BOOK: Hermann Nitsch-Life and Work, Pace Publishing

Hermann Nitsch was born in Vienna in 1938 and grew up during the second world war, between 1943-45 he experienced bombing raids every day as a child and his father was killed in Russia. The war turned him into a cosmopolite and opponent of all nationalisms and all politics, Having trained at Vienna’s Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in the 1950s, Nitsch became a pioneer of the city’s avant-garde scene in the 60s and 70s, staging radical and controversial performances as part of the Viennese Actionism movement. The artist’s work in performance and painting, which incorporated blood, flesh, and other materials, itself became a kind of religious practice. Hermann Nitsch was one of Austria’s most famous artists. His work was much discussed and has been the subject of heated debates for decades now. But hardly anyone knows anything about Hermann Nitsch, the individual, the human, the man. The biography of Hermann Nitsch, titled “Life and work” by Pace Publishing newly translated into English from the original German, allows us to experience the artist in his own words. Complemented by a conversation with Rita Nitsch and the artist’s own writings, and generously illustrated with archival photography and artwork imagery, this book provides an immersive look at a singular artist.t.-Efi Michalarou