the times | Monday June 13 2022 49
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As the August sun rose over the
13th-century Prinzendorf Cas-
tle, north of Vienna, the cacoph-
ony of voices grew ever louder.
Three butchers led a bull into
the courtyard where, to the ec-
static tones of an orchestra, the
creature was slaughtered,
strung up in a crucifixion-style
pose and systematically disem-
bowelled, all in the name of art.
This was just the beginning of
Hermann Nitsch’s six-day Or-
gies Mysteries Theatre, a re-
markable pageant planned
down to the last detail and de-
vised long before Damien Hirst
began preserving animals in for-
maldehyde. “I demand from my
audience direct sensory experi-
ence,” Nitsch explained. “The
play had directives telling them
to taste, smell, look, listen and
touch. Flesh, innards and fruit
were given to the audience to
touch and feel. Odours were
spread, incense and other mate-
rials were burnt.”
Meanwhile, the stage direc-
tions continued: “Oedipus, clad
in a white habit, is led to the bull
with outstretched arms... naked
he is tied to a cross and set next
to the bull. Fanfare... Spectators
eat breakfast.” Whether they
could stomach a meal was be-
side the point. On the sixth day
the whole display burst into a
bacchanalian frenzy.
Another show, 150.Action,
staged in a warehouse, began
with a white-clad man gutting
fish on a table covered by a white
sheet. As the audience strained
to see, they parted to make way
for another man carried on a
wooden structure and naked
other than for a blindfold. He
was laid upon the table, entrails
placed over his genitals, and
blood, milk and wine poured in-
to his mouth. All to the accom-
paniment of Wagnerian-style
organ music.
Nitsch made a career out of
shocking the public, not least
the British. In 1966 he was one of
several artists, including Yoko
Ono, who contributed to the
Destruction in Art Symposium
organised by the Institute of
Contemporary Arts in London.
“He wants to mount a six-day
theatrical presentation which
involves a dead lamb, much
ritual and ten young men,
mostly naked,” wrote one
journalist. “At the climax of the
event, much blood is splattered
on participants and the nearer
audience.”
The inevitable police raid was
widely reported, though Nitsch
slipped out of the country leav-
ing the exhibition organisers to
face prosecution. One witness
described in court how a sheep’s
carcass was laid on the floor, its
lungs placed to one side and its
entrails on the other, followed
by the showing of an “obscene”
film.
Elsewhere Nitsch, a rotund,
Father Christmas-like figure
lised society has suppressed. “I
love animals,” he insisted when
exhibiting at the Saatchi Gallery
in 2005. “I have two dogs, six
cats, 14 peacocks, a goat, a bull
and four geese.” Asked in 1978 if
he had worked with human ca-
davers he replied no but added:
“It’s only a question of time.
Every medical student is al-
lowed to work with a human
body. Why should it not be so for
an artist?”
Hermann Nitsch was born in
Vienna in 1938. Little is known
of his background, though his
father, Johan, was killed in the
Soviet Union during the war. He
recalled the Allied bombing of
the city, where he was raised.
“The war turned me into a cos-
mopolite and opponent of all na-
tionalisms and all politics while
just a schoolboy,” he wrote. He
was kicked out of school for re-
fusing to make an effort and in-
stead enrolled at a graphic arts
college, where he was at first
drawn to religious art.
Moving from studies of nature
to abstract paintings, he also de-
veloped a taste for poetry, prose,
theatre and classical music. His
inclusion of a used sanitary tow-
el in the collage The First Holy
Communion (1963) led to the first
of three jail sentences for offend-
ing religious sensibilities.
Nitsch’s first marriage was to
Eva Krannich, though they di-
vorced after the London scan-
dal. He then married Beate Kön-
ig, a German psychologist who
bought Prinzendorf Castle as a
backdrop for Orgies Mysteries
Theatre. She died in a car crash
in 1977 and in 1988 he married
Rita Leitenbor, who became his
manager and who survives him
with an adopted son, Leo Kopp.
In 1988 Nitsch’s visit to Edin-with a long, unkempt beard, de-
ployed every type of bodily fluid,
creating what one strong-stom-
ached critic described as “a vis-
ceral event at once pleasurable,
horrifying, pornographic, spiri-
tual and grotesque”.
