‘Cannibal’ performance artist to critics: Bite me

The crazed performance artist who sliced flesh from the bodies of two assistants before frying it in a pan and feeding it to them has hit back at critics of his “poetic” art.

Arturs Bērziņš, 33, was slammed and attracted a flurry of complaints from disgusted viewers that said he crossed the line and branded him a “freak.”

He called his critics “trivial” and said the display of cannibalism was the “strong punch people needed to trigger self-reflection.”

He said: “We live in a time where we’re overloaded by information. There’s nothing that surprises us anymore. So the impulse has to be even stronger to reach somebody’s mind. Cannibalism in our minds is connected with violence – horror movies, murders etc.”

Bērziņš, who loves to toe the line on what is and isn’t acceptable, said there was nothing wrong with people eating their own cooked flesh – in the past, he has compared it to biting your fingernails.

He said: “What we do daily with ourselves is much worse than any performance. The viewer has to face the genuineness. Genuine pain. Genuine action that has stepped out of abstraction into a real world.”

The 33-year-old artist staged the performance – named “Eschatology” – on March 6th at a posh museum in capital Riga.

Stomach-churning footage shows Bērziņš pulling on a white forensic suit before approaching two assistants with a scalpel.

He then cuts a chunk of meat from each of their backs without anesthetic and frying it in a large black pan.

He then forces each assistant to stand before dropping the fried flesh into their mouths.

Authorities in the Baltic country are said to be probing the show — but bemused cops can’t find anything illegal about it.

Bērziņš said: “My parents praised my stunt for being radical and my friends called it powerful – but they do have similar ideals to me.”

“The viewer needs to be intellectually prepared for such an experience as this. Otherwise, they’ll simply claim I have a screw loose and return to the infernal trance of everyday life.”

The show explores what would happen to humanity if global food stocks ran out.

It suggests that people will resort to cannibalism in the face of extinction.