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Ensemble: Chapter 6: Perfect Death, 1974–1997, Brussels-Amsterdam-Antwerp-Cologne-Caïro / Hoofdstuk 6: Perfecte dood / Chapitre 6: Mort parfaite

(c)image: M HKA
©image: M HKA

After ‘question’ came ‘perfect’, a word that Byars first used in the titles The Perfect Love Letter is to Write I Love You Backwards in the Air and The Perfect Kiss in Brussels (1974). This kiss was still closely related to Byars’s participatory plays where he gave directions, but after a while his performances became more austere one-man plays. The Perfect Kiss in Antwerp (1976) was a brief kiss in the air with the tinniest movement of the lips, which could be performed anywhere, anytime.

The performances gradually became more theatrical, until Byars performed his own death at Galerie des Beuax-Arts of Marie-Puck Broodthaers (1994). While a violinist plays Béla Bartók’s Marche funèbre, Byars enters a room entirely lined in gold leaf, lies down for a minute and leaves. After this five diamonds are positioned to symbolise Byars’s body: Five Points Make a Man.

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