PFINGSTSPIEL by Florentina Holzinger
ticket sales open on 26 Febuary 2026
Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien, Vienna, AT
Florentina Holzinger presents PFINGSTSPIEL, a new multi-hour performance conceived as the official satellite event accompanying her Austrian contribution to the Venice Biennale 2026.
The production is realized as a co-production of the Nitsch Foundation in cooperation with the nitsch museum and VERBUND, and the Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien, More Spirit Please together with KÖR -Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien. The performance will take place on 23 May 2026, in Vienna and Prinzendorf.
Tickets will be available from 26 February 2026, via the Wiener Festwochen.
About Pfingstspiel
Pfingstspiel is conceived as an extraordinary day-long performance unfolding in two parts:
A prologue at the Wiener Eislauf-Verein takes shape as an oratorio for bodies and machines. This is followed by a collective bus journey to Schloss Prinzendorf — the site where Hermann Nitsch developed his Orgien Mysterien Theater over several decades.
The performance draws on the symbolism of Pentecost and on the idea of art as a communal, physical event. With fireworks and bells, music and motorcycles, Holzinger and her performers evoke the memory of a place that, like few others, stands for radical performance.
Two years after her internationally acclaimed operatic performance SANCTA — a co-production with the Wiener Festwochen — Holzinger once again engages with religious imagery, body politics, and questions of community. Pfingstspiel sees itself as a performative invocation: an exploration of transformation, memory, and collective practice.
“For me, it feels very fitting to create a Pentecost étude in Nitsch’s Prinzendorf. Even in his works, technological civilization repeatedly inscribed itself: machines built by humans that at the same time seem almost autonomous, nearly ‘robotic’ in carrying out their warlike processes. In this place, we want to evoke memories and continue and retell the stories that were created there,” says Florentina Holzinger.
For the Nitsch Foundation, the project represents a conscious opening of Schloss Prinzendorf to leading positions in contemporary performance art and a consistent continuation of Hermann Nitsch’s artistic legacy. Since his passing, Rita Nitsch, supported by her nephew Paul Breitenfelder, has worked to carry his work forward and to anchor the historic site as a space of artistic freedom in the present. A key milestone was the posthumous performance of the second version of the 6-Day Play in Prinzendorf. In recent years, several performances by other artists have also been realized as a tribute to Nitsch. In this continuity, the internationally acclaimed performance artist Florentina Holzinger will present her work at the castle this year.
Pfingstspiel, 23 May 2026, 15:30
Duration: approx. 9 hours (including bus transfers)
Meeting point: Wiener Eislauf-Verein, Lothringerstraße 22, 1030 Vienna
Tickets & details (from February 26): festwochen.at
Price: 120 euros
Note: 18+
A project by Florentina Holzinger / More Spirit Please
Co-production: Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien and Nitsch Foundation
In cooperation with the nitsch museum and VERBUND
The Vienna prologue is funded by KÖR – Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien and made possible with the kind support of Hotel InterContinental Vienna and Wiener Eislauf-Verein.
The initiative for this collaboration was taken by Dominika Li, who accompanied the project in an advisory capacity.
Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien
Lehárgasse 3a
1060 Vienna
Austria
www.festwochen.at