Hermann Nitsch

Hermann Nitsch ( born August 29, 1938 in Vienna) is an Austrian painter and performance artist. He is an important representative of the Vienna activism.

Life

After a graduate degree from the Graphic Arts Research Institute in Vienna Nitsch took a job in 1957 as a commercial artist at the Museum of Technology. A few years later, the first painting actions and also the idea of ​​Orgies and Mysteries Theater, which incessantly occupied him from then on and in which rallied all his efforts emerged. Its held at Vienna in public action work resulted in the early sixties to constant confrontations with the authorities and several weeks spent in prison, which led the artist in 1968 to move to Germany.

After great successes of Orgies and Mysteries theater in the late sixties in the U.S. and Germany Nitsch led during the seventies in many European and North American cities actions. In 1971 he managed to acquire the lower Austrian castle Prinzendorf from the possession of the church where Nitsch in the wake of larger-scale actions also realized his ideas of music to his theater. In the Actions noise orchestras, screaming and electronically amplified instruments were used. Nitsch pointing life as passion, the process of painting as a compressed life and thus as the epitome of the Passion.

The artist himself remained by its centrally inserted in the painting Malhemden he wore during the work, present and encourages the viewer to identify with the painting process and enter into the picture with him. After visiting professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts - Städel School in Frankfurt am Main and the University of Fine Arts Hamburg Nitsch taught since 1989 until his retirement at the Städel School in a class of interdisciplinary art.

Awards

Art

In 1961 he created his first splatter paintings. 1962 saw the birth of the Vienna activism. Together with Otto Muehl and Frohner he realized in Vienna, the three-part action " The blood organ " to which a joint manifesto was published. In the early 1960s he developed the main ideas for his Orgies Mysteries Theatre: Taking into account all forms of art (painting, architecture, music, ritual sacrifice, Mass liturgy, etc.) should be gradually tense the meaning of the participants to the utmost to highlight on a to make the knowledge of the life process itself possible repetition of Freud's ' Totem meal '. Since 1971, Nitsch held at the he acquired the Castle Complex Prinzendorf regularly its " Orgies and Mysteries games ", including as a culmination of his life's work the great " 6-day game" in the summer of 1998 under the direction of Alfred Gulden, as well as his 120 action, the " 2-day game" in the summer of 2004.

1972 Nitsch was a participant of the exhibition curated by Harald Szeemann Documenta 5 in Kassel in the Department of Individual mythologies; at the Documenta 7 in 1982, he was represented. Marina Abramović 1975 worked with in a performance of Hermann Nitsch, whereas in the subsequent actions of the divorce between the individual artists was attempted, but the laity are used, which can re-apply for each action. In addition to Abramović also Christoph Schlingensief refers to the work of Nitsch. On 19 November 2005, 122 action of Orgies and Mysteries theater took place in the Burgtheater in Vienna as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations for the re-opening after the war instead.

Nitsch has been repeatedly invited to contribute their views of art and ritual in the opera. At the Vienna State Opera in 1995 he pioneered co-directed and created equipment and costumes for Jules Massenet's opera Hérodiade. 2001 Nitsch was responsible for the stage design and the costumes in the performance of Satyagraha Gandhioper the American composer Philip Glass at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten in Lower Austria. In 2005 he created the equipment to Igor Stravinsky's Le Renard. In 2007 he directed the Scenes from Goethe's Faust by Robert Schumann in the Zurich Opera House. In 2011 he was in charge at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich for the scenic conception, design, sets and costumes to Saint François d' Assise by Olivier Messiaen.

Hermann Nitsch's worldview is strongly influenced by mystical writers, but among others, by de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Antonin Artaud. In his theoretical book " Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries " Nitsch stated that his actions and images first disgust and revulsion, then intended to bring about a catharsis in the audience. The disgust and revulsion triggering provocations and the linking of real animal carcasses and real blood with religious content, such as the crucifixion and the Immaculate Conception is consciously used by Nitsch, to bring the viewer to reflect on often repressed in everyday symbolic topoi such as blood and death, who also play in the Christian religion a central role. Were of mainly Christian viewers and many critics and his actions and works are perceived as blasphemy.

In connection with his Orgies Mysteries Theatre Hermann Nitsch is also active as a composer and writer. His actions are listed in meticulously recorded scores, which in addition to instructions and texts graphically notated music pieces.

Because he irritates the inclusion and combination of sacrificial rites and liturgical elements in his bloody actions not only animal rights activists, but also theologians and representatives of public morality opinions, his work in public is highly controversial. Conversely dissociate some action and performance artists, including former combatants, of which in their opinion, too religious, gesamtkunstwerk like impact of his work. This can be interpreted as an attempt to counter- concept to Wagner's Bayreuth be gesamtkunstwerk exemplary work at Castle Prinzendorf quite content. Whether such can succeed, however, is still highly controversial.

