Hermann Nitsch

The Total Art Work

The show is devoted to the total art work created by Nitsch with all its disciplines, and it will provide a broad overview of the unique creativity of this universal artist, who spent several years living in Bavaria from time to time. At the heart of the ground-floor display is the 20th “Malaktion” by Hermann Nitsch, which he implemented at the Vienna Secession in 1987. It is considered to be Nitsch’s chef d’œuvre, and it consists of the artist’s biggest splatter painting, which measures 5×20 metres, a floor picture 10×10 metres in size, 50 large splatter paintings, 3 smocks in a crate and other applications. This seminal complex is, according to Nitsch, the only complete example of his action painting in the world, and this exhibition will enable it to be shown outside Austria for the first time. On the upper floor of the Lechner Museum, the Nitsch cosmos unfolds in all its facets, inviting the visitor into the world of the Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries. The architectural segmentation into microcosms of music, architecture, painting, action art and relics of O.M. Theatre will initiate the observer into the interdisciplinary, inherent bond between these activities, which together make up the total art work of Hermann Nitsch.