We cordially invite you to the kick-off event of our new exhibition series “NITSCH a homage by …” presenting the artist PAUL RENNER with the exhibition “seeing, smelling & squeezing”.

The exhibition series presents works by inspiring figures and former companions as well as artists whose development was decisively influenced by Hermann Nitsch.

Paul Renner met Hermann Nitsch in 1976, for whom he then worked as an assistant until 1984. For years Paul Renner has explored profound solutions wherein painting is no longer the sole medium of the creative idea. In cycles devoted to specific themes he combines painting, literature, philosophy, nature, and the culinary.

In Renner’s vision, this compressing and compacting involves the decomposition of our existence: “Existence is squashed, crushed, solidified, fermented, and decomposes into an invisible vapor. The sparkling elderberry wine explodes in the cellar. The mycelium fungus crawls up the walls. I imagine that I’m on the other side. Existence is permanent decomposing.”

Specially for this exhibition Renner is showing his newest cycle “looking, smelling & squeezing”. The act and resultant form of compressing has preoccupied Renner from the outset – pressed must, mashed cabbage, slabs of bacon squashed between stone slabs, berries boiled into mush, centrifuged honey, squashed fruits squidging out between fingers and toes, meat pounded, smoked, pressed.