NITSCH. A tribute by JOSEPH SAKOILSKY: FROM PAIN COMES PAIN, THEN LAUGHTER.

From the exhibition series: “NITSCH. A tribute by…’, the Nitsch Foundation and Ms. Rita Nitsch are pleased to announce ‘FROM PAIN COMES PAIN, THEN LAUGHTER’, a solo exhibition by British-born artist Joseph Sakoilsky at the Nitsch Foundation, Vienna.

The third exhibition in the series: ‘NITSCH. A tribute by…’ presents works by artists who influenced and guided Hermann Nitsch during his life, but also by artists who were influenced by Nitsch’s entire oeuvre.

Joseph Sakoilsky is an actionist painter and sculptor. The artist’s relationship with the work of Herman Nitsch began in his youth, when he first met Nitsch in 1997 at the Hermann Nitsch & The Orgies Mysteries Theater exhibition in London, and he has followed and influenced the work ever since. He has visited Prinzendorf several times and participated in actions.

For this exhibition, Sakoilsky shows three series of works. Each work implies an actionist approach. The canvases are remnants of painting actions, the residue of the self through the processes of expulsion, exhaustion and liberation. The artist turns the internal into the external. In the series ‘Punch Painting’ the canvas is not marked with a brush, but with his own fist. In short and quick actions, the colors explode on the canvas, in shades borrowed from historically classical images.

The exhibits show a common thread of physical and emotional endurance. In addition to paintings, actionist performances and sculptures are also shown. Two performance pieces shown are: ‘Expulsion’, based on the exile from Adam and Eve’s paradise. The artist and his wife Kata Oelschlägel wash each other with black paint, which symbolizes the Fall. A second performance piece, entitled: ‘Carrying my ownweight’, is the result of the artist carrying his own body weight across the studio floor, with every drag, collapse and fall captured in black paint.

Every person suffers, only some of us learn to laugh

Joseph Sakoilsky

The artist encourages the viewer to discover an absurd humor in which the artist wages a futile battle with the work of art. “From pain comes pain, and then from laughter!”

Joseph Sakoilsky “From pain comes pain and then laughter” June 28 – July 26, 2024 NITSCH Foundation

About the artist

Joseph Sakoilsky, born in 1992 in Camden Town, London, is an actionist painter and sculptor, currently living and working in Vienna. He studied Graphic Design and Illustration at the University of East London and subsequently worked as an artist assistant for several established English artists. The artist is associated with post-radical actionism. Sakoilsky is characterized by his grotesque, humorous approach to life itself, encouraging the viewer to discover the absurdity and self-irony in their own human existence.

Selected exhibitions:
2023 – November – Dream on, Other Island, Vienna
2023 – October – 150 Jahre, Büro Weltausstellung, Vienna
2023 – September – Parallel Vienna
2023 – August – Common Ground, Palais Jåger-Mautner, Vienna
2023 – February – 1.5%, Plain art gallery, Vienna
2020 – February – Art the Clown and Friends, Gallery 46, London
2020 – March – Nothing is Square pt.II, Cultivate Gallery, London
2019 – March – Miniscule part 2, Cross Lane Projects, England
2019 – May – Little Venice, Venice Biennale, Venice
2019 – April – Again and again, Cultivate Gallery, London
2019 – February – Attract, Cultivate Gallery, London
2018 – October – PURE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLEAN, Angus Hughes
Gallery, London
2018 – October – Protocol, Q-park, London
2018 – This is the Gate of Heaven, Gallery 46, London
2018 – March – The Owlman Cometh – Vout-O-Reenees, London
2018 – February – Embracing the Underdog, Q-park, London
2017 – October – The Crash, Q-park, London
2017 – January – Chinese OPEN: Le Coq Artistes, Q-park, London
2016 – December – BIG DEAL NO. 7 – SPACE, London
2015 – October – The Matchbox Project, The Other Art Fair

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• EXHIBITIONS
• Exhibitions – Vienna

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Mark Westall

Mark Westall is the founder and editor of FAD magazine –