France goes to war.
The L.A.C. near Sigean is a two storey former warehouse now an art gallery. On the top storey is a permanent collection including Mondrian and Van de Velde. Occupying half the upstairs are the sea shore paintings of the building’s converter: the late Piet Moget. Downstairs, under the direction of Piet’s daughter Layla the Lieu d’Art Contemporain hosts middle to top ranking artists from around the world.
I was there for a vernissage — the day when the painters of the nineteenth century would give their oils a last, delicate coat of varnish before the public were let in. In the car park the usual Corbières wind shrieked and tore at finely dressed members of the provincial art establishment: teachers, curators, grant givers, gallery owners. Amongst them chaps with very special spectacle frames (small white round for example) and girl-women in heavy boots — artists.
I had ordered a suit by Internet, casual with the measurements. That very day I had bought brown suede Chelsea boots which were meant to close the gap where my ankles showed. Now I found that when I stood up the trouser bottoms snagged on the little loop at the back of the boots.
I had not been to the gallery for fifteen years. I expected to see ghosts but there were none. Turning awkwardly round the place on my boots I discovered a painting by Roger Bissiere, my father’s tutor in the nineteen thirties.
We all waited hungrily, there was nothing more to look at. I got nothing from the two artists represented. Then I saw a little clutch of people moving slowly along the walls, stopping at each painting. I wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said but by his sash I recognised the Mayor then Layla then a tubby chap with a beard and a woman in an attractive cloak like coat. We had been waiting for their speeches.
We assembled at that special distance designed to expose the maximum of people to the speakers. I suppose I was in the second rank, about five metres away. Layla called out for the artists to join the speakers, there was an undertone of humour as tho they were being wayward in not being present already.
A man with a cane edged forward, it must be he who has done those overblown mixtures of surrealism and outsider art, I thought. And then the painter of great vacant spaces and sewer of embroidery on dirty tee shirts edged into the speakers ranks. The lady with the cloak like coat I couldn’t yet place but when Layla introduced her as the owner of the most substantial private gallery in Perpignan, Lligat, I mentally made obeisance.
The speeches sounded as tho they would follow their usual course, Layla remembered all the helpers, the Mayor was gracious about contemporary art in his village and then, with the sub-prefect (the tubby man with the beard) came the shock. He wore a tweed jacket and flannel trousers (relaxed for the vernissage). He held some small papers or cards in his fists, occasionally he shuffled and glanced at them. He had a strong, pleasing voice and what he said was not exceptional until, at the end, after he had quoted Duchamp about chance, his voice rose,
“… chance; we have the chance to be safe here only three hours by aeroplane from Kiev where children are suffering under bombardment…”
I was shocked, I wanted to ask about the children in Yemen or even about the Russian children who had lost their fathers but I didn’t get it out in time. The moment passed and left only the dull recognition that if the State had instructed its representatives to underwrite a bellicose position at every speech making opportunity then we were well down the road to boots on the ground.