What remains is the undoubtedly great influence Nitsch in the Austrian, especially the Viennese art and culture scene. The fact that his mystery play has now played in the Vienna Burgtheater, shows great personal assertiveness. Nitsch ultimately appears as the representative of an archaic and provocative aesthetic that is classified by some as original and artistic value of the other attributes as primitive, arrogant and tasteless.

On 24 May 2007, the " Hermann Nitsch Museum " was opened at the Museum Mistelbach, which led to protests in parts of the population mistletoe Bach. In Naples, 13 September 2008 opened Nitsch's longtime gallery owner Peppe Morra, a museum dedicated exclusively Nitsch's work, the " Museo Laboratorio Archivio per le Arti Contemporanee Hermann Nitsch ", which was set up in a former power station.

In 2009, Nitsch Foundation was established, whose aim is the coordination and documentation of Nitsch's work of art.

Criticism

Despite his international anchoring in the art world and numerous awards Nitsch is still one of the most controversial in the public artists of his country. Christian religious people accuse him of blasphemy. Animal rights activists excite about the handling of animals slaughtered as part of its rituals, even left-liberal authors such as Hilde Spiel reported against the " brutality " of his actions humanistic concerns to.

Writings

  • Orgies and Mysteries theater. Orgies Mysteries Theatre, Darmstadt, March -Verlag 1969, 342 pp.
  • Sophie Cieslar: "Who loves His, death, the tragic look into the eye must ," in Parnassus, 24 ( 2004), H. 3, pp. 128-133, col Ill.
  • Oedipus the King. A playable theory of drama, Berlin, garlic / Edition Cold sweat, 1986, 165 pp. ax.
  • The Orgies Mysteries Theatre. Manifestos, essays, lectures, Salzburg, Residenz- Verlag 1990, 168 pp.
  • Pabellón de las Artes, Seville, September 1 to 20 1992 Pabellón de las Artes, Seville 1992, 120 S., Ill. predominantly
  • Organ composition, publishing extra plate, 1 Audio - CD, 74 minutes, ISBN 3-221-31294-6.
  • With Dieter Schrage: Hermann Nitsch, 6-day game in Prinzendorf 1998 relics and relic installations, action painting, photos and video; . Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation at the Palais Liechtenstein, 27 March-16 May 1999 1999, 144 pp., zahlr. Ill.
  • Michael Hüttler: Hermann Nitsch. Vienna Lectures, International Contributions to Theatre Studies at the University of Vienna, Vienna, Böhlau 2005, 248 pp., ISBN 3-205-77480-9.

Public collections

Belgium

  • S.M.A.K. - Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Arts, Ghent

Germany

Denmark

  • Arken Museum for Modern Art, Copenhagen
  • Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde

France

  • Centre Pompidou - Musée National d' Art Moderne, Paris

Italy

  • MUSEION - Museion - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano
  • Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto

Canada

  • National Gallery of Canada - Musée des beaux -arts du Canada, Ottawa, ON
  • The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC

USA

United Kingdom

Austria

  • Neue Galerie Graz
  • Museum of Modern Art Carinthia, Klagenfurt
  • Sammlung Essl - Kunsthaus, Klosterneuburg
  • Lentos, Linz
  • Hermann Nitsch Museum, Mistelbach
  • Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg
  • Lower Austrian Provincial Museum, St. Pölten
  • MUMOK Museum of Modern Art - Ludwig Foundation in the Museumsquartier, Vienna

Secondary literature

  • Freya Martin: The Nitsch and his friends. Styria, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-222-13246-9, with Figure
  • Danielle Spera: Hermann Nitsch. Life and work, Brandstätter, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3854984340 Synopsis with Figure
  • Gerhard Jaschke: stimulus word " Nitsch ". The Orgies Mysteries Theatre in the press, special number Verlag, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-85449-067-4 with Figure
  • Thomas Dreher: Performance Art after 1945 Action Theater and Intermedia.. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2001 ISBN 3-7705-3452-2

Movies

  • Night Studio: disgust and desire. Strong emotions. Discussion program with Hermann Nitsch, Winfried Menninghaus, Hannelore Floppy and Slavoj Žižek. Line of the program: Volker Panzer. Production ZDF, 2000 ( 60 min )
  • Kaisermuehlen Blues - The newcomer: supporting role as himself
  • HN Hermann Nitsch. Documentary by Daniela Ambrosoli. Production: Verdeoro & Pierino Ambrosoli Foundation, 2010 (60 min)
Viennese Actionism Technisches Museum Wien Pogradec Albania Mahatma Gandhi Literary topos Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst Arken Museum of Modern Art Roskilde Royal Mansion Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Tate Britain Lentos Art Museum Integrated Authority File
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