"The way people regard my work is not my problem, it's their problem. I don't paint for others, I paint for myself."
[Francis Bacon – In conversation with Michel Archimbaud]

Don't Feed the Artist is an exhibition, a performance and an installation.
In this project, Mazen Kerbaj creates live, and in real-time, a new exhibition of drawings and paintings, while being himself the exhibition.
For a predefined period of time (usually seven to ten days), Kerbaj retreats – and exposes himself – in a glass cage where he relentlessly draws and paints new works. Each finished work is then hanged on the cage’s glass walls, face to the public, allowing the visitors-spectators to watch the artist’s creative process and to follow the progression of the exhibition. Little by little, all the walls are covered and the artist literally vanishes behind his work. On the last day, the exhibition is finally ready to begin… and to end, in a vernissage/finissage event.

What is the artist's status in society?
Is he a semigod, a parasite, an exhibitionist or a circus freak?
What is the nature of his relationship with the spectators?
Does a work of art require a spectator to exist?
Which relationship does the artist maintain with his own work?
Can he really vanish behind the latter? 
Where do the ideas come from?
Does inspiration really exist?  
Can we ever create something new?
Can we ever repeat ourselves? 
What is more important, the process or the outcome? 
Is the creation of a work of art, a work of art itself? 
During an exhibition, who is exposed more: the artist or the work?
And what are they exposed to?
When and where does an exhibition start?  
And when does it end?

Failing to answer all these questions, Mazen Kerbaj attempts at least to ask them in Don’t Feed the Artist.