Author(s): Hermann Nitsch (Text by); Sarah Imatte (Text by)

CONCEPTUAL ART

"Monet is for me one of the greatest painters who ever existed. He went his way of exploring light relentlessly [...] the viscera of light became visible." A major artist of the Viennese Actionist movement, of which he was one of the founders, Hermann Nitsch, born in Vienna in 1938, died in Mistelbach in April 2022. Internationally recognised as the master of Austrian performance art, the artist developed a powerfully expressive body of work, borrowing from religious dramaturgy to develop a total art that culminated every year since the 1950s in his "Orgien Mysterien Theater", where he invited friends and audiences to six days of uninterrupted festivities and performances. At the end of his career, Hermann Nitsch developed a painting of great vitality, increasingly colourful, always closely linked to his performative acts. Fascinated by Monet's Nympheas, the artist engaged in a dialogue with this masterpiece of Impressionism, whose proximity to his art he emphasised: "In my performances, my expressive and religious painting has become a finished drama, an analytical dramaturgy. What remains to be seen is a frenzy of colour and form that stands out far beyond its content, like the ecstasies of colour in Monet's Water Lilies". The book will bring together a collection of paintings and graphic works produced shortly before his death, chosen directly from the artist's studio.