations and emotions, even catharsis: “To stay in this tension for 24 hours …wasn’t easy. At night everybody followed Nitsch into the cellars and a black smoke came out from these torches that slowly filled the air completely. I am claustrophobic and couldn’t take it anymore. At around 5 am Nitsch ended the action and coming out of the cellar with all these people was the wave of smoke, it looked like these people were coming out of hell. Then I had a crisis that I will remember if I live a thousand years: I stood beside a tree and I think cried for at least ten minutes. I really let out all I had inside. I came out reborn. I felt younger. Freer. Able to talk, to laugh, to taste food. While being underground all these things didn’t exist.” 8

The beginning of 1980’s was a period of changes for Nitsch. After twenty years he returned to a large-scale painting, for a practical reason: in 1983, Nitsch received the invitation to participate in a huge exhibition at the Stedelijk Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven. Many of Nitsch‘s artworks which were installed at Prinzendorf Castle took part in the exhibition, so the castle was left with huge empty spaces. Nitsch was gripped by the strong desire to paint all the walls and floors of the castle. The desire followed him for few decades and steered him towards the continuity of the six-day O.M. Theater. There were many following actions, lasting different amounts of time and happening in different locations all around the world, up until 1984 when Nitsch realized the three-day action at Prinzendorf Castle – nine years after the 24-hour action in 1975. In this play, the third day was the day embodying the theme of Dionysus – revealing orgiastic experiential forms and ritual processes. This catharsis expanded and was overloaded through humans, environment and nature of Prinzendorf. The Dionysus figure was extremely significant for Nitsch – he used to remark in his writings or interviews the parallels between Christ and Dionysus: “dionysus is dismembered—in cultic practice a goat or another young animal is slain and pulled apart—but one knows that he returns, that a resurrection follows. it is, in a way, an anticipation of christ, except dionysus’s end is in excess, in the orgy, whereas with christ it is the reverse, the negative of the orgy, the passion. and it ends, let’s say, with the excess of the cross.“ 9

© Roland Rudolph, 2009

Hermann Nitsch also had specific garments of ritual actions. He argued that the practice of art must be viewed as equivalent to the offices of a priest. Following this idea in the early 1960’s, Nitsch started wearing a smock-like, simply cut, white shirt during his painting actions. From the middle of 1980’s when Nitsch dedicated himself to the large-scale action paintings in public, shirts became relics from the performances and sometimes were installed as relics of fabric. The white shirt joined within the wooden stick on the surface of the canvas is reminiscent of the scene of crucifixion. Nitsch used to change his shirts during the actions. He was aware of having them not weighed down in red paint or blood, and he felt when it was time to change into a new one. The shirt is a representation of the artist – of him being present. BEING – the word Nitsch always used in capital letters. The shirt is fully absorbed by the sweat and smell of the protagonist. Three shirts hanging in the exhibition space and the one on the canvas remind us that Nitsch is present with us. They are relics from the performances – the imprints of his body marking almost 40 years of his past.  They let our minds imagine being one of the participants watching or being involved in his actions. Nitsch remarks: “the shirt becomes damp with the ‘sweat and blood’ of the paint, wet, chromatic, blood stains of painted blood are formed and cling to the naked body of the painter.”

The relics from the performances include not just the shirts and action paintings, but also the blood-stained stretchers, table and floor cloths. Nitsch felt that all these smeared, sprayed and spilled-on objects used in the performances serve to capture spontaneous occurrences more accurately than the actual paintings. Nitsch also remarks the idea of time being experienced, “the besmeared materials are meant to bring the past into the present in the most direct way possible.” Thus, in 1968 he began to collect relics of his actions. Nitsch worked over relics even many years after the performance has happened. He included colours, especially on tablecloths. He added applications as for instance, objects from the church rituals, wax or adding a drawing for example, the setting of the play after the relic was dry.

Following his success in the 1980’s Nitsch could allow himself to change his painting material from dispersion to oil paint, enriching surfaces with a very thick layer of paint which brought the sensation and perception of seeing the entrails as we can see in the art piece “Action Painting with Painting Shirt” (1995).  The running red paint represents blood, the thickness of paint and its structures resemble mucus, intestines, crusted on. To Nitsch, this new approach of painting was like discovering a door to the subconscious as well as to the eroticism and sexuality which led towards yet more paintings and actions.

Since the beginning, Nitsch had realized nearly 160 actions. All of them leads towards Orgies Mysteries Theater and towards understanding that for Nitsch, “only the synaesthesia that emerged from sensory impressions could lead to experiencing the total work of art. Whether in music or in painting, in both cases Nitsch speaks of colors and tones, of harmonies and dissonances. During his teaching career in Frankfurt, Hermann Nitsch worked on “colour and form experiments” with his students. The resulting “colour scales” illustrated harmonious relationships and constellations, which are also an essential part of the O.M. Theater.“

As we exit the exhibition, we find one of the less characteristic paintings with collage in the exhibition, “Fruits, Thorns, Roses.” Nevertheless, it merges together the whole exhibition. It is a final cord to reveal the synaesthesia of sensations. Besides the bright yellow, orange, red and blue and the photo images of roses and grapes we could notice architectonic setting as well as parts of organs. All the aspects from actions we have already encountered in Nitsch’s works while exploring the exhibition are settled into this one joy-reflecting piece. Furthermore, in the context of the exhibition, this painting could be sort of an ode to the friendship between Hermann Nitsch and Jonas Mekas – the table/ table cloth of celebration whenever they would meet during their lives.

Curator Lina Albrikienė in collaboration with Roman Grabner
Consultant Martha Schildorfer
Architect Sigita Simona Paplauskaitė
Graphic designer Rūta Rancevaitė
Producing architect Tomas Styra
Light designer Renaldas Bartulis

Art collection from: Nitsch Foundation, Galerie Sommer, diethARdT collection, Galerie Zimmermann-Kratochwill, THP Privatstiftung

Supported by: Lietuvos kultūros taryba,  Panevėžio miesto savivaldybė, Rita Nitsch, Kalnapilis
Media partner LRT

We would like to inform you that the exhibition “Hermann Nitsch. Gesamtkunstwerk,” displayed in our museum, is intended for visitors aged 18 and above. This (18+) age restriction has been established to ensure the content of the exhibition is properly understood and appreciated.

Some of the works may be considered provocative or elicit strong reactions. The exhibition features: ritualistic motifs involving blood and corporeality, as well as intense visual and symbolic scenes. We encourage you to consider your readiness to visit, especially if you have sensitivities or experiences that could amplify the emotional impact.

If museum staff have any doubts about a visitor’s age, we may ask for identification. Certain works in the exhibition are marked and cannot be photographed or filmed.

Thank you for your understanding.

The exhibition is exclusively for visitors aged 18 and above.

1 Hermann Nitsch: Life and Work: Recorded by Danielle Spera. Pace Publishing, 2023, p. 21.
2 ibid. p. 20.
3 ibid. p. 20.
4 ibid. p. 86.
5 Asolo Raum 1973, published by Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna, 1990), p. 2-3.
6 Hermann Nitsch: Life and Work: Recorded by Danielle Spera. Pace Publishing, 2023, p. 87
7 Jutta Schütt, Städel Museum Frankfurt 2004
8 From the documentary film “Hermann Nitsch” by Daniela Ambrosoli, 2011. Conversation with Francesco Conz about the experience of the 50^th action in 1975.
9 Hermann Nitsch: Life and Work: Recorded by Danielle Spera. Pace Publishing, 2023, p. 20.