NITSCH & GEORG BERNSTEINER

"Der zweite Teil der Nacht"

Since 2023, the Nitsch Foundation has been presenting works by companions and artists whose development was decisively influenced by Hermann Nitsch and his enduring Gesamtkunstwerk. Parallels in their works make new connections and interweavings of artistic processes visible. This series of exhibitions not only familiarises visitors with other artistic positions, but also provides a new perspective on an individual facet of Nitsch’s oeuvre and the continuing impact of his work.

Andreas Schalhorn, curator of the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, describes the artist Georg Bernsteiner very aptly with the words ‘Bernsteiner is a draughtsman – only a draughtsman. This ‘only’ is in no way meant to relativise. Rather, it positively marks the concentration on a medium that represents the first technique of depicting (as signification) in the history of mankind. What we see in Bernsteiner’s drawings is therefore the essence of his thinking and visualisation as an artist.’

Born in Pinzgau in 1969, Georg Bernsteiner studied under Arnulf Rainer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1989 to 1994 and was assisting when Hermann Nitsch painted at Prinzendorf Castle. After Bernsteiner’s first exhibition at the age of 21 at the Galerie Zell am See, Schloss Rosenberg, many more exhibitions followed in Austria and abroad as well as numerous study trips and stays abroad, including in Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, Chicago and Johannesburg. The consistent draughtsman captures his impressions – in a radical reduction of means – with oil crayon, graphite, charcoal and acrylic on paper. His travels often form the basis and inspiration for his work.

‘i got to know bernsteiner at the salzburg summer academy. i immediately sensed that there was a force to be taken seriously, one that defied all banality, like a natural event. here someone is tilling his field with relentless vehemence. […] you can see in every stroke the power with which life is sought and realised through him.’ (Hermann Nitsch, 1993)

In the exhibition “THE SECOND PART OF THE NIGHT”, Georg Bernsteiner provides an insight into an enormous black and grey space that seems to come from the depths of space without any points of orientation. Shadows, lines and only vaguely defined objects appear like fragments of a memory of the Big Bang event. Supposedly figuratively legible forms float without direction on a velvety fleece of charcoal and graphite. The viewer’s eye simultaneously finds and searches in this infinite sea.

One is reminded of Hermann Nitsch, who was able to experience being intensely through drawing. ‘the essential creative act is founded in the timeless, in the beginning and the endless, in the infinite abyss, in infinity, spacelessness, emptiness. when one separates oneself from the past and the future and lives in the moment. when one experiences the moment of the creative event, one works from the timeless ground (the causelessness) of isness.’ (Hermann Nitsch, 2018)

The exhibition will be accompanied by a special limited edition leporello with works by Georg Bernsteiner and texts by Karl Schleinkofer.

The exhibition “GEORG BERNSTEINER – THE SECOND PART OF THE NIGHT” will open on Thursday, 23 January 2025 at 19:00 with an introduction by Hanno Millesi.