Nitsch [Films in Progress]

Between the early 1960s through the 1990s, the Viennese Actionist artist Hermann Nitsch staged nearly 100 live action performances with his irreverent group, the Orgy Mystery Theater. These ritualistic, multi-sensory bacchanals often involved nudity, crucifixion, sadomasochism, animal sacrifice, blood, flesh, entrails, food, and semi-religious paraphernalia. Lassnig captures one such performance in New York’s Mercer Arts Center in all its glory (...).

With her own footage of Nitsch’s performance as a point of reference, Lassnig contrived her own staged actions: a man (Roger, her neighbor) is filmed in stiff repose, echoing iconic images of martyrdom like Hans Holbein’s The Body of The Dead Christ in the Tomb (1522); elsewhere, he wears a gas mask that alludes to the Vietnam War, which was being waged at the time of filming. Lassnig overlays scenes of Nitsch’s performative rituals with images of him visiting her studio, sitting around the table socializing. Lassnig inserts herself further into the intensity of the action through additional exposures of the film stock; her crouched, naked body appears in brief sequences, offering her own kind of ritual action. (Jocelyn Miller)

Rough cut by Maria Lassnig. Color correction and final cut completed posthumously in accordance with Lassnig’s original editing concept by Mara Mattuschka and Hans Werner Poschauko.

Digitization by the Austrian Film Museum. This film was preserved and restored by the Maria Lassnig Foundation in collaboration with the Austrian Film Museum.