This was not staged by me; it arose, so to speak, from those three weeks of ‘lying’ on my part. They wanted to erase, to sublimate, that deceitful performance, and together they handed the crutches to the director of the hospital. The artist had taken on his sense of responsibility as an individual. Ordinary people—who normally never engage with art, never visit museums (...)—after three weeks, became sensitive to this kind of action, began to participate, and even went beyond that: they took over the artist’s power over the act and carried out something I myself would never do. I would never hand crutches to the director of a hospital—that’s already diplomacy, which I would call a lie (in the sense of ‘artifice’, JL). So you can see the process changing: from the lone person on crutches, doing something that is picked up by nine Dutch people, who hand over a crutch with all their heart and with tears in their eyes to the hospital director. And they still talk about it. And so do I. This is where you see that the artist’s action plays a very healthy role in society!"

This example clearly shows that the participants in the project are engaged in the formation of images and symbols whose form is their own concern—not something ‘demonstrated’ by the artist. In a certain sense, the artist is ‘put on the spot’ by the participants: he is no longer the sole and sanctified ‘shaper’ of the artwork. Instead, a mutual dependence arises: none of this would have happened if Van den Berghe had not brought the crutches, and had not, in the eyes of his fellow travelers, used them so deceptively. Through this provocation, he elicited the action.

Translated from the Dutch text: 1992, Roland Van den Berghe. Abatur – het in zichzelf besloten oog, by Jean Leering, in Arte Factum, Tijdschrift voor hedendaagse kunst in Europa, June-July-August edition; Antwerp.