Le Plancher de Jeannot

A screed of words carved by a schizophrenic French farmer into his bedroom floor has become Paris's most controversial new art exhibit.

"People are terribly disturbed by it. Some feel it should not be on public view," said Claudine Hermabessiere, from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France where the Plancher de Jeannot (Jeannot's Floorboards) is now on display. The carving - 80 lines of text - contains references to Hitler, to Popes and to an infernal machine that controls humans. "The work raises painful questions about whether madness can be artistic. The people who are most upset are those who know Jeannot's story."

Jeannot lived with his mother and his sister Paule in a Béarn village. In 1966, Jeannot opened fire on his neighbours' dining room, after voices had told him to kill them.

In 1971, a vet found his mother dead in her armchair. Jeannot insisted she should be buried under the kitchen stairs, with a ball of wool, knitting needles and a bottle of wine.

Jeannot moved his bed to the dining room, next to the stairs, and began carving the oak 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 (...) we Jean Paule are innocent we have neither killed nor destroyed nor hurt others it's religion that uses electronic machines to command the brain.'

Seven months after his mother was buried under the stairs, Jeannot starved to death.

Although art critics want the work to continue to be seen by a wide audience, Benoit Gallet, a spokesman for the company which owns Jeannot's Floorboards, said: "We intend to offer the work to the Hopital Sainte Anne, a psychiatric centre in Paris. We feel that placing the work in that environment will help fight against the stigmatisation of mental illness as people will want to go in and see it."

Via Parisist < The Observer.