in 2022, it confronts the  following political rule: finger-pointing at one’s adversary comes to designating one’s successor. Emmanuel Macron shows a troubling blind spot, historical and ideological, because he seems to ignore that, at this game one always loses. He believes he is erecting a dam but he is building a bridge.>

What I take away from this quote is that singling out a political enemy – in the context of France’s Fifth Republic  is – to create a binary situation in which the day you lose will be the day the other side wins! Just like in America. Democrats-Republicans, the constant  antagonism and paralysis of the political process, for, at the end, blinded by a lack of dialogue, they risk falling in the same sinkhole.

07-02-2024

If only the new rulings issued by the Supreme Court yesterday were meant to break up the permanent freeze of American politics, they would not be so unacceptable. Unfortunately, they are meant to secure the longterm dictatorship of capital over the people who create wealth but do not benefit from it. Their work is appropriated. The compensations are inadequate to secure livable conditions of employment, wage, health, environment and, even, entertainment.

This was July 1st. Then there will be July 4th. Will everybody dance in the streets? Or, will the first gunshots of a people’s insurrection mimic the raucous of fireworks?

—–

The situation is that dire, I would say. And developing simultaneously in France and other European countries as well. July 14th is coming and there too, gunshots and fireworks may play the same music.

Both, France’s and America’s predicament  share one same root cause, best embodied in the US Supreme Court ruling, not that many years ago, that MONEY IS SPEECH. It was not pretty before but now, overtly, money has corrupted  some of the Justices here. In France, it is the President himself who, factually, rules in favor of the 1%. Fascism, if in power, will not change any of that. It is financed by big business!

07-4-2024

This day, fireworks are considered by many to be too polluting and hazardous!

But take heart! Squadrons  of drones can be programed for aerial light ballets instead.

Honor and decency may be lost. But not the night skies of July 4th.

And there is sill gaslighting to keep our night streets bright and safe!

07-05-2024

Gwylene was reading an article about the 19th century history of Paraguay. It is unique in that a dynasty of three presidents, from the early 19th on, enforced policies against accumulated wealth, in money, industry or farmland. They did it with authoritarian laws

breaking up money hoarding, thus preventing economic disparities. Dictatorial robinhood is a rare occurrence!  A case for Graeber and Winetraut! They may actually mention it in their latest book. Just as they mention Kondrianok, the Wendat Indigenous American who did not understand, even the concept of private property. Certainly, in a social arrangement where liberty is the cornerstone for peaceful community living, private property can only be a disturbing factor which shifts the focus from liberty to equality, as ‘the Dawn of Everything’ studies at length … from Kondrianok to JJ Rousseau.

07-10-2024

The last few days have been very trying for a Frenchman in America like me. My interest in the social implications and consequences of politics, here and there, has been challenged to a point of numbness and emotional exhaustion. Altogether a period of anxiety and exhilaration which, after all, ends well for the forces I defend: the left wing of French politics. The American landscape is of a different nature. Scorched land here is more like brutal flooding there, which leaves mud (not silt) across the land. What a mess! The flash rise of the New Popular Front has prevented a fascist catastrophe and a binary political field. It is muddy, yes; slippery, yes; but there are three terms to the French equation. It may make it quasi impossible to solve but saves us from absurdity and doom.

An other phenomenon has emerged from the muddy French field: the rise of a cadre of young women politicians who, on the left, defined the terms of the confrontation. I can name a few, who may represent the future of France: Marine Tondelier, Julia Cagé, Clémentine Autain, Aurelie Trouvé, Sandrine Rousseau, Clémence Guetté,  Sophie Binet (Union leader). What to say? They do not seem to be driven by ego and/or fear. The terms of the programs they defend are socially directed, intersectional, internationalist, ecology-centered and they don’t mind being friendly. They even may bring appeasement to the exercise of power.

Should I venture a “I can’t wait to see one of them, accepted by Macron, to be his next prime minister!” Presumptuousness will get me nowhere with the most presumptuous of them all!  But all these damaged, hurt and hurtful male figures, plastered over every minute of our existence … they precisely ruin every minute of our existence! They are basket cases of self-aggrandizement and/or self-pity! This ego duo dooms all hope for peace here, there and everywhere.

—–

An article just appeared in the local Post&Courier newspaper, about the 40th anniversary of Fast&French – Gaulart&Maliclet, French Café.

What I draw from it is that, forty years later, at last, one journalist has understood and recognized the active role of Art in the success of the café. As a matter of fact, it took Gwylène and I a few years to sort out the place of art in our determination. But as soon as we realized that, had the café project not been an art project, it would never have survived the routine of business and the overall fatigue, we re-ignited our art output and have not stoped ever since. Also, this realization directed our focus on ‘community’ as the source and the recipient of our creative work. Only now, more than ten years after we left Fast&French, have we launched into more autonomous art projects. This is ironic since TINYisPOWERFUL is entirely dedicated to strengthening the agency of community in today’s parcellized-yet-global world. The gaping space between parcellization and globalization needs to be infilled with conversations and actions around serving and belonging. Because we each are someone’s neighbor, someone’s Other.

07-13-2024

Anxiety is rising. The NFP (New Popular Front) does not seem to be coming out with the name of a prime minister. I believe they are waiting to see the turnout for this Saturday’s nation-wide march. They need to know the kind of following they can count on. Or don’t they? It will take so much determination to resist the forces of supremacy that they might as well start being bold right now!

I was hesitant about using the word ‘supremacy’. I was tempted to use ‘capital’ instead. It is an old problem of mine. In my mind, capital tastes too much of leftwing politics. I have been accused of being a marxism too many times, in this country! And I do not need to take the time to dispel the misunderstanding. Too much ignorance here. Too much propaganda. Too much ill will. Supremacy, on the other hand, implies capital for sure, and colonial … This covers much of what I oppose.

