Exhibitions

‘I wanted to become a church painter,’ Nitsch once said of himself. Although he did not become a church painter, the sacred has always remained a central element in his oeuvre. For him, ritual acts of all religions were characterised by a strong sensual expressiveness, as their symbolism and mythology can lead into the depths of being. Chalices, monstrances and chasubles, which are used in Nitsch's work, are essential components of the Eucharist in the Christian liturgy, in which transformation takes place. Bread and wine become flesh and blood.

Born in 1938, Nitsch grew up in strictly Catholic Vienna, which had a lasting influence on him. Impressed by the sensuality inherent in the various rituals (eating, drinking, celebrating, communion, birth, death, colour, smell), he sees these as threatened by socio-political and institutional developments and wants to make them tangible again in Orgien Mysterien Theater.

In the exhibition curated by Julia Moebus-Puck, Nitsch's references to the sacred and to Christian liturgy are presented on the basis of his artistic development from 1980 until his death in such a way that the exhibition itself becomes a sacred space. The exhibition is being realised in cooperation with the Vienna Actionism Museum, which is also dedicating a new exhibition to Hermann Nitsch's early work.