Bayreuth Walküre

works from the Bayreuth Festival 2021

In the summer of 2021, Hermann Nitsch was invited by the Bayreuth Festival to provide scenic accompaniment to a concert version of Richard Wagner’s Walküre. On this occasion, the artist created an extensive painting campaign for the three acts of the play. Each act was accompanied by a self-contained painting action, in which the score transformed scene by scene into luminous colours. Nitsch wished to present a painting action where the colours of poured and smeared paint spanned the whole spectrum of the rainbow, attempting to compete with the blazing colouration of Wagnerian music. In Nitsch’s words, “the events of the actual act of painting are to be like music. sounds turn into colours and wagner’s score lures me into choosing my colours.”

Galerie Kandlhofer invites to the opening reception on Wednesday, 25 June 2025 from 18:00 to 21:00.
The exhibition will be open from 26 June till 25 July 2025.