Hermann Nitsch (29 August 1938 – 18 April 2022) was an Austrian contemporary artist and composer. His art encompassed wide-scale performances incorporating theater, multimedia, rituals and acted violence. He was a leading figure of Viennese Actionism. Life Born in Vienna, Nitsch received training in painting when he studied at the Wiener Graphische Lehr-und Versuchanstalt, during which time he was drawn to religious art. He is associated with the Vienna Actionists—a loosely affiliated group of off-kilter and confrontational Austrian artists which also includes Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. Nitsch's abstract 'splatter' paintings, like his performance pieces were inspired by his neutral perspective on humanity and being human. In the 1950s, Nitsch conceived of the Orgien Mysterien Theater (which roughly translates as Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries or The Orgiastic Mystery Theater) and staged nearly 100 performances between 1962 and 1998. In 1966 he was with Yoko Ono, Gustav Metzger, Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, Wolf Vostell, Juan Hidalgo, and others, as a participant of the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) in London. Art In 1962, together with Otto Muehl and Adolf Frohner, he performed the three-part action “The Blood Organ” in Vienna, for which a joint manifesto was published. At the beginning of the 1960s, he developed the main ideas for his Orgie Mysterien Theater. Nitsch's Orgien Mysterien Theater performances (or Aktionen, as he called them) can be considered to have been both ritualistic and existential. The scene often involved slaughters, religious sacrifices, and crucifixion, as well as blood and flesh. The performances were also accompanied by music, dancing, and active participants. In his first Orgie Mysterien Theater performance, Nitsch and his friends used animal carcasses, entrails, and blood similarly to a ritual. The cloths, bandages, and other fabrics used in these performances introduced Nitsch to the idea of making paintings. From 1971 on Nitsch organized his “Orgy-Mystery Games” at the Prinzendorf Castle area he acquired, including the high point of his life's work, the great “6-Day Game” in the summer of 1998, directed by Alfred Gulden. In 1972, Nitsch participated in Documenta 5 in Kassel, curated by Harald Szeemann; he was also represented at Documenta 7 in 1982. In 1975, Marina Abramović took part in a Nitsch performance. In addition upon occasion Christoph Schlingensief also participated in the work of Nitsch. Nitsch was repeatedly invited to bring his conceptions of art and ritual to the opera. In 1995, he