Nitsch is not a butcher, he’s an artist.

Pics are borrowed from Whatspace.

Hermann Nitsch, a man who inspires many artists in my genre of arts, the world of experimental music, is visiting Tilburg and you can’t miss it: the coverage in the media is bigger than ever, but where is it about? Pigs? Meat? Animal rights? Come on! I will not get into that whole debate, i prefer to see myself as someone who thinks without borders instead of of someone who’s shouting things which we all know are bullocks (a.o. Smolders/Graus).

Instead I would like to talk about arts, like I said, over the last years of touring I saw many artists perform who are inspired by him, not only by his music, but mostly by the esthetic side of his aktionen: getting back to controlled violence, intimidate the audience, open their minds for emotions which they don’t even know they have, best examples are Smell and Quim, Monopolka, Costes and in a way also Lucas Abela, who uses the auto-mutulation aspect Nitsch uses as well.

During the interview, held yesterday at theatre De NWE Vorst in Tilburg, Nitsch explained globally how he got to where he is now, both in life and work. He talked about his idea behind the gesamptkunstwerk, the influences both Joseph Beuys and Jackson Pollock have/had on his paintings and about how you can use actors as true, honest (and not acting) individuals during a performance. The links he made to psychology (a.o. Freud’s taboo on incest) and the Catholic Mass as a ritual, were not really a surprise. Personally I would have loved to hear him talk more about his view on Sadism and the book Venus im Pelz by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, which has obvious links to his work, but like a lot of people, I was too afraid to ask.

Nowadays Nitsch is an old man, drinking goes slower, talking goes slower and after an hour you felt he had enough of it, but maybe it was also the setting. The questions by Henk Oosterling, a Rotterdam philosopher, were not bad, but sometimes they were a bit to vague or distracting to my taste, just cut the crap and say what you want to say. Also the translation was a difficult thing, it got the speed out of the interview, which was a pity: we could have heard more interesting information, but it’s also understandable; my german is good enough to understand Nitsch in his own language, but i can imagine that’s not the case for everybody.

All the small notes aside it was a nice evening, as a experimental musician I would have loved to hear more about his musical work, his organ performances, his Geräuschmusik, but after the commotion in the media the performance part of his work needed more attention. And now it got the serious attention it needed, let’s please get back to what its really about: Art, with a capital A.

–
Wouter Jaspers
Vatican Analog