HERMANN NITSCH
2019-04-22The focus of the Innsbruck exhibition is on painting. In coordination with the big Hermann Nitsch exhibition at the Vienna Albertina, which opens on May 16, 2019, and dedicates no less than twenty rooms to the artist’s paintings, Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman Innsbruck presents multi-coloured works, e.g. from the 70th action performance, which took place at our Vienna gallery in 2014. As a smaller revision of the museum exhibition, the Innsbruck show concentrates on painting in acrylics, while the Albertina also includes earlier works in oil. At a closer view, a thin grounding in a reddish brown hue can be made out beneath the paint in some of the works in both mediums. This colour film is reminiscent of the traces that the blood leaves on the canvas which is another integral part of the artist’s technical repertoire, and especially in the Orgien Mysterien Theater is generously deployed. Moreover, in the production of his paintings, the artist resorts to ritual acts. It is not by chance that the pastose application, the pouring and splashing of paint evokes associations with a sacrificial ceremony. The ritual is of greater importance than the result, as it were. Nitsch’s painting is firmly rooted in actionism, performance, in multi-mediality.
Opposite – Schüttbild, 2018
Exhibition runs through to June 1st, 2019
Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman
Maria-Theresien-Straße 34
6020 Innsbruck
Austria
