Dear Friends,

Art is as difficult as national defence.

The art industry is as important as the car industry. People commonly say, ‘my car is my freedom’, but I think the word freedom is more suited to art than to a car.

‘Art is freedom’.

Freedom is a tremendous feeling.

But freedom without responsibility is anti-freedom.

Michelangelo Pistoletto says that the higher the position you have in society and the more freedom, the more responsibility one has to bear. So if an artist aspires to the highest form of freedom, he must also bear its responsibility.

So, that’s the way it is.

Conclusion: art is damned difficult.

And here and there this causes upset. Such as at the Octobre en Normandie festival in France: the extremely honourable director Philippe Danel was sacked for having the audacity to put No Comment on the bill. It is not even a form of censorship, simply an expression of stupidity by several members of the festival’s board of directors, who had not even seen the performance. All things of value are defenceless. There is a remedy for everything but stupidity. But the man has in the meantime been humiliated and has lost his job.

The only thing we can do is to make the new production, Isabella’s room – which opens at the Avignon Festival on 9th July 2004 – sharper, better and more interesting. We wish Philippe Danel an intensive and creative 2004 and hope that all those producers, curators, artistic directors and so on who stick their necks out for this ‘difficult’ art have plenty of inspiration and energy so they can go even further in their views on art and its function. Apart from this, and better late than never, we wish all the others and above all you, the reader of this newsletter, a marvellous time and don’t let yourself be browbeaten by any sort of dictator.

And don’t forget:

We create art and enjoyment for you and you alone.

JL