Hermann Nitsch

The Pharmacy (1965-2011) is an evolving presentation of Nitsch's original artwork, found objects, and various relics fluently assembled with overarching thematic implications. A set of hand-drawn schematics - indicative of Nitsch's academic fascination with color theory - hang above three vertically oriented cabinets erected in linear succession. Each cabinet is filled with relics of baroque Catholicism (a monstrance, various vestments and a chalice), placed amid oddities including stacked porcelain cups labeled with foodstuffs, jars filled with pigments and essences, test tube racks, surgical instruments and gauze. The Pharmacy installation expands into adjacent rooms to include sheets of originally composed music, photography, documentary film, and additional vestment assemblages. Overlapping spiritual, scientific and visual motifs are presented with archival precision, providing a new, symbolically charged aestheticism to the individual objects while underscoring a tradition of object veneration practiced by priests, doctors, mystics and artists.

In Schuettbild mit Malhemd (Pour-painting with painting-action-shirt) (2009), a crucified smock is affixed to a canvas saturated with a viscous, burgundy paint smeared and dripped over fading, organic stains. A Roman-style embroidered chasuble, delicately set on a wooden stand, is positioned in front of the canvas. The heavily painted smock stands in contrast to the pristine, neatly resting vestment.

In the 1980s, Nitsch began making paintings on the floor to further develop an abstract, gestural style. In Splatter Painting (1983), oil paint is first thrown from the edges of the canvas, and then walked over by barefoot assistants under Nitsch's instruction. The artist-directed, consecutive and overlapping actions of the assistants render the material so thick that the stretcher support is visible through the canvas. Paired with a heavily mixed pigment, the canvas documents a unique performance in tonal and physical complexity that directly corresponds to the action of the participants.

Das letzte Abendmahl (The Last Supper) (1976-1979) is a large-scale interpretation of the biblical passage in which Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is centered within a group of twelve disciples. In Nitsch's work, each figure is outwardly represented by muscle, organ and skeletal systems. Incorporated into the drawing are designs for fictional spaces in which Nitsch's plays could ideally be enacted, and the internal structures of the figures are further abstracted and numbered as the composition progresses downward. The work's conceptual and formal complexity relates to the biological and architectural vocabulary used in describing the setting of Nitsch's tragedy, Die Eroberung von Jerusalem: "An artificial blood circulation system runs through all the corridors of [a] subterranean city. Arteries of various widths extend throughout all of the corridors and rooms."