A South African performance artist who tied a live rooster to his penis during an impromptu open-air show near the Eiffel Tower was found guilty yesterday of “sexual exhibitionism”. However the Paris court did not impose a sentence.
Last September Steven Cohen danced on the French capital’s Trocadero Plaza dressed in a corset, high heels, long red gloves and an elaborate feathered headdress with a rooster attached to his penis by a ribbon.
Under the amused and perplexed gaze of tourists, including a group of nuns, the spectacle lasted only a few moments before police arrested Mr Cohen, dragging him across the plaza, rooster attached.
Mr Cohen’s lawyer said she was “relieved”.
“This is a rather measured decision,” said lawyer Agnès Tricoire. “In my opinion, this case should never have gone to court.”
In a March interview with Le Figaro newspaper, Mr Cohen said authorities had “no understanding of what art is, what performance is”.
“If I’m found guilty ... I will see it as a failure of French justice,” said Mr Cohen, who has lived in France for about 10 years.
Prosecutors had asked for a €1,000 (£822) fine.
Cohen is known for “interventions in the public realm”, according to his biography. Wearing an illuminated chandelier tutu, he once walked through a squatters’ camp in Johannesburg while it was being demolished.
He told the newspaper the Paris piece was a reaction to an increasingly homophobic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic world.
“In showing the most intimate part of me, I’m saying: I’m male, I’m Jewish, I’m queer, I’m white,” he said.
He said the rooster, named Franck, was not harmed during the performance. The animal was chosen “because it’s the emblem of France”.
Someone has no understanding of what art is.
Someone has no understanding of what art is.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Someone has no understanding of what art is.
Several questions and comments come to mind:
(1) Is he in his right mind?
(2) If he were English speaking, one might say that he had a cock tied to his "cock"; I wonder if a French word for rooster is also a euphemism for penis.
(3) American humorist Dave Barry has a catch-all definition for what constitutes, "art." He says, "If I could do it, it's not art." Hence, by this definition, since anyone could make a spectacle of himself in the same way, it's not art.
(4) Does Mr. Cohen seriously think that his "performance" will do anything to alleviate anti-semitism or "homo-phobia" in France?
(5) Is a chicken really the "emblem of France"? Jesus.
(1) Is he in his right mind?
(2) If he were English speaking, one might say that he had a cock tied to his "cock"; I wonder if a French word for rooster is also a euphemism for penis.
(3) American humorist Dave Barry has a catch-all definition for what constitutes, "art." He says, "If I could do it, it's not art." Hence, by this definition, since anyone could make a spectacle of himself in the same way, it's not art.
(4) Does Mr. Cohen seriously think that his "performance" will do anything to alleviate anti-semitism or "homo-phobia" in France?
(5) Is a chicken really the "emblem of France"? Jesus.