The Belgian artist Jan Fabre caused ructions recently when he announced his plans to include mainly Belgian artists in the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, a Greek summer arts festival. Fabre was invited by Greece’s ministry of culture to organise editions from 2016 to 2019, and duly announced that he wanted to pay “tribute to Belgium… because this small country is my home and my sanctuary”. But Greek artists, angry about being ousted by their Belgian counterparts, signed a petition demanding the resignations of Fabre and Aristides Baltas, the country’s culture minister. Fabre duly threw in the towel, saying: “This does not seem possible in Greece. I don’t want to work in a hostile artistic environment, to which I came with an open mind and heart.” The Greek theatre director Vangelis Theodoropoulos has since stepped up, making his compatriots very happy in the process.