—–

Lately, I have been spending much more time in the studio. Despite the heat.

Right after I finished the Feathered Fish I jumped right into the urban fish farm. And the ideas are coming out loud and clear. The momentum is taking hold, I hope. It may be encouraged by the feedback I got from Abriel, our present artist in residence who, yesterday, as I was inquiring on the progress of her art work, sounded very encouraging. Not only had she overcome some technical hurdles but she was already planning on the next step. In this case, the next object to be built – with chickenwire and paper-maché … Which is more difficult than one might imagine. Her determination encouraged me! I believe this is exactly the kind of social mechanism so many young French militants talk about when they analyze why folks got involved in the legislative campaign in such numbers. Only a commonality of efforts and goals will synergize our societies, brainwashed and exhausted. As they say, the cumulative effect of multiple efforts in empathy and civility makes for waves of solidarity, as powerful as any inflammed speech by any political leader. After all, TINY + TINY + TINY + TINY … IS POWERFUL!

07-14-2024

French Revolution Day! And America has a new martyr!

Trump’s right ear grazed by the bullet of a 20 year old republican. One dead and two wounded in the public attending a rally north of Pittsburgh.

Of course it’s Biden’s fault. A plot to kill the future president two days before the Convention that will crown him! Of course it is sealing the election’s results. Of course the martyr will win big and wide. A new day for America.

A day to watch what you are saying though. The next regime will be based on retribution. This substitute for justice will make so many victims that Bolsonaro will look like an outperformed clown. In human terms and environmental terms as well. Dreadful.

—–

I was telling Gwylène that if there is a political lesson to learn from this stretch of the twenty first century it is: do not let one person, any person, ever make decisions for others. Whether the elected president of a country or the designated representative of a work team in the TINYest of Businesses, we are living the end of representative democracy. One way or an other, collective intelligence(s) must figure out participation as the modus operendi of this challenged world of ours.

By the way, participation is one of the words banished from the vocabulary of most politicians these days. For good reasons. It would signify the end of their individualistic

dictatorship, which is, beside power, their most rewarding source of income and loot. Participation, at least for a while, would have to mean transparency. This is bad for corruption. It also means collaboration, empathy, love of others that is. This is bad for modesty. Then it means sharing. This is bad for capitalism. Altogether, the immorality of the ruling class is so deep seated that … violence may ensue. Privileges accumulated under the reign of global colonialism, at home or abroad, never fall off like ripe fruit from a tree. The fruit from the tree of privileges is poisonous. It makes its consumers blind, deaf and … dumb.

07-16-2024

I was just asked to make a short, written evaluation of my present studio work. For the Donnelly Foundation to be made aware of TINYisPOWERFUL’s present developments. This is an exercise we, as a collective of autonomous members with a sense of shared purpose, should practice very regularly. I asked Rayn if it could be integrated into the Organizational Chart, if it was not already, in one form or an other.

Here is my evaluation, actually more like an update on the state of ‘a Tale for Reparations’:

I started on ‘a Tale of Charleston’ after covid.  A very ambitious, long-term installation, it has  changed focus and is now named ‘a Tale for Reparations’. With this metamorphosis – which reflects more socio-political changes in Charleston – the installation has become more and more suggestive and poetic, I believe. In that it  counts on natural, tasty elements like fruit, vegetables, fishes and such … to suggest an activated future, dreams beyond our daily reality, rather than on more cerebral, archetypal constructions and architectures, to help seize said daily reality. An artistic reversal? Not for sure. Maybe the expansion of my visual vocabulary, adapting to the needs of the day: more sensibility and palpability to alleviate the oppressive violence of our times.

I credit TINYisPOWERFUL for this turn in my work. The sustained reality of the collective and its demands for reciprocity and accountability have forced me into more agency and experimentation.

Although the ‘Tale’ was started as a full collaboration with two members of the collective, I had to return to my historic partner, Gwylène, once they had shown little interest in my elucubrations! This actually renewed my/our visual vocabulary, making the Jemagwaga entity less predictible! It  prolonged and strengthened our 40 years of common creations!

07-17-2024

The Mirror Strategy preached and practiced by Steve Bannon, who is presently in jail, consists in picking the issues proved to be most successful for democrats, appropriating them and serving them to the public as great republican wins and yet an other disastrous democrats’ rout! I suspect Trump used this process against Biden at their not-a-debate on CNN the other day. Whoever is not ready for so much public intellectual violence can only be startled and left speechless. I wish democrats would find a counter move! At least ask the journalist(s) in charge to do their primary job of fact-checking. For sure, the basic fact that the CNN journalists did not at all factcheck, abstained from doing their job, should disqualify the whole show as a put on. A fake. Unfortunately

this refusal to check facts can be analyzed as part of the mirror strategy as well, leaving the interviewee(s) with only the worst option: defend themselves from something they know they actually defend! Impossible situation.

07-20-2024

Yesterday Abriel came to show her work of two weeks. Obviously she is having a difficult time with the whole process of art making and the deep reasons why she is clearly attracted by it. She is, in a way, catching the art train as it moves by her and as she really wants to hop in and succeed. We had a good conversation. She is eager. We will see her next week.

—–

This morning Mediapart handed me the proof that there is a global conspiracy of the world billionaires to establish predator capitalism as the sole system of governance on the planet. In America we know about the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. We also know about Elon Musk’s plan to give $45 millions a month to republicans and guarantee the success of a right-wing program takeover. In France now, besides the efforts of Bolloré to buy out