Hermann Nitsch - Klosterneuburg, Austria - retrospective of paintings and installations - Brief Article

ArtForum, Sept, 2003 by Caroline Schneider

SAMMLUNG ESSL--KUNST DER GEGENWART

Austrian Actionism has safely entered art history, but founding member Hermann Nitsch still knows how to disembowel a lamb. His Orgies Mysteries Theatre (OMT)--passionate latter-day revivals of Dionysian rites--constitutes the cathartic core of a Gesamtkunstwerk sometimes derided for its symbolic excess. For his sixty-fifth birthday, Nitsch and collector Karlheinz Essl are organizing, with curators Gabriele Bolsch, Sonja Traar, and Sini Zein, a 180-piece retrospective, ranging from relics of '60s actions up to recent paintings and installations. The survey also documents the legendary six-day event at Nitsch's Prinzendorf castle in 1998, which revealed that OMT still had the capacity to upset Austria's Haider-loving society. And for that alone, many happy returns, Hermann! Oct. 17-Jan. 11.