Nitsch & Arnulf Rainer

Accompanying the exhibition 'Arnulf Rainer & Hermann Nitsch' at the Arnulf Rainer Museum in Baden, the Nitsch Foundation in Vienna dedicates itself from November 10, 2026 to the tense dialogue between two outstanding Austrian artists of the postwar avant-garde. Under the title 'Nitsch & Arnulf Rainer – Radical Upheavals in 20th Century Art,' the exhibition focuses on two artistic positions that radically engage with the boundaries of the image, the body, and the traditional concept of art. Overpaint and action, trace and body, destruction and transformation become forms of expression for an art that makes the creative process itself the subject. Rainer and Nitsch share a fundamental interest in transcending established image and perception forms. Both understand art not as a static result, but as an open, physically and materially experiential process. In Rainer's work, the picture surface becomes a site of continuous transformation through overpaint, condensation, deformation, and gestural intervention. The originally visible is withdrawn, overlaid, and simultaneously newly produced. Nitsch expands the artistic process into space: In his Orgies Mysteries Theatre, action, ritual, color, sound, body, and time combine into a comprehensive sensory event. Both artists also touch existential dimensions of human experience. While Rainer in his early works processes, among other things, internal states of tension, physical intensity, and the experience of fear in a radically heightened visual language, Nitsch directs his gaze toward more comprehensive bodily and existential experiences. In the Orgies Mysteries Theatre, perception, affect, and bodily experience are transformed into a process of condensation and transformation. Fear is thus a possible aspect of this boundary experience, but does not stand isolated at the center; rather, it is a

Nitsch & Arnulf Rainer takes place on 10 November 2026, 18:30 (+12) at Nitsch Foundation.

10 November 2026, 18:30 (+12)

Nitsch Foundation · Hegelgasse 5, 1010 Wien

This event is in the Innere Stadt (Wien) neighbourhood (1st district) – known as imperial, grand, bustling.

Nearest public transport stop: Weihburggasse (2), ~100 m.

Sights nearby: Kursalon Hübner, Wiener Stadtpark, Konzerthaus Wien.

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