(born in Vienna in 1938)
Schüttbild/Splatter Painting, 1998, signed and dated hermann nitsch 98 on the reverse as well as inscribed 6TS/98 N27 on the stretcher, 41st painting action on the occasion of the 6-days-play, Schloß Prinzendorf and surrounding area 3.-9.8.1998, acrylic, blood on canvas, stretched over wooden frame, 200 x 300 cm

Exhibited & full-page colour illustration:
Hermann Nitsch. Orgien Mysterien Theater, Galleria De’ Foscherari, Bologna 2007–2008, page 32 + 33 (stretched over both pages)

Provenance:
Galleria De’ Foscherari, Bologna
European private collection – acquired from the above

...should my theatre, which has laboriously freed itself, once again limit itself with stage pictures? If this painting derived from my theatre was to have a meaning, then it could only occur within my theatre as a dramatic process, as an event in time. I developed an action painting that belonged to my theatre. the pouring of paint on walls was understood as a dramatic process occurring over time. The process was as important as the result. This painting became the visual grammar structure of my actions laid out on a flat surface, as well as the ritual entrance to my actions. The dionysian process of this often ecstatic-excessive action painting led to the excessive processes of the actions.
Hermann Nitsch

All quotes from:
Hermann Nitsch, Das Gesamtkunstwerk des Orgien Mysterien Theaters, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2015.

„alles was ist, das sein, ist bewegung und verwandlung“
Hermann Nitsch

Unsere Kultur kommt ohne Blut nicht aus. Die gesamte Dichtung also von der Antike inklusive des Alten Testaments beschäftigt sich immer ganz intensiv mit Blut und das Christentum erst recht. Da spielt ja das Fleisch und Blut die zentrale, große Rolle.
Hermann Nitsch

“All that exists, Being, is movement and transformation”
Hermann Nitsch

Our culture cannot do without blood. All poetry going back to antiquity, including the Old Testament, always deals intensively with blood, and Christianity in particular. Flesh and blood play a central, major role there.
Hermann Nitsch