Hermann Nitsch

Hermann Nitsch
O.M. Theater Herman Nitsch. A photo documentation, series II. Munich. Avant Art Galerie Casa., 1969
13366-OR

9 3/8 x 7 1/4 in. (24 x 18.5 cm)

Nitsch’s three-day performance "Orgien Mysterien Theater 3-tage Fest" was to have taken place between the end of June and mid-July 1969 at the Galerie Casa in Munich. In reality this project was only realized many years later, with Nitsch’s 80th Action held from 27 to 30 July 1984 in the artist’s castle of Prinzendorf. Despite the festival not taking place in 1969, the Galerie Casa did stage Nitsch’s only exhibition of that year in Munich, a retrospective show entitled “Hermann Nitsch. Dokumente zum O.M.Theater”. They also published three deluxe limited edition volumes of original photographs, documenting several previous Nitsch actions. This is the second of those volumes, and is published in an edition of only 20 copies. The book contains 10 original black-and-white photographs as well as an original plaster collage relic (each full-page 24 x 18.5 cm). This is copy no.1 of 20, signed by Nitsch and inscribed by him to Oswald Wiener, “"Für meinen von mir sehr geschätzten Freund Ossi Wiener”. Many of the actions carried out by Hermann Nitsch during the late 1960s, like those actions of Schwarzkogler and Brus, were staged exclusively for photographic and film documentation. Whilst Nitsch’s most frequent and recurring prop was the crucified, opened carcass of a lamb, in the photographs of the actions he also used male bodies, combining them with substances and material typical of his oeuvre including intestines, blood, slime, wallpaper paste, brains and bandages (female models were available to him only from 1969 onward). Presented in the photographs as torsos - head and feet are not shown - the depersonalized bodies function exclusively as supports for material and images. Positioned standing or recumbent, the torsos are precisely placed in front of undefined white backgrounds, usually in strict linear verticality. The model for the earliest Nitsch actions was Rudolf Schwarzkogler, however from the 12th action onwards it was Heinz Cibulka, a fellow-student of Schwarzkogler’s at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt. Nitsch then usually placed bandages or menstrual pads on the genitals or chests of his models and spattered them with blood, egg yolk or water. The bodies were also bedecked with entrails or inscribed with linear markings. The photographs in this volume, whilst not listed, appear to be of the following Nitsch actions: 12th Action (September 6, 1965), performed at the apartment of Heinz Cibulka, photographer Franziska Cibulka; 18th Action (May 29, 1966), held at Nitsch’s Vienna apartment, photographers Hermann NItsch and Eva Nitsch; 20th Action (August 29, 1966), Nitsch’s Vienna studio, model Heinz Cibulka, photographer G. Helm; 29th Action (December 11, 1968), held at Otto Dressler’s studio; Action 30a (May 11, 1969), at Cibulka’s apartment, photographer Heinz Cibulka, the model a pregnant Franziska Cibulka. [Rare. No copies listed on WorldCat].

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