Linda Montano interviewing Hermann Nitsch, in Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties (London: University of California Press, Ltd., 2000) pp.399-400. Permission granted from Univ.Calif.Press.

Linda Montano: How did you feel about death as a child?

Hermann Nitsch: I was afraid of it.

Montano: Were there any deaths then?

Nitsch: My father - 1944 - died during the war; later, my grandparents. A couple of friends died; a dog was shot. In 1977 my wife died in an accident. In 1984 my mother died.

Montano: What were your childhood fears?

Nitsch: They were very real - the bomb attacks of World War II.

Montano: When did you begin the ritual work that you do?

Nitsch: In 1958.

Montano: What happens to you and others as a result of your work?

Nitsch: We reach intense states.

Montano: What do you want to happen?

Nitsch: That life should be lived intensely.

Montano: Does the intensity of the taboo associated with blood and those issues frighten you?

Nitsch: It frightens and fascinates me at once.

Montano: Is the work dangerous?

Nitsch: Less than our repressed aggressions.

Montano: Describe a piece that was most memorable.

Nitsch: King Oedipus of Sophocles.

Montano: Is your background Christian? Are you going beyond that?

Nitsch: I am interested in the myths of all people and of all periods in history.

Montano: Did you fear God? The devil? Death?

Nitsch: More death.

Photograph of the artist Hermann Nitsch taken by Mr. Wobrazek
© Image copyright free. Courtesy of the Nitsch Foundation.