Zuecca Projects is pleased to announce a major exhibition by the artist Hermann Nitsch (b.1938, Vienna), promoted by Helmut Essl's Private Collection in collaboration with Galerie Kandlhofer. The protagonist of the exhibition is the 20. malaktion , that is the twentieth pictorial action originally created and presented by Nitsch at the Vienna Secession in 1987. The 20. malaktion is the only pictorial action of the artist whose works are entirely kept in the same collection and, through the exhibition, it will be possible to see the works for the first time in Italy since their creation. The exhibition will be open from 19 April to 20 July 2022 at the Oficine 800 on the Giudecca island, Venice, during the 59th Venice Biennale of Art.

“ At every age, its art. To art, its freedom ”is the motto formulated by the art critic Ludwig Hevesi (1843-1910), which can be read on the portal of the Wiener Secession in Vienna. Few artists have tested the boundaries of freedom as relentlessly as Hermann Nitsch - and have been so often harassed and persecuted for this, amidst criminal charges, protests and threats. Despite all resistance, he remained true to his idea of the fusion of all the arts, and today Nitsch is a monolithic figure in 20th century art history. With his Orgien Mysterien Theater (Theater of Orgies and Mysteries) he has created a total work of art, to be experienced with all the senses; it has expanded the traditional parameters of painting and theater; it has brought back the cultic character, at the base of the evolution of art, in contemporary art; and has fused art with life.

Nitsch was a pioneer of Viennese Actionism, identifying the principle of his artistic action in painting. On November 18, 1960, influenced by Art Informel, he realizes his first action, in which the painting no longer represents anything outside the painting itself and therefore represents pure color, the immediacy of the gesture, its precise occurrence over time. . Painting shows, in a nutshell, "the visual grammar of (his) action theater on a (pictorial) surface".

Exhibition opening hours: Wednesday to Monday, 10:00 - 18:00