A VISIT TO THE HERMANN NITSCH MUSEUM

Giuseppe Morra, a friend of Nitsch since the 1970's was responsible for creating the museum in Naples. Sitting on an outdrop just above Piazza Dante, this incredible house is worthy of anyones time if you are in Napoli for more than a few hours.

Regardless of the opinions of the individual as to what he did being right or wrong, one of the most fundamental truths is to give space to people like him, to showcase his art, and to be provoking. We cannot tame society down to the state of a pacified blanket, unmoving in reaction to anything. We need radicals and revolutionaries to stir the pot and stop us swaying too far one way or another. You might not have to agree with them, but having them pose questions and get a reaction is a step in defining our own boundaries and our own sensibilities.

Instead of an informational overload of things you can find elsewhere on the internet, this article acts as a form of narrational guide to entering the museum through streams of consciousness aimed at capturing some of the themes.

"An imagined apocalyptic dream-sequence written after walking through the Hermann Nitsch museum."

The purgatory of no thought scrapes by like a scorched field left blackened by fire and the emptiness of blind eyes. Cursed gravel, dry wells, cabins retching with the smell of death, long distant clouds creating cataracts over the expanses as thirst stretches the skin into opaque leather- taut and yellowed. 

As the room is bathed in weak lights, and the frigid realm of removal breathes over us all, the drones continue, the melodies horde their secrets. Blood. Majesty. Burials. Religious zeal. Faithless prayers all envelop behind occult symbols. The splintered fingers clasp rusted locks, keys folded in time, rubbed loose of their teeth. 

The third room.

The wind gathers, spiral webs cocoon the air. From beyond you can hear the screams, but know not their origins. All is tempered in a grey mist. The cogs of the machine have begun. Slowly coming to life.

 

​A thin sliver of light pierces through. "I'm weak, take what's mine".

Alas the long hallways of perdition strike forth in utter blackness, matches struck against the wall simply whimper and stun.

The final rest

In this purgatory there is no ceasing. Darkness and strain have strangled all. The floor swallows its dusty carpet, rings of blood arrayed against temple stones, the long spiny fingers of winter crushing bone, tooth, spine, marching on and on and on. While the howls penetrate the ceiling from the pits beneath, the fire's have long died, but the burns remain.

The crushing weight of infinity, of the beyond, of God, of the macabre, of loss, of abuse, of deceit, all whirls into the void and bleeds through our eyes until we see no more but hell. And the chants of the invisible wail with the taste of fire.

Fever breaks in the early folds of morning. With rumblings the cogs begin their rotations. To and Fro the levers switch, creating the first sparks of light. Sparks turn to light, light to fire, fire to unspeakable forms.

Rivers of penance bleed out and taint the floor in blood red. The colour of chaos.

A thin voice brings the illusion to ground for a bare few seconds.

"Thank you very much". 

(A version of this appeared in the publication of Bad Sounds Magazine in 2012 as part of a Swans review, but it was written by the same author.)

HERMANN NITSCH MUSEUM
Vico Lungo Pontecorvo,
29/d, 80135
Napoli NA,
​Italy

Their homepage with opening times.

Monday to Friday: 10am-7pm
last entry: 6.30pm
Saturday: 10am-2pm
last entry: 1.30pm