30/08/2022
"In his last exhibition, Christian Barré made a number of rather unusual objects: an ergonomic piggy bank that could be used by beggars, a squeegee scraper with an advertisement, billboards for a sandwich man. Their particularity came not so much from their shape, nor their design, but from the fact that they were operational.
At the opening, "performers" demonstrated with obvious skill the usefulness of the object. In reality, these performances were carried out by "real actors", invited and paid to do what they usually do on the sidewalks or at the intersection of the streets. Is it a joke of bad taste to disguise human misery in this way as a show for art lovers, or is it a political gesture to stage a reality that we can no longer see? "
Exchange, Gaston Saint-Pierre 1999
