Bread Bandits

Action #2

Washington Post article 

Laying Down His Loaf:

The Bread Bandit Comes to Dupont Circle 

Who is that masked man?

Chances are, if he's seen around town with 30 loaves of Wonder Bread under his arm, he's the Panino Bandito, or Bread Bandit.
On Saturday at approximately 2 p.m., the Bandito (no names, please -- he prefers this mysterious moniker) and his merry men will lay down hundreds of slices of plain white bread around the perimeter of the Dupont Circle fountain. The bread will remain there, says the Bandit, "for the pigeons, or the rats or anyone else who wants to eat bread off a fountain."

Think this bizarre action is an outreach effort to feed the homeless? A protest against agribusiness? A statement about the destruction of the rain forests by some giant conglomerate? Think again. It's Art, with a  capital A, and the medium is as important as the message.
"Before anything, I came up with the idea that I wanted to make bread as sculpture," P.B. explained recently. (After a news release containing one very stale slice of bread arrived at the offices of The Washington Post -- sans phone number -- the Bread Bandit was tracked down through his Internet address at http://members.aol.com/mb29/breadbandits.html. He promptly responded to a reporter's request for an anonymous telephone interview.)

"In the beginning, art started out as `The object is important,' " says the self-described guerrilla artist, offering his condensed version of art history. "Then in the '60s, the action became important. But I want to go further and become a phenomenon." 

You mean like Bauhaus, Fluxus or Chicago's Hairy Who art movement?

"Well, more like the phenomenon of Madonna," responds the Bandit, referring to the pop star, not the Virgin Mary. "She doesn't even have to do anything anymore to get publicity."

So what's the urgent message for which he so desperately craves attention?

Aha! There had to be some do-gooder, granola-crunching ulterior
motive behind this hippie-dippy happening.

"No, the issues are really secondary," he insists. "In a sense, what  we're doing is the reverse of the Dadaists, who took objects of value and reduced them to insignificance. We're taking something of little nutritional value and making it worthwhile." A purist at heart, he says,  "It's art for art's sake. I don't think it even has to have meaning to be effective." His goals are far simpler. "One thing I wanted to do is just build a sculpture in Washington. I want to get people to be aware of art, art that would push the boundaries of what art can be."

With this tiny first action, the Panino Bandito realizes he has a long  way to go before becoming the talk of the town. "Oh, I've got plenty  more of these planned," he promises. "For the next one I'm going to get a permit to do it on the Mall. And I would love to go to the next Arlington Arts Center opening and teach them what real art is."
 
 

[Above article is an excerpt of the Arts Beat column for July 3, 1997.]