June 11 - July 30, 2023

Co-founder of the Viennese Aktionism movement, Hermann Nitsch was instrumental in reforming the face of sixties art, shunning the illusionary confines of traditional painting and sculpture, reinventing an art that exists in real, corporeal, and violent terms.
Hermann Nitsch was celebrated and reviled in equal measure as he took the semblance of a pagan ceremony and incorporated robed processions, symbolic crucifixion, drunken excess, nudity, animal sacrifice, the drinking of blood, and the ritualistic incorporation of viscera and entrails. Even today, his audiences aren’t mere visitors, but active participants in his artistic liturgies.
Hermann Nitsch’s work draws parallels between religion and the ritualistic spiritualism of creativity. Heavily entrenched in ancient philosophy and a dissident, questioning Christian theology, he actively seeks catharsis through pain and compassion, a rigorously disciplined quest for ethereal release and enlightenment through an embracing of primal instinct and ancient sacrament.
Hermann Nitsch (b. 1938, Vienna, Austria; d. 2022, Mistelbach, Austria) lived and worked at Prinzendorf Castle on the Zaya River, Lower Austria. His works are exhibited in the two Nitsch Museums in Mistelbach and Naples as well as in the Nitsch Foundation in Vienna and can be found in the permanent collections of preeminent international museums and galleries, including: MoMA, Guggenheim, The Metropolitan Museum New York, Tate Gallery London, The Centre Pompidou Paris, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and many more.
Selected Works

Schüttbild
2018
Acrylic on canvas and painted shirt
78.7 x 118.1 inches (200 x 300 cm)

Schüttbild
2018
Acrylic on jute
78.7 x 59.1 inches (200 x 150 cm)

Schüttbild
2018
Acrylic on cotton and canvas
78.7 x 59.1 inches (200x 150 cm)

Schüttbild
2014
Acrylic on Canvas
78.75 x 118 inches (200 x 300cm)

Schüttbild (75th Painting Action)
2017
Acrylic on Canvas with Shirt
79 x 59 inches (200 x 150cm)

Schüttbild (75th Painting Action)
2017
Acrylic on Canvas
59 x 79 inches (150 x 200cm)

Grablegung (Entombment of Christ)
2007, Unique A/P
Mixed-media on three original cotton Relics from his six-day play performed August 3-9 at Prinzendorf in 1998
79 x 118 inches (200 x 300 cm) overall

Schuttbild
2013
Acrylic on Canvas
200 x 200cm

Schuttbild
2010
Acrylic on Canvas with Painted Shirt
200 x 300cm

Schuttbild
2016
Acrylic on Canvas (with painted Shirt)
78.7 x 118 inches (200 x 300cm)

Schuttbild
2012
Acrylic on Canvas
78.7 x 78.7 inches (200 x 200cm)

Schüttbild
1998
Blood and Acrylic on Canvas
78 3/4 x 118 1/4 in
200 x 300 cm

Schüttbild
1983
Oil on Canvas
78 3/4 x 118 1/4 in
200 x 300 cm

Schüttbild
2013
Acrylic on Canvas
78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in
200 x 200 cm

Schüttbild
2011
Acrylic on Canvas
212 1/2 x 157 1/2 in
540 x 400 cm

Schüttbild
2010
Oil on canvas and painting on shirt
78 3/4 x 118 1/4 in
200 x 300 cm

Schüttbild
2010
Blood and Acrylic on Canvas
78 3/4 x 118 1/4 in
200 x 300 cm

Schüttbild
1992
Oil on Canvas
78 3/4 x 118 1/4 inches / 200 x 300 cm

Schüttbild
2013
Acrylic on Canvas
39 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches / 100 x 80 cm