Exhibitions
In 2025, the nitsch museum Mistelbach presents the exhibition “Mein Nitsch”, curated by the internationally renowned art collector and long-time companion of Hermann Nitsch, Karlheinz Essl. From 30 March to 30 November 2025, the show provides a personal insight into the work of the visionary artist and presents selected works from the Essl Collection. Visitors can look forward to new perspectives and exciting impulses.
“Mein Nitsch” - A personal homage by Karlheinz Essl
The curator for the 2025 annual exhibition entitled ‘My Nitsch’ is Karlheinz Essl. It is art collector Karlheinz Essl's personal view of Hermann Nitsch's life's work. From the mid-1980s onwards, Agnes and Karlheinz Essl placed a significant focus of their collecting activities on Hermann Nitsch and dedicated several exhibitions to him in the following years. A friendship developed between collector and artist, which led to joint travels, a lively exchange and intensive correspondence, which often dealt with philosophical and theological questions. With “My Nitsch”, Karlheinz Essl now provides deep insights into Nitsch's world view. The “white picture”, a unique piece in Nitsch's entire oeuvre, will be on display for the first time. With numerous works from Nitsch's main creative period and his later years, the collector traces the artist's development towards a wealth of color and addresses the artist's preoccupation with the big questions of where we come from, where we are going, what was before us and what will be after us.
“Nitsch is undoubtedly an artist of the century. My Nitsch' is my very personal contribution to getting closer to him once again and showing the public a facet of him that too few people are aware of - his sensitive, thoughtful and very life-affirming side. What questions drove him? How did he deal with death? Why did his works become brighter and more colorful? I am showing Nitsch the man and the artist as you have perhaps never seen him before,” says Karlheinz Essl.
On the one hand, the exhibition is testimony to a decades-long artist-collector relationship that began in the mid-1980s. Nitsch soon became one of the most important pillars of the Essl Collection, which represents Austrian contemporary art after 1945 like no other collection. At the invitation of the Essl family, Nitsch organized his 38th painting event in 1996 in the Schömer House, the Essl family's art and company headquarters at the time, and later another event in the newly built Essl Museum. Karlheinz Essl put together a Nitsch chapel with the artist, consisting of works from the Orgien-Mysterien-Theater, which found its way into the Essl Collection. Nitsch's works were frequently on display in the Essl Museum's exhibitions, and the collector also dedicated two solo shows to him. Beyond the classic artist-collector relationship, an intensive friendship also developed between Hermann Nitsch and Karlheinz Essl. They often met privately, organized joint trips and cultivated an intensive exchange that went far beyond everyday life. Karl-heinz Essl and Hermann Nitsch interviewed each other, described their world views and discussed existential questions.
The exhibition “My Nitsch”, in which Karlheinz Essl juxtaposes works from Nitsch's main creative phase and from the last years of his life, takes all this into account. In 14 stations, which form the heart of the exhibition, the collector and curator combines quotes from Nitsch with artifacts from his work and pictures from different creative phases. The last works in particular, which Nitsch created shortly before his death, are characterized by intense colour. Nitsch's significance for the present is underlined by the contributions of seven renowned authors (Ann Cotten, Ana Marwan, Hanno Millesi, Alexander Peer, Michael Stavarič, Katharina Tiwald, Magda Woitzuck), who have written exclusive texts on the stations.
The large-format “white picture” is presented centrally in the exhibition. There are also videos of the 38th painting action and Nitsch's funeral, which was also staged by him as an artistic act. A Room of Silence invites visitors to contemplate a work by Nitsch.
Karlheinz Essl is an art collector and museum founder. He founded and managed one of the largest and best-known Home improvement store in Europe. Since the 1970s, together with his wife Agnes, he has built up the Essl Collection, one of the largest and most important collections of contemporary art. In 1999, he opened the Essl Museum, one of the first private art museums in Europe, where more than 200 exhibitions were on display up to 2016, many of which he curated himself. In addition to international art from Europe to the USA and Asia, his exhibition and collection activities focus on Austrian art since 1945.