Enlarge image
Hermann Nitsch (1938-2022): Ritual blood spectacle
Photo: Roland Schlager / picture alliance/dpa/APA
The famous and controversial action artist Hermann Nitsch is dead. The Austrian painter and sculptor died on Monday at the age of 83 in a hospital in Mistelbach north of Vienna, as his wife announced on Tuesday.
Nitsch made a name for himself with his actions involving slaughtered animals and naked people.
His "orgy-mystery theater" with blood, cadavers and entrails became his trademark.
Nitsch was born on August 29, 1938 in Vienna.
At the age of 15 he attended the graphic teaching and research institute in the Austrian capital.
Already in his first pictures he dealt with religion - a topic that never let him go.
At the end of the 1950s he first conceived the idea of a ritual blood spectacle as a total work of art made up of music, theater and painting, which was to determine his work until his death.
The first theatrical painting actions took place in the Technical Museum in Vienna and in the studio of the painter Otto Mühl.
In the early years, the Vienna police felt compelled to take legal action against the artists on several occasions;
Trials and prison sentences were the result.
For a while, Nitsch turned his back on Austria and lived in Germany on Lake Ammer.
Viennese Actionism remained a temporary phenomenon of the 1960s.
Nitsch is the only artist to continue it to the end.
In 1966, Nitsch made his international breakthrough with an invitation to London for the »Destruction in Art Symposium«.
The action in front of an established audience was canceled by the police - this was followed by offers from all over the world.
For many viewers, his work is nauseating and transcends the bounds of good taste.
He was accused of blasphemy, and animal rights activists went on the barricades.
The Lower Austrian Great Culture Prize intended for Nitsch in 1984 was not awarded after public protests.
His appointment as a professor at the Frankfurt Städel Art School in 1988 caused further heated debates, where Nitsch taught until his retirement in 2001.
His works have been shown in numerous renowned museums and exhibitions since the 1980s.
There are also two museums dedicated to his work in Naples and in Mistelbach, Austria.
Nitsch also designed several opera productions.
Last year he conceived a controversial live painting action for Wagner's »Valkyrie« at the Bayreuth Festival.
feb/dpa
