Herman Nitsch, "60. Painting Action/ / 60. Malaktion"

Nitsch is the legendary founder of Viennese Actionism, generally considered one of most extreme of the 1960s avant-garde movements, as some of its members were known for performances involving acts of coprophilia and penis slicing. Nitsch himself was no slouch at pushing buttons. His Orgies Mysteries Theater, first staged 40 years ago, involved animal sacrifice and the pouring of blood over participants tied naked to crossed slabs of wood. This sanguinary ritual was meant as an exorcism of Austria's Nazi past. In any case, since the late 1980s, Nitsch has mellowed, substituting bright colors for blood, in rituals in which the artist and his assistants pour paint onto canvases laid on the floor. The works here are the result of one such action—his first in the United States—which took place just before the show's opening.