Hermann Nitsch: Maria Empfängnis (The Conception of Mary) (1969)
In combining abreaction with the word “spiel,” Nitsch reinvigorated the psychoanalytic technique of abreaction by turning into a therapeutic spectacle rooted in myth.
Hermann Nitsch (b.1938) was a member of the Viennese actionists consisting of Günter Brus (b.1938), Adolf Frohner (1934-2007), Otto Muehl (1925-2013), Alfons Schilling (1934-2013), and Rudolf Schwarzkogler (1940-1969). On December 8 1969, He performed his 31st Material Action Maria Empfängnis (The Conception of Mary), in the studio of the Munich painter Hans Peter Zimmer assisted by Heinz Cibulka, Günter Brus, Franz Kaltenbäck, Hanel Koeck, and Günter Sarée, photographed by Ludwig Hoffenreich and Knut Nievers, and filmed by Peter Kubelka (Klocker 387-88).[1] This was followed by a second performance, his 32nd Material Action, 7. Abreaktionsspiel, planned for 27 February 1970 in Aktionsraum 1 at Goetheplatz, Waltherstraße 25, Munich. However, because of police intervention, the action took place the following day, preceded by a five-minute performance (Pyschdramalett) by Günter Brus (Dreher). The 7. Abreaktionsspiel was filmed on 16mm in black and white (silent) by Irm and Ed Sommer and by Peter Gorsen for Hessischer Rundfunk (16mm, colour, sound, ca. 35mins) and Badisches Fernsehen (b/w, sound). The principal performers were Nitsch, Franz Kaltenbäck and Hanel Koeck, assisted by Heinz Cibulka, Günter Brus, Günter Sarée, and others. The performance was photographed by Stefan Moses (color), Peter Nemetschek (b/w, colour), R. Stocker (b/w), and Knut Nievers (b/w). The performance was accompanied by a ten-piece string orchestra and fifteen-piece orchestra conducted by R. Stocker (Badura-Triska and Millautz 344).
Nitsch dressed in white clothing with a chain around his neck places two white sugar cubes a meter apart on the ground. He pours liquid from beaker into mouth of Franz Kaltenbäck lying with white bandage around eyes on white sheeted mattress on white covering laid on floor. Kaltenbäck drinks from beaker liquid flows from lips. Nitsch repeats blood rivulets spill from mouth. Nitsch draws white chalk line across floor. Nitsch wrestles man dressed in black. Nitsch undresses Hanel Köck lying on white sheet revealing white lingerie. Nitsch pushes mass of offal under her panties cuts scissors down middle of panties pulling apart revealing offal over-spilling. Nitsch pours blood entrails over Koeck who lies eyes staring blood offal covered up to brassiere. Koeck repeatedly pushes mass of offal against her vagina. Nitsch dressed in black slits open suspended lamb carcass blood drips down offal pours out. Nitsch pushes offal back repetitively. Nitsch in white throws blood from bucket over carcass held open by two assistants blood drips to floor. Nitsch presses against carcass draws two white chalk semi-circular marks around gash in leg of lamb pushes offal through gaping wound offal pushed back through wound. Nitsch smears blood splattered offal over carcass more blood poured over offal. Nitsch and assistants pull open carcass. Nitsch slits down carcass to head with knife. Nitsch pours blood down carcass spills down on floor. Nitsch and assistant pick up offal filled box pour out over recumbent male figure. Nitsch takes white bucket filled with gelatinous liquid pours over figure massages entrails over body. Music changes to staccato violins. Koeck pristine in white lingerie suspenders tights ballroom shoes lies on floor face up crucified on wooden beam shoes pressed against wooden block ropes attached to ankles legs wide apart vagina uncovered below white garter black eyelashes black flowing hair. She is lifted on crucifix. Nitsch places pile of offal on her belly slides down over her vagina onto cross blood is poured over her arms hanging over cross. Nitsch pours bucket of water cleansing her. Assistants lower crucifix. Koeck drinks from beaker of dark liquid spills down throat spits out resting arms outstretched on crucifix placed against white wall liquid running down her body. Nitsch dressed in liturgical robe pours dark liquid from beaker over Koeck’s open mouth. Brus and assistants lower Koeck on crucifix to ground. Nitsch wipes her vagina with cloth legs outstretched brings beaker pours dark liquid slowly over vagina pubic hair spills down over crucifix. Nitsch undoes trousers advances on Koeck dildo protruding presses against her vagina rhythmic fucking motions his legs astride crucifix assistant pours blood over Nitsch’s back continues fucking motion more blood poured over his back. Brus and assistants support crucifix. Nitsch throws bucket of dark liquid over suspended carcass swinging across floor. Brus hangs off swinging carcass Koeck grabs Brus carcass all fall to ground. Nitsch slides across floor with carcass Koeck and assistant drag Nitsch Brus carcass through slime press Nitsch’s head into carcass. Koeck pulls Nitsch head engulfed in slime to her vagina pushes head down. Nitsch climbs on top of her they roll side to side. Nitsch stands exhausted. Performance ends [2]
The 32 material action was the seventh abreaktionsspiel performed by Nitsch. The first three Abreaktionsspiel were planned on paper (Nitsch, Abreaktionsspiel 1-31) but not performed , the fourth was performed on 16 June 1966 in the Galerie Josef Dvorak in Vienna (32-48), the fifth at St Bride Institute in London on 16 September 1966 during the DIAS (Destruction in Art Festival) (144-48), the sixth on 4 April 1968 in the Great Hall of the University of Cincinnati, and the eighth, an acoustic abreactionsspiele, on 12 March 1972 in Cologne for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk.[3]
The use of the term “abreaction” or, in German, Abreagierung, had been first used in a therapeutic context by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Josef Breuer (1842- 1925) in their joint work published in 1893 “On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: Preliminary Communication.”
