Dear friends,

This week we are looking at three paintings on paper by Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch (b. 1938, Vienna), founding father of the Viennese Actionism movement. These works were all executed in a performance in 1986 and are very typical of Nitsch's practice, where paint is mixed with blood and other organic fluids during his theatrical actions. In line with his long-standing interest in religious art, the corporeal and spiritual are at the core of the three works presented here. “The colour red”, Nitsch states, “is the colour that most intensively arouses attention because it is simultaneously the colour of both life and death”.

In 1957 Nitsch conceived an idea for a radical theatre which he called the “Orgien Mysterien Theater”. This aimed to create a Gesamtkunstwerk (“total artwork”), a mystical and sensory experience which completely immerses the audience in the action performed.  Renowned for his radically experimental methods, Nitsch is the only remaining active member of Actionism, and the only surviving one together with Günter Brus.

Nitsch has recently attracted strong interest at an institutional and market level, with museum exhibitions around the world (including the Albertina in Vienna, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona) and increasingly strong auction results this year, including a world record at Sotheby's on 24 June 2020.