Just One Question

We asked norman Frisch, program directon at the Hopking Center:Is this man an artist or a freak?

Michael Wilson, the Illustrated Man and Torture King, who performed with the Coney Island Circus Sideshow at the Hopkins Center last fell, is an archetypic artist. Practices which today we term "art" especially in the realm of theatrical performance and performance art—derive from ancient shainanic or magical rites.

Ritual tattooing and body painting, piercing, self-mutilation, trance, the use of masks these are all basic elements of traditional magical performance. The shaman, inscribed with mystical symbols, surfaces in many forms of popular entertainment including the sideshow as the vaudeville magician, the snake charmer, the fakir lying on a bed of nails. Sometimes the shaman appears as a high priest or witch, whose body is painted or tattooed to reflect the holy (or unholy) patterns of the sacred universe. As a result he is transported into a trance state or rendered impervious to harm, like Michael Wilson. The tattoos that cover Michael's body are religious symbols, exquisitely rendered. And what is the act he performs, six times a day? He can hammer nails through his tongue without pain and without spilling blood—a miracle!

The Sideshow, steeped in carnival tradition, is historically linked to religious festivals like Easter and Lent which celebrate divine intervention on Earth. This is the function of all art the manifestation and celebration of the unseen, the unknown, the unspeakable.