The injured person's reaction to the trauma only exercises a completely ‘cathartic’ effect if it is an adequate reaction—as, for instance, revenge. But language serves as a substitute for action; by its help, an affect can be ‘abreacted’ almost as effectively.[4] In other cases speaking is itself the adequate reflex, when, for instance, it is a lamentation or giving utterance to a tormenting secret, e.g. a confession. If there is no such reaction, whether in deeds or words, or in the mildest cases in tears, any recollection of the event retains its affective tone to begin with. (8)
Freud was later to distance himself from the use of traumatic etiology and hypnosis as a therapeutic tool in favour of free association. Jung in his 1921 article The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction, rejected the general application of the trauma theory of neurosis as a valid analytical method, outside of the specific cases of neurosis originating specifically in war trauma (129-30). Jung defined abreaction as, “the dramatic rehearsal of the traumatic moment, its emotional recapitulation in the waking or in the hypnotic state” (131). Jung, referring to the work of William McDougall, rejected the general utility of the abreactive method, “the main therapeutic problem is not abreaction but how to integrate the disassociation [of the psyche]” (131).
This argument advances our discussion and entirely agrees with our experience that a traumatic complex brings about dissociation of the psyche. The complex is not under the control of the will and for this reason it possesses the quality of psychic autonomy. Its autonomy consists in its power to manifest itself independently of the will and even in direct opposition to conscious tendencies: it forces itself tyrannically upon the conscious mind. The explosion of affect is a complete invasion of the individual, it pounces upon him like an enemy or a wild animal. I have frequently observed that the typical traumatic affair is represented in dreams as a wild and dangerous animal – a striking illustration of its autonomous nature when split off from consciousness. Considered from this angel, abreaction appears in an essentially different light: as an attempt to reintegrate the autonomous complex, to incorporate it gradually into he conscious mind as an accepted content, by living the traumatic situation over again, once or repeatedly. (131-32)
Although Jung considered that only in the context of a positive patient-doctor relationship could the abreactive method be of curative value in resolving the psychic disassociation (132-33). In a modern therapeutic context, the abreaction-catharsis nexus has been defined as: “So, in modern psychotherapy the term ‘abreaction’ describes an emotional outburst consistent with a traumatic memory, experienced when an individual relives that trauma. It is usually thought of as accompanied by, or followed by, a 'catharsis' or psychological ‘cleansing’ … (Jemmer 30). The American Psychiatric Association defines Abreaction as, “the therapeutic process of bringing forgotten or inhibited material (i.e., experiences, memories) from the unconscious into consciousness, with concurrent emotional release and discharge of tension and anxiety.” Abreaction-catharsis became influential in the 1960s and 1970s through the Human Potential Movement and New Age therapies, such as “Gestalt, Neo-reichian bodywork, Neuro-linguistic programming, Primal therapy, Psychodrama, Rebirthing and Transactional analysis” (Jenner 31). However, in a modern clinical setting, the value of such a therapeutic approach in treating trauma is contested: “Given these technical advances in the treatment of trauma in MPD, it is noteworthy that theoretical understanding lags well behind. It is exemplified by the persisting use of the controversial and, in the authors’ view, outmoded concepts of abreaction and repression with regard to the treatment (including hypnotic) of traumatic memories” (Hart 126-27).
In his employment of the term abreaction, Nitsch draws on the wider historical antecedents of purification rites and catharsis.[5] He explained the psychological function of the abreaktionsspiel as follows:
In Abreaktionsspiel through the production of disinhibiting states of ecstasy abreaction happenings are constructed and experienced. A concentrated transfer back into humans’ unconscious psychic states releases the original values of tragedy, the naked existentially ingrained state of arousal, that in scream lies beneath the word. The use of the scream in human history predates that of the word developed from the mating cry. (Abreaktionsspiel 2; my trans.)
