And if it were true…

The French artist Cyril Barrand, has developed a practice which makes use of myths and legends, but also of elements taken from everyday reality. Interested by the project of the Foundation Galeria na Prowincji, which for more than ten years has been striving to find funds to restore the old Lublin theatre and transform it into an international art centre, the artist selected different real or legendary elements linked to the building and its context (the old town) in order to create a special universe suspended between the imaginary and reality.

The title An angel pisses, an imp passes above and beyond the two stories told in the works, speaks in a metaphorical way about the theatre’s situation. The popular expression “an angle passes” refers to a moment of silence when nothing happens. By its mutation into the phrase “an angel pisses” (little eyes against the evil eye), the artist’s action assumes its rightful place, reintroducing life and hope (through the apparition of the head of garlic). The other part of the title “an imp passes” (in French “un nain passe”) makes a phonetic reference to the word “impasse”. “An angel pisses, an imp passes”, thus provides a subtle translation of the theatre’s situation unceasingly passing between action and immobility.

The different elements of this project (pictures, sculpture, inscriptions) perpetuate the famous legend of the executioner’s stone nicknamed “the stone of misfortune”. This stone to which legend and superstition attribute ill-omened powers is to be found at the corner of the Old Theatre’s street. Taking the part of the legendary and the supernatural, the artist stigmatises the stone as a possible cause of the theatre’s difficult history. With the creation of a new event (the appearance of a head of garlic in salt on the executioner’s stone), the tragic character of the legend is overturned with humour. In fact, through the evocation of several protective elements (the dwarf, the angel, the head of garlic, the stone of salt), the negative energy of the executioner’s stone and through it the ill-starred fate that weighs (might weigh) over the theatre are countered.

The placing of gold leaf inscriptions on the executioner’s stone and on the theatre wall return an air of refinement and thus of value to places regarded as “cursed”, stricken by history and/or legend.
The poetic inscription The executioner has a heart of stone softens and de-dramatises the stone and the associations it evokes.
See everything, say everything, hear everything is the inversion of the Japanese proverb of the three monkeys who teach that one should see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Placed on the theatre like a new slogan, the inscription questions the potential of the place and its future as a cultural centre.

With An angel pisses, an imp passes, Cyril Barrand, in the mode of legend and irony, develops a poetic and positive vision which lightens, at the same time as it profoundly interrogates, a complex situation tinged with nostalgia and fatalism.

Lucie CAVEY, Curator, May 2003
in catalogue An angel pisses, an imp passes