Back at Prinzendorf Castle his
studio was packed with large,
bloody canvases. Around the
walls were red handprints along
with pictures of him “in action”,
his round-rimmed glasses and
white, priest-like robes splatter-
ed with blood. A former chapel
was laid out like an operating
theatre: candles, scalpels, tweez-
ers, scissors and needles, all
overseen by intricately em-
broidered vestments in glass
cases before the altar.
Critics attacked him from all
directions. Brigitte Bardot, theactress and animal-rights activ-
ist, condemned his “satanic
spectacle”; Cardinal Christoph
Schönborn, once seen as a
future pope, denounced the
man and his work; and Jörg
Haider, leader of the far-right
Freedom Party, described it as
art “where religious feeling will
be crushed”. However, the artist
explained that his work dwelt on
pain, blood and cruelty because
such things are “part of the his-
tory of art: Jesus Christ, the Pas-
sion plays, Greek tragedy,
Bosch, Bruegel, de Sade”.
Those who knew him de-
scribed Nitsch as a gentle soul
who merely wanted his audi-
ence to come face to face with
everything that so-called civi-Nuns would gather
outside his house to
pray for his soul
St James’s Palace
11th June, 2022
The Countess of Wessex this
morning attended the Royal
Windsor Rose and
Horticultural Society Show at
the York Club, Windsor Great
Park.St James’s Palace
12th June, 2022
The Duke of Kent was present
at a Service of Remembrance
and Thanksgiving
commemorating the Fortieth
Anniversary of the Falkland
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Pangbourne, and was received
by Her Majesty’s Lord-
Lieutenant of the Royal
County of Berkshire (Mr
James Puxley).Join us for breakfast
Listen to Aasmah Mir and
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Notices are subject to
confirmation and should be
received by 11.30am three
days prior to insertionLET US examine our ways and turn back
to the LORD. Let us open our hearts to God
in heaven and pray.
Lamentations 3.40-41 (GNB)
Bible verses are provided by the
Bible SocietyBirths, Marriages and Deaths
Forthcoming Marriages
The engagement is announced between
Owen, son of the late Richard Devonald-
Lewis and Barbara Bryant of Hulverstone,
and Julia, daughter of the late Dr Geoffrey
and Anne Richards of Cirencester.Deaths
COX Kathleen Elizabeth on 17th May 2022,
aged 56. Beloved daughter of John and
Jane Cox. Adored sister to Bridget and aunt
to Tanith, Oliver and Emerald. She will be
deeply missed. Funeral service to take
place on Tuesday 21st June at St George’s
Church, Enham Alamein, at 1pm. Donations,
if desired, are to Tusk Trust and can be
made online via kathleen-elizabeth-
cox.muchloved.com S. & J. Maddocks
Independent Funeral Directors 01264
355600.
HAYES Sir Brian (GCB) died peacefully on
31 May 2022, aged 93. He will be greatly
missed by his children Cathy and Edward,
five grandchildren, family and friends. The
funeral will take place at 2pm on Friday 8th
July at Mortlake Crematorium, Richmond,
London. No flowers by request, but
donations in Brian’s memory may be made
to the British Red Cross, c/o TH Sanders &
Sons, 447 Upper Richmond Road West,
London, SW14 7PR (Tel: 020 8876 4673).
KNOWLES Robin passed away on 5th
June 2022, aged 86. He will be sadly
missed by family and friends. Inquiries
via: Co-op Funeralcare, Mapperley, Notts.
NG3 5LG.RAWLINSON
Curwen died peacefully on 1st June
2022, aged 89. A service of
thanksgiving for the Revd Curwen
Rawlinson MBE and his beloved wife,
Denny (died 05.02.21), will be held at
St Giles’s Church, Uley, 2pm, 7th July
2022 — followed by the interment of
ashes and refreshments. Inquiries:
[email protected]WHICKER Juliet Mary (née Lovell) died
on 3rd June 2022. Julie, wife of John,
mother to Sarah and Simon and proud
grannie to Ben, Sam, Tom, Amy and Joe
and great-grannie to Laura and Theo. A
service of thanksgiving will be held in Ely
Cathedral on Friday 22nd July at 2.30pm.
