Say Whaaaa Wednesday... The Art of Insanity

The Museum of Modern Art in Paris is not unaccustomed to exhibiting unusual works of art. However trivial, and incomprehensible, some of its exhibits may be I believe it is essential for the public to be exposed to all of the unique and ambiguous pieces that emerge in order for art to maintain its continual evolution.

So how does a screed of words carved into bedroom floorboards by a schizophrenic French farmer sound to you? In 2005 Paris’s MoMA showcased the 24ft by 9ft oak floorboards titled “Plancher de Jeannot” (Jeannot’s Floorboards) and created an unprecedented stir. The carvings consisted of 80 lines of text, in capital letters, no punctuation and referenced Hitler, several Popes and a satanic machine that the farmer (his surname and village where the floorboards were discovered have been kept secret) believed to control humans.

Jeannot, born in 1939, has an unfortunate background; his father committed suicide at a young age and shortly after Jeannot was institutionalized to a mental hospital (it took a team of 30 gendarmes to get him out of his home). His mothered died in 1971 which cause Jeannot to return to his village to assist in the burial. He insisted his mother be buried under the stairs in his mother’s house which was, oddly enough, carried through. It was then Jeannot moved his bed into the dinning room, next to the stairs, and began to furiously carve into the floor:
'Religion has invented machines for commanding the brain of people and animals and with an invention for seeing our vision through the retina uses us to do ill (...) the church after using Hitler to kill the Jews wanted to invent a trial to take power.’ It was only 7 months after his mother died that Jeannot starved to death

So can madness be artistic? The story is incredibly intriguing but I cannot help but wonder whether this type of exhibit is trying to liberate the unfortunate stigmatization associated with mental illness or exploiting it? The piece is strikingly beautiful; its sheer size is enough to make one’s mind wander into its own reverie of psychosis. However, the scripture is anything but romanticly insane in that artistic type of way, yah dig?