M HKA Ensembles

Performance

Paris, C.A.I.R.N. Performance Festival

Jan Fabre never carried out this performance. The artist intended to create a new language by means of punning. At the same time he would climb out of a self-made tower with a golden ladder. 

= NEVER PERFORMED

'The C.A.I.R.N. performance festival is badly
organised.
And what a low standard of performances.
The ones I have seen were dustbins full
of ignorance, without risk or vision.
I have a vague suspicion (to put it mildly) that most
of these performance artists are simply bad visual
artists and therefore misuse the performance
medium to hide their non-talent.
I have decided not to do my new performance here.
I want to leave quietly from this pretentious city
where they refuse to speak a word of English.
And where they think they are still the centre of the
world. Frustrated by not having a king and queen,
they have elected several intellectual popes.
And the only art they practise is that of the insult.
The foreigner. The visitor. I have had the
opportunity to physically experience their
moral superiority.'

(Jan Fabre, 12 April 1981)