Artist's plan to kick curry through streets of Bedford cancelled due to crowd safety fears

The prospect of a former bricklayer kicking a carton of curry through a town centre in the name of art – at a cost of thousands of pounds – has proved too hot to handle.

After several days of vilification from opponents of conceptualism, the performance artist Andre Stitt was told yesterday that his work, entitled White Trash Curry Kick, must be scrapped.

Stitt had planned to stride down Bedford High Street in silver platform boots kicking a curry carton in a performance intended to bring attention to the alcohol-fuelled antics of young people in Bedford on a typical Saturday night.

The performance would have been on 29 March as part of a four-month programme organised by Bedford Creative Arts (BCA). But the organisers, who have raised £12,000 of taxpayers' money for a series of Stitt works, called it off because of crowd safety fears.

Sarah Blomfield, the director of Bedford Creative Arts, said: "I think people will be disappointed. We were not anticipating the huge interest by the media and the publicity it would create. We do not have the resources to marshal the event. The event would involve an awful lot of people and it really would not be safe."

But the BCA was still claiming victory, saying the artist had succeeded in gaining an audience for the concept, if not the reality. Ms Blomfield said: "It has created a huge amount of publicity so it achieved what it set out to do ... that it is not going ahead is not important."

Organisers had said the artist would demostrate "personal-societal dysfunction" but vociferous critics disagreed, saying it was a waste of money.

Stitt, 44, was paid £2,500 from Commissions East, £2,500 from the Arts Council of Wales and £7,200 from East of England Arts for the public art events. The White Trash Curry Kick was one of nine events planned for the people of Bedford between now and May.

The first was last week, with the Belfast artist carrying a builder's hod loaded with bricks while dressed in an Italian football shirt. Others will include him walking around Bedford with placards bearing messages of love; dropping three red roses from a light aircraft in memory of Glenn Miller; and taking stuffed animals from Bedford Museum to a forest.