Any donations please to Arthur Rank
Hospice in Shelford Bottom, Cambridge
CB22 3FB.020 7782 7553
newsukadvertising.co.ukHermann Nitsch
Controversial artist who made a splash on the British scene by using animal blood
burgh as part of a Vienna Ac-
tionists retrospective world
tour, was abruptly cancelled; he
blamed “a conservative Austri-
an attaché and an anxious Brit-
ish administration”. A contract
to design a production of Mas-
senet’s Hérodiade, a version of
the Salome story, at the Royal
Opera House, met a similar fate,
though last year he designed
Wagner’s Die Walküre for the
Bayreuth Festival.
It was not until 1997 that his
blood-splattered paintings were
seen again in Britain, at the Un-
derwood Street Gallery in
London. The event also includ-
ed the launch of the English
translation of his £300 book,
The Fall of Jerusalem, which de-
scribes a “Dionysian drama of
death and resurrection” played
in the 1,087 rooms of a subterra-
nean city.
In time his work entered the
Tate collection in London and
the Museum of Modern Art in
New York, while David Bowie
became one of his champions.
By the end he had become part
of the Austrian art establish-
ment and President Alexander
Van der Bellen noted his death,
writing: “Austria is mourning a
fascinating painter and an im-
pressive person.”
Visitors to Prinzendorf Castle,
a suitably Bluebeard-type
dwelling for a blood painter,
sometimes found nuns outside
praying for Nitsch’s soul. He ran
a smallholding there that was
the source for his animal partici-
pants. “They are slaughtered
properly,” he insisted.Hermann Nitsch, artist, was born
on August 29, 1938. He died after
a long illness on April 18, 2022,
aged 83Nitsch in 2005 in front of one of his trademark splatter paintings at the Saatchi Gallery in LondonMATT DUNHAM/REUTERSCourt Circular
Legal Notices
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
No. CR-2022-001403
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY
COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
COMPANIES COURT (ChD)
IN THE MATTER OF RBDM LIMITED
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE
COMPANIES ACT 2006
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a Claim
Form was on 19 May 2022 presented to
Her Majesty’s High Court of Justice for
the confirmation of the reduction of
the share capital of the above-named
company from £9,957,981.914 to
£2,054,436.914 by way of cancellation
of all 7,903,545 of the issued
preference shares of £1 each in the
capital of the Company.
AND NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that
the Claim Form is directed to be heard
before the Insolvency and Companies
Court Judge at The Rolls Building, 7
Rolls Buildings, Fetter Lane, London
EC4A 1NL on 21 June 2022.
ANY creditor or shareholder of the
company desiring to oppose the making
of an order for the confirmation of the
reduction of capital should appear at
the time of hearing in person or by
counsel for that purpose. If the hearing
is held remotely, including by Microsoft
Teams, any creditor or shareholder
wishing to attend should contact
[email protected] in
advance of the hearing.
A copy of the Claim Form will be
furnished to any such person requiring
the same by the under-mentioned
solicitors on payment of the regulated
charge for the same.
Dated: 13 June 2022
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP
Governors House
5 Laurence Pountney Hill
London EC4R 0BR
Ref. 3007371.000002
Solicitors for the above-named
companyCR-2022-000665
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY
COURTS OF ENGLAND & WALES
COMPANIES COURT (ChD)
IN THE MATTER OF
ONTHEMARKET PLC
-and-
IN THE MATTER OF THE
COMPANIES ACT 2006
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a Part
8 Claim Form was issued on 27 May
2022 in Her Majesty’s High Court of
Justice for the confirmation of the
amount standing to the credit of the
share premium account of the above-
named company (the “Company”).
AND NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that
the application is directed to be heard
before an Insolvency and Companies
Court Judge at The Rolls Building, 7
Rolls Building, Fetter Lane, London
EC4A 1NL on 21 June 2022.
ANY CREDITOR OR SHAREHOLDER of
the Company desiring to oppose the
making of an Order for the
confirmation of the cancellation of the
amount standing to the credit of the
share premium account should appear
at the time of the hearing in person or
by legal representative for that
purpose. The hearing will be held
remotely (by Microsoft Teams). Any
creditor or shareholder who wishes to
appear should contact the Company’s
solicitors or the Court
([email protected]) for
details of how to participate remotely.
A COPY of the Claim Form will be
provided by the Company’s solicitors to
any person requiring it.
DATED 13 June 2022
Almond + Company,
Peter House,
Oxford Street,
Manchester,
Lancashire,
M1 5AN
Tel: 0161 504 3974
Ref: OTM Capital Reduction
SOLICITORS FOR THE COMPANYLegal Notices