- John Fare
The legend of John Charles Fare (or Faré) is the story of a man who slowly destroyed his own body.
As one version of the story goes, Fare was a
performance artist whose performances involved the amputation of parts of his body and their replacement with metal or plastic decorations. Between 1964 and 1968, performing across Europe and Canada, he was lobotomized and lost a thumb, two fingers, eight toes, one eye, both testicles, his right hand [ [http://stakeholderddv.blogspot.com/2006/11/myth-of-john-fare.html The Myth of John Fare byDanny Devos ] ] , and several patches of skin. The amputated parts were preserved in alcohol. It is also said that Fare had the amputations performed by a randomly-controlled machine and ended his career by having his head amputated. ["Apocalypse Culture", Adam Parfrey, Feral House, 1991, 2nd ed., pp. 95–96.] [http://www.brainwashed.com/coil/writings/magazine.html A Coil Magazine] , on line, accessed 11-III-2007.] [ [http://www.ooz.net/~wax/john_far.txt.html John Fare ] ]The legend was published by Tim Craig in "
Studio International " in 1972 ["Studio International" 184, November 1972 (#949), pp. 160–161.] ; this version of the legend was reprinted in afanzine made in collaboration with the band Coil in 1987.Fare has been mentioned in connection with
body art , [Schröder, Johannes Lothar. Identität - Überschreitung - Verwandlung. Happenings, Aktionen und Performances von bildenden Künstlern. Münster: LIT, 1990] industrial culture, [ [http://www.birgitrichard.de/texte/e_indust.htm Jugend Kultur Archiv - The Industrial Culture scene ] ] and the practices ofRudolf Schwarzkogler andBob Flanagan , and, like other performance artists, has been seen as a successor of theChristian martyrs . [ [http://www.genderforum.uni-koeln.de/anybody/gutenberg.html AnyBody's Concerns 6(2003) ] ] He has also been mentioned in the "Guardian" in connection with the German artistGregor Schneider [ [http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1309985,00.html Houses of horror] , Gordon Burn, "The Guardian",September 22 ,2004 , accessed on line 11-III-2007.]Fare was impersonated during a
Nocturnal Emissions [ [http://www.earthlydelights.co.uk/discog/johnfare.htm Nocturnal Emissions Discography ] ] concert in London in 1997. Writing about the event, a British music journalist recounts: "Fare cuts an eccentric figure. He wears trousers made from zips and has a diagram of a brain tattooed onto his shaven scalp. The performance artist placed his left hand on a chopping board with the fingers spread. Fare’s assistant, Jill Orr, is partially sighted and she slammed an axe between her boyfriend’s pinkies with increasing speed. Eventually the axe severed Fare’s little finger. This was the end of the performance art element within the evening’s entertainment". [Stewart Home in "D>Tour" magazine, December 1997. Cf. [http://www.earthlydelights.co.uk/archive/london2.html] .]References
External links
* [http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0404663/johnfare.pdf John Fare at Rokko's Adventures]
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