Since their “Viennese Actionism” days in the 1960s, these two figureheads of contemporary Austrian art have each continued to create an intense and provocative body of work.
This exhibition, curated by the artists themselves, traces a remarkable history of their involvement and devotion to their distinctive artistic visions. Rarely is this work shown in the American scene and seldom acknowledged is the enormous influence they both have had on present day performance, body art, and post-conceptual thought.
The exhibition consists of Hermann Nitsch’s early work through his “poured paintings” and through films recorded during the Actions. Also, a large series of photographs documenting his six-day Orgies-Mysteries Theatre (1998) where the ritualistic and mythical “plays” have been taking place since 1971. This grand expression of pure excess captures the essence of Nitsch’s Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art.”
On view are Günter Brus’s rare Informel works, Actionist sketches, and a series of drawings including Self-Painting I and II (1965) and Walk in Vienna (1965). Other intimate drawings and ImagePoems depict the more recent literary and visual elements of his complex and analytical world. “Words and images grow wild in one place,” writes Brus, “they exist as dreams, as calls to actions, in a world where the gap between idea, word and act no longer exists.”
We are left to consider how Brus and Nitsch’s desire to experience the artistic process remains so authentic, and with this work displayed side by side perhaps the highlight of the exhibition is the way in which it evolved so differently.