Hermann Nitsch

first, i want to refer to failure in regard to art. i am talking about friedrich hölderlin, heinrich von kleist, lord byron, friedrich nietzsche, georg trakl, richard gerstl, vincent van gogh and many more artists who failed. most commonly the involvement with art leads to insanity. the overheated consciousness of those artists was taken back by nature and absorbed by the mythical collective. especially those artists who are considered to have failed achieved the most profound things.

no other failure can be valued as positive. i think about failure of entire populations induced or caused by war — our world knows creation and devastation. solar systems and galaxies emerge and disappear. cosmology is aware of black holes, which sponge up the existing. the big bang is creation and devastation at once. nature, creation attempts to form. many things fail on an infinite loop and have to get repeated endless times until they reach success.

in fact failure is the fall for the purpose of resurgence, return and resurrection. death is failure. the vision of nature doesn’t know infinite failure. contemplation and return to death, the perpetual birth like resurrection is the permanent fulfillment of life and being.

greek tragedy shows failed heroes like ödipus, antigone, kreon or prometheus. the christian church is an extension of the greek tragedy. jesus christ can be compared to those failed heroes of greek tragedies, but in christianity failure exists beyond death — it reaches to limbo, the metaphysic created through the christian mythos resurrection, being and life to eternity. one can sense that i don’t consider failure in relation to infinity and eternity as negative rather something positive. those thoughts have nothing to do with an operetta happy-end.


Words Hermann Nitsch
Photography Lukas Gansterer