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This action relic was created in 2001: a poured painting in blood and acrylic. The brown oxidised blood covers large areas of the fabric, particularly in the upper part, while the red acrylic paint, which gives the impression of fresh blood, is distributed relatively lightly in only one pouring process in the uppermost layer of the painting. Despite this delicate, almost floating composition, the vehemence of the pouring is clearly perceptible. The immediacy of the event is transferred directly to the fabric. It is precisely this incredible dynamism, the vibrancy of the splashing and running paint, that brings the act of painting into the here and now. It is not something of the past, an artist's action of long ago, that we are seeing here; instead, we have the feeling that this act of painting has just occurred. Only the browned blood suggests that it was created some time ago and thus represents a contrast in more than colour to the vibrant, fresh paint in the foreground of the picture. We are gazing at the foundation of all being, at blood as the sap of life, at red as the colour of not only love and passion, but also of aggression, fire and war. It is thus at once the colour of life and death, the most dramatic colour of all, and hence simultaneously reveals the origin and the end.

“it is drama that makes the innermost essential vitality visible; one looks into the abyss, which reveals a reality and natural force that cannot be grasped rationally, that makes us shudder and goes beyond life and death. an ecstasy that extends to the orbits of the stars and the transformative point of death flows through us and reveals itself.” (Hermann Nitsch, in: Mappe zur 20. Malaktion in der Wiener Secession [Portfolio for the 20th painting action in the Vienna Secession], Vienna 1987, p. 16)

It is precisely this immediacy and power emanating from that Hermann Nitsch’s poured paintings that make them so compelling and place his works among the great works of art of our time.

(Sophie Cieslar)