The Power of Theatrical Madness

Jan Fabre & Robert Mapplethorpe

Hardcover | First Edition: 3000 copies | Unpaginated

Published by Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1996.

Mapplethorpe's photographs for Jan Fabre's internationally performed Power of Theatrical Madness were taken during his 1985 stay in Antwerp, Belgium. The photos are interspersed in this volume with Fabre's working drawings for the performance. Approaching similar themes through different mediums, "Mapplethorpe and Fabre metamorphose their subject matter, photographed or staged, so that the body is `compromised' in a sublimation of itself, superheated and transmuted into a vehicle for the fever of pleasure and the joy of being." - Celant.

Features an introduction by Kathy Acker and essay by Germano Celant.