Hermann Nitsch. Drawings
Press release
23.10.2024
Image Credits
Duration
25.10.2024 - 23.02.2025
Opening
24.10.2024 7pm
Press event
23.10.2024 11am - 12pm
Place of the press event
Neue Galerie Graz, BRUSEUM, BRUSEUM
Curators
Roman Grabner
Show all
With the drawings of Hermann Nitsch, the BRUSEUM presents an aspect of his work that did not often receive the necessary attention due to the opulence of his actions and sheer dimensions of his ‘spilled paintings’. Even before Nitsch began to work in 1957 on the ideas for his Orgies Mysteries Theater (Orgien Mysterien Theater), he had already engaged with the subjects of suffering, crucifixion, death and resurrection. Among his earliest works are his drawings on Rembrandt’s Crucifixion. Since the end of the 1950s he had been working on the design of a gigantic drama spread over several days. The basic aim of the broadly conceived structure of his Orgies Mysteries Theater is the intensification of lived experience and as a result a heightened sense of joy in existence as the mysticism of being. In this art assumes the functions of religion. Nitsch’s entire oeuvre can be seen as a descent into the depths, for which reason it need not surprise us that his drawings from the 1960s on represent fantastic, subterranean architectural complexes, entities that reproduce entire bodies or make reference to them, and which allow us to discern both his all-encompassing thoughts and his precise signature in drawing form. Nitsch merges the ‘natural phenomenon that is man’ illustratively with proliferating architecture. In this, he not infrequently adapts Christian iconography.
Images
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Architectural drawing, 1981
Biros and coloured pencil on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
Image Credits
Design of an underground city, 1974
Biros on nine sheets of paper glued together, 89 x 63 cm
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Golden Love, 1967
Collage, coloured pencil and gouache on paper, affixed to canvas, 158 x 323
Image Credits
Hermann Nitsch, architectural drawing, 1974, (detail), Flatz Collection
Image Credits
Hermann Nitsch, The Last Supper, 1983
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Schmerzensantlitz, 1981
Biros and oil crayon on paper, 9 parts, 89 x 63 cm
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Hermann Nitsch, Architekturzeichnung, 1974
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
City for the white bull, 1970
Biros on paper, 29.8 x 21.2 cm
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
The Last Supper, 1976-1979
Pencil and biros on paper, affixed to canvas, 152 x 368 cm
Image Credits
[Translate to English:] Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
untitled, 1959-61, Oil crayon on paper, 22,5 x 29,9 cm
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Curtain to the crypt of the OM Theatre, 1962
Red biros on paper, 15 x 21.2 cm
Image Credits
Untitled, 2020
Oil crayon on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Exhibition view, “Hermann Nitsch. Drawings“
Image Credits
Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek © Bildrecht Vienna, 2024
Image Credits