Electronic artist Alan Braxe accused of joining France's proud tradition of symbolically pissing on things
Once more demonstrating the rakish libertinism that has made France the envy of the artistic and intellectual world, another French person has been accused of unleashing an unfettered stream of urine on our uptight, moralist furnishings. In August it was lionized actor Gerard Depardieu whose revelatory piss on an airplane carpet first challenged our conventions with its sheer depth and volatility. Now popular French electronic artist Alan Braxe stands accused of taking our restrictive regulations and remixing them, urinating on both the stage and curtains of San Francisco’s DNA Lounge.
The incident was reported by the club’s constabulary, no doubt while clicking their thick, provincial tongues in disapproval, as they posted a message on the DNA website suggesting that Braxe has a “bladder control problem”—a self-described “generous explanation for why he decided, in the middle of his DJ set, to turn around and piss on our back-wall curtain instead of using the restroom which is twenty feet away.” Ignoring the other, equally likely explanation that Braxe is simply more alive than we will ever be, the management continues to explain that Braxe was kicked out of the club and informed that he would only be let back in if he agreed to pay for the curtains’ cleaning, and also put on the symbolic shackles of America’s puritanical repression.
Perhaps mindful that his less enlightened fans are not yet ready to examine their own illusions of freedom, however, Braxe has taken pity on us and chosen the more charitable option of flatly denying everything, issuing a statement that calls the allegation “false and offensive,” saying, “These lies have been fabricated, twisted and spread by somebody at the venue in order to generate extra interest in that space, in what appears to be a very inappropriate PR stunt. This personal attack on my nature and artistic image is distasteful, hurtful and it is something that I will be taking very seriously.” If only we were ready to know the truth about ourselves, perhaps Braxe could be more honest about his work, and join this proud lineage of subversive French, urine-related art that stretches from Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain to the next French guy who plans to piss everywhere. [via Pitchfork]