Published by Pace Publishing. Text by Hermann Nitsch, Danielle Spera, Rita Nitsch.
A pioneer of Vienna’s postwar avant-garde and the most notorious member of the Vienna Aktionist group, Hermann Nitsch (1938–2022) united performance, painting and musical composition in dramatic, often blood-soaked rituals. Newly translated into English from the original German, this oral autobiography offers the readers Nitsch’s life story in his own words. Over the course of an in-depth interview with Austrian journalist Danielle Spera, he recounts his family history, early childhood, the evolution of his artistic practice and the fraught reception of his work, as well as his various romantic and financial struggles. The interview is illustrated with images of his work, in the studio and in action; archival photographs; and other ephemeral material, such as flyers and news clips. Excerpts from Nitsch’s writings, including "Blood Organ Manifesto" and "Verbal Poetry of the Orgies Mysteries Theatre," punctuate the interview between Spera and the artist.
Published by Kerber. Edited by Helmut Essl. Text by Dieter Buchhart, Hermann Nitsch, Otmar Rychlik.
This publication chronicles Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch’s (1938–2022) 20th Painting Action, a series of monumental white canvases that he splattered with large swaths of red paint during a public performance at the Vienna Secession in 1987.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Michael Karrer. Foreword by Hermann Nitsch, Rudi Fuchs, Michael Karrer.
Legendary Viennese Actionist Hermann Nitsch (born 1938) is notorious for his large-scale “theaters” consisting of ecstatic performances, luminous, monochromatic paintings, music and sculpture. This volume documents his visionary efforts to reinvent religious communion for the secular present.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Hubert Klocker, Michael Buhrs. Text by Hubert Klocker, Thomas Trabitsch.
Hermann Nitsch (born 1938) has been working since 1957 on the realization of his key work: the Orgien Mysterien Theater. This publication provides detailed insight into one of the most challenging works of contemporary art and its relation to civic theater.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Heinz Cibulka, Wolfgang Denk, Wieland Schmied, Josef Winkler. Edited by Romana Schuler.
The important Vienna Actionist Hermann Nitsch once said, ""Red is the color that people register the most because it is simultaneously the color of life and death."" Originally inspired by French Tachisme and American Abstract Expressionism, Nitsch began working with paint in the late 1950s and early 60s, putting on ""theatrical painting actions"" in order to produce large-scale spill paintings. Up until the very early 1960s, his canvases were often still stained with evocative rivers of red paint; over the ensuing years, he would gradually replace paint with blood and stretched canvases with unstretched bed sheets, bringing an assortment of new and highly charged ""materials"" into his practice, including internal organs, animal cadavers and human bodies. From the 1960s until the late 1990s, Nitsch staged nearly 100 ritualistic performance actions in his Theater of Orgies and Mysteries series. Through the complete set of these often incendiary actions, which included live slaughters, dance, music and other pagan gestures, Nitsch realized his concept for a total work of art that brings together painting, architecture and music with the catharsis of self-recognition.
Hermann Nitsch: 20th Painting Action
Hermann Nitsch: The Theater of Orgies and Mysteries
Hermann Nitsch and the Theater: ExistenzFest
Hermann Nitsch