Five paintings and yet much more – The Nitsch Foundation in Vienna

In the window, scissors, gauze bandages, test tubes and tweezers are neatly lined up on simple shelves. Between them are jars of colour pigments and neatly labelled spices. What a strange mixture! When you enter the foundation in Hegelgasse in the inner city, the connection quickly becomes clear: all these objects are ingredients for Hermann Nitsch’s famous Orgien Mysterien Theater (OMT). Nitsch once called the event, which usually lasts several days, a ‘dramaturgical abreaction model’, in which he used meat, milk and above all blood, accompanied by music, to thematise existence, birth, life, death and rebirth.

Since Nitsch was able to buy Prinzendorf Castle in Lower Austria in 1971, most OMTs have taken place there. Born in 1938, Nitsch lived and worked there until his death in 2022, and the attic is still home to many of his late oil paintings: pictures that are no longer painted as in his ground-breaking early work, for which he is famous. Paintings that were no longer created with blood. Instead, they are often large-format works with bold colours applied in a strongly gestural and impasto manner. Five of these late works are now hanging in the rooms of the Nitsch Foundation under the title ‘Vivid Colours and Sensual Intensity’. Established in 2009, the Foundation has been running the rooms in Vienna’s city centre ever since.

It is a small show, not to be compared with the large presentations at the Nitsch Museum in Mistelbach, which used to be carefully orchestrated by Nitsch himself – where, incidentally, ‘Jorn – Nitsch. Protestant North vs. Catholic Baroque Weinviertel’ runs until 24 November. The show at the Foundation, on the other hand, functions more as a teaser – similar to the small objects in the display window. Especially as the Foundation’s rooms are not only used for presentation, but above all for communication: the preservation of the OMT; publications on Nitsch’s work; support for academic research; support for collectors, gallery owners and interested parties. Anyone looking for a further insight into Nitsch’s work can visit the privately run ‘Wiener Aktionismus Museum’ at Weihburggasse 26, just a few steps away, where a whole room is dedicated solely to Nitsch’s work.