HERMANN NITSCH 70. Malaktion

First, the basis is laid for the Malaktion (painting action) to last several days: the walls and the floor of the gallery are covered in large canvases, a selection of paints, colour pigments, brushes, sponges and vessels for pouring prepared. A group of assistants, barefoot and clad in white painting shirts, get ready. The "colour frenzy" can begin. At the climax of the event, the view through the gallery's eight windows is truly spectacular. Before the visitors' eyes, empty canvases turn into works of art. Under the direction of Hermann Nitsch, the assistants stir, pour, paint, splatter, wipe. At times, the master himself steps up.

- sigmund freud thought that the infant smearing faeces was the source of all culture. just as he saw the source of many neuroses in exaggerated calls for hygiene imposed on the toddler. the promethean sensual act of the young human, the smearing with body-warm faeces forms a chain all the way to the cultural achievements of a tizian, a beethoven, a mondrian. i am happy to have freed up again the smearing of faeces, as the source of painting. the striving for form in the orgien mysterien theater, through the confrontation with the evisceration of animal cadavers, the uncovering of bowels filled with warm faces, and the breakdown of an organism recently alive, in this light becomes understandable. hermann nitsch, 2014 -