Herman Biography
Hermann Nitsch (Vienna, 29 August 1938) is an Austrian performance artist considered one of the greatest exponents of Viennese Actionism. Hermann Nitsch graduated as an advertising graphic designer and first worked at the Technisches Museum in Vienna. A few years later his first ideas on pictorial action and on the Orgien-Mysterien-Theater (the Theater of Orgies and Mysteries) were born, which would follow him as a common thread for the rest of his artistic development. In 1961 the first Schüttbilder were born (works created by throwing color and blood onto the canvas; among other things, a technique much loved by Viennese shareholders) and Nitsch took part in various actions and exhibitions in Vienna, which would lead to three arrests and several trials. Towards the mid-sixties, together with other artists such as Günter Brus, Otto Mühl and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, he began to form the movement that would later be famous as Viennese Actionism, exporting this artistic form to various Northern European cities and the United States. In 1968, due to legal matters, he was forced to move to Germany, and returned to Austria only in 1971, with the purchase, south of Vienna, of Prinzendorf Castle, where from then on he would keep all his shares. , and in particular the “Orgien-und-Mysterien-Spiel”. Among his most important works are "6-Tage-Spiel" in the summer of 1988 directed by Alfred Gulden and its 120th action in the form of "2-Tage-Spiel" (ritual of two days) in 2004. Nitsch participated as an artist in Documenta 5 in 1972 and in Documenta 7 in Kassel in 1982.
