‘Enfant terrible’ of art Hermann Nitsch died aged 83 after a serious illness

An Austrian artist who became known as the ‘enfant terrible’ of art for shows that featured dead animals and lashings of blood has died aged 83.

Hermann Nitsch died at a hospital in the Austrian town of Mistelbach on Monday after a serious illness, his wife said.

Nitsch, born in Vienna on Aug. 29, 1938, was versatile – with performance art, painting, sculpting and composing among his activities.

He was a co-founder of Viennese Actionism and best known for his Theater of Orgies and Mysteries, conceived as a visceral synthesis of the arts.

It peaked with a ‘6-day Play’ in 1998, featuring more than 3,400 gallons of wine, hundreds of liters of blood, a kilogram of grapes and tomatoes, several animal carcasses and musical accompaniment.

Nitsch was part of the ‘Actionists’, a radical 1960s avant-garde movement known for skinning animal carcasses, tying up human bodies and using blood, mud and urine in their works.

His works and performances drew plenty of criticism.

In 1966, police in London were called to one of Nitsch’s performances at a venue on Fleet Street after a dead lamb was disembowelled live on stage, prompting complaints from witnesses.

And in 2017, Nitsch held a controversial live art show in Hobart Tasmania which featured a dead bull and its bloody entrails, along with performers who had been made to look as though they had been crucified.