In the text for abreaktionsspiel 1, Nitsch sets out key concepts underpinning the performances which can be traced to both Jung’s concept of a collective psyche and Nietzsche’s theory of Dionysian ecstasy (Brucher 36; Barnick-Braun 68). Nitsch states that “the ‘Dionysian’ is another word for abreaction instinct” (Abreaktionsspiel 8), my trans.) and links it to the life-affirming function of religious rituals:
Every fulfillment is heightened in religious festival. (Life-affirming abreaction, fertility cults, veneration of phallic symbols, the sacramanentalising of sexual intercourse, the orgy as the ultimate form of existential worship,[6] religious service, abreaction in religious dress, communication with the “deity”, with the unconscious). … The excesses of the orgy (sacred festival) are the summit and abreaction form of Dionysian life affirmation, which always opposes the restricting pressure of reality, hence the extreme form of fulfillment, liberation and cleansing of blocked instincts. (8, my trans.)
In combining abreaction with the word “spiel,”[7] Nitsch reinvigorated the psychoanalytic technique by turning into a therapeutic spectacle rooted in myth. “I will make effective abreaction into a performance event. Disinhibition will become a theatrical happening, a dramatic therapy. By means of abreaction realized dramatically I would like to stir up the deep lying roots of certain mythical forms” (Abreaktionsspiel 68) Instead of the therapist as communications partner, the performers played to an audience, to create catharsis not an individual but a collective level: “His [Nitsch] posited emotional manipulation of the audience also has distinctly therapeutic traits in the sense of a consciousness-raising acting-out of deep layers of repression” (Brucher 36). The use of music and choral singing further strengthened this collective catharsis and would culminate in Nitsch’s Orgies Mysteries Theater, performed since 1975 in Schloss Prinzendorf (Badura-Triska, Herman Nitsch’s Orgies Mysteries Theater 33; Marschall 34) .
In the symbolic language of Hermann Nitsch’s Orgien Mysterien Theater, religious sacrifices from various ritualistic contexts play a role in bringing about “abreaction experiences.” If, in the 1960s, crucifixions had initially taken place only with the corpses of lambs, in the 31st and 32nd actions Nitsch used a human and, pointedly, a female body for this purpose. The animal victim thus becomes a human victim in a ritual. In both of these actions, the artist also for the first time wears a chasuble, a liturgical vestment from the Catholic tradition; and he also uses a monstrance and various other religious objects. The woman is portrayed as bride; animal intestines are laid on her body and blood is poured onto her; and in addition a sex act is performed with a dildo. (Badura-Triska “Exhibition Booklet”)
Nitsch’s 7. Abreaktionsspiel, together with his preceding 31st Material Action Maria Empfängnis (The Conception of Mary), brings together in heightened form many of the themes central to his vision of using performance to effect therapeutic change. In Maria Empfängnis and the 7. Abreaktionsspiel Nitsch,’s focus was not only on the liberating abreaction effect that the performance had on the participants but also on the audience through the use, for the first time in Maria Empfängnis (Klockner 199), of religious ritual combined with the ecstatic sensualism of a Dionysian festival intensified by the sacrificial slitting open of a lamb and spreading its offal over the human body. The extent to which Nitsch’s Abreaktionsspiel achieved his goal of liberating repressed instincts in his audience, raising the question of the legitimate boundary between art and therapy, is unverifiable.[8] After 1971, Nitsch increasingly focused on the staging of the Orgien Mysterien Theater and in this context Maria Empfängnis and the 7. Abreaktionsspiel can be seen as the culmination of Nitsch’s participation in Viennese Actionism.
[1] For an analysis of Nitsch’s Action Mariä Empfägnis see Peter Gorsen, Sexualästhetik: Zur bürgerlichen Rezeption von Obszönität und Pornographie, Rowohlt, 1972, p. 180.
[2] The above is my own description of Nitsch’s 32 Action, 7. Abreaktionsspiel, filmed by Irm and Ed. Sommer, with a running time of seven minutes.
[3] For a chronological list of Nitsch’s actions, see Hermann Nitsch: Das Orgien Mysteien Theater: Actions: www.nitsch.org/en/action_type/action-en/
[4] “[‘Catharsis’ and ‘abreaction’ made their first published appearance in this passage. Freud had used the term ‘abreaction’ previously (June 28, 1892), in a letter to Fliess referring to the present paper (Freud, 1950a, Letter 9).]” (fn.8 )
[5] For an historical overview of these concepts, see Jemmer at pp. 27-28.
[6] The German text reads “seinsanbetungsform”.
[7] The Deutsche Universalwörterbuch (Duden) defines ‘Spiel’ in a literary context as: “in a dramatic work in the form of a theater performance incorporated dramatic action or scenes” (Dudenverlag, 1983, p. 1184). Nitsch on occasion refers to “abreaktionstheater” (Abreaktionsspiel 69).
[8] A boundary Otto Muehl crossed with the founding of the AAO commune at Friederichshof in 1973 (Falckenberg 197-201).