Yes, the event was transformed. A simple volksfees, commemorating the centenary of a Paul Kruger fort commanding the north-eastern approaches to Pretoria, became fraught with anticipation. The artist was coming.

He, Kendell Geers, had promised or threatened ? depending on your side of the ideological fence ? to take over Fort Klapperkop, lock himself in and raise the flag of art. The plan, named Guilty, was enough to elicit letters of outrage from the Afrikaner far right.

A programme visually linking the word "guilty" with the Germans raised the hackles of the German embassy, who spoke to the French, a sponsor. The French government, acting through the French Institute, swiftly backpedalled. It withdrew its sponsorship, which amounted to printing programmes. A media release asked that the French should not be associated with the event.

It insisted that artistic significance was to be supported but not when the work might provoke social controversy. Zola, thou shouldst be living at this hour…

A diplomatic incident was averted. The Pretoria city council withdrew permission for Geers to use the fort. Little of this was apparent at Fort Klapperkop, with its commanding view of the city, its curved stone walls squatting into the ground, the blare of loudspeakers exhorting everyone to have a good time, and a large media contingent outnumbering the all-white cultural celebrators.

Among the crowd were two men, one a large man with tattoos, leather and chains and mirrored dark glasses. He had neo-Nazi written all over his manner, confirmed by a swastika badge on his chest. He also looked eerily like someone who had never recovered from exposure to the camp band the Village People.

The other, who did the talking, wore an Austrian hunter's cap and, like his friend, who moved with the ponderous certainty of a tyrannosaurus, had a swastika badge on his chest. The big guy said he was there for the sun, then asked when Geers was coming. The cameras clicked; his poodle detached himself and shook his finger at the cameras. "No more pictures," he said in the exaggeratedly deep voice of the insecure male.

Geers did not arrive. We looked at the sky, wondering if he would parasail into the fort. The sweeping sunlit approaches to Pretoria bore no signs of an artistic invasion, nor of artists dressed in drag, there to support Kendell.

Finally a car drew up. The photographers, watching a well-groomed man in soldier's uniform shooting blanks from ancient guns, turned. A figure in a tight-fitting dress and improbable hat and platform shoes stepped cautiously out of the car. Was she, perhaps, an authentic relic of Afrikaner haute culture of the fifties?

The loudspeaker thanked the media for showing an interest in the proceedings. Along the winding path, the figure came closer, delicate complexion shielded from the sun. The paleness of the cheeks was highlighted by dark mauve lipstick. As the figure came down, it was clear that this was part of the artistic contingency coming to lend support to the absent chief actor. It was also clear that it was a he, the artist Steven Cohen.

He made his way, teeteringly, towards the fort. The Village People heavy stood arms akimbo, guarding the entrance from pollution. Beauty approached the beast and got no further. No, he could not go in. Why didn't he go away and celebrate his own culture, the neo-Nazi and his poodle suggested. The poodle gently but firmly escorted Steven back to the car. The heavy followed: they spoke in German and raised hands in Nazi salutes.

Or perhaps they were simply selectively airing their armpits. There was no altercation to speak of. Cohen was wistful, though what he would have done in the fort, except outrage sensibilities, was mysterious. Clomping on platform shoes on uneven stone was no fun for a girl.

The attenders at the festival dispersed towards the canteen where you could buy rifles, uniforms and secondhand books. A knot of men pondered whether the drag figure was a man or a woman.

The neo-Nazis found some shade, drank Coke and glared at the media people, who found shade and drank Coke and waited for the neo-Nazis to break into YMCA. It was a hot day. Nothing happened, Geers did not arrive. But wherever he was, his absence seized the focus of the event, transformed it.

As in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, absence gave a character power and centrality. And leaving Fort Klapperkop had the impact of entering the busy streets of the real world after an elaborate but peripheral performance.