Avignon festival 'catastrophe' meets with boos

Expatica ^ | July 21 2005

[FreedomCalls]

I'm glad to see the left is finally getting fed up with the total crap the "artistes" are putting out nowadays. To see some real art go to the Art Renewal Center's homepages.

[Loyalist]

When modern art becomes so pretentious and meretricious that the French despise it, it's really, really, bad.

[agere_contra]

a triumphant sense of masturbatory autism.

Bloody hell. That writer had le mot juste

[spinestein]

[Critics attending the three-week Avignon theatre festival in southern France said it had plumbed new depths of intellectual obscurity and warned that a contempt for the mainstream public was placing the future of a prestigious national institution in jeopardy.]


And this is different, how...........?

[Yardstick]

"What have you got against us?" a spectator was heard to shout as he walked out in exasperation.

LOL -- Is this not the perfect question to ask of modern art?

[garyhope]

Artsy, pretentious, pseudo "meaningful" crud rejected by the French of all people?!! I can't believe it! Sacre bleu!

I used to say to friends that nothing is too cute, sentimenal and corny for Americans and nothing is too pretentious for the French.

[CzarNicky]

In the second half 21 actors reproduce word for word the quotes from the film, and then having stripped off perform them a third time in song and dance. "What have you got against us?" a spectator was heard to shout as he walked out in exasperation

LOL

[evad]

>>Sacre bleu! <<

Indeed..
and LOL!!!!

[farmer18th]

Just when you think you've figured out the world, the French start acting sane. Perhaps it took their own artists to show them how depraved their country has become.

[mc6809e]

I sure hope they performed "worker and parasite"!

[rabidralph]

was accompanied by a cacophony of electronic noise that the audience found unbearable.

Probably the sound of a dial-up modem.

[muawiyah]

This thing "bombed" itself and didn't wait around for AlQaida to do the job.

No doubt an Islamofascist state is just around the corner for France ~ they don't allow this stuff anyway!

[little jeremiah]

later pingout.

Wonderful language in the article! I wish I could write like that.

[FreedomCalls]

I managed to find a photo:

"Près de deux semaines après ses débuts avec L'Histoire des larmes"

[FreedomCalls]

A photo from one of the plays.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

"But this is sheer imposture, bloated by its own importance and of unfathomable tedium

Probably the best description of Jacques Chirac I've read yet.

[FreedomCalls]

Another:

This one is from the play "Une belle enfant blonde."

[FreedomCalls]

The festival's web page is here:

http://www.festival-avignon.com/

I'm having a hard time selecting photos from the plays that don't involve large amounts of nudity. Here's one last example:

[FreedomCalls]

A still from the presentation "Installations vidéo"

Reminds me a lot of this:

"Un now on Shprockets, ve shall dance."

[PAR35]

I suspect this would be a case where I would have to agree with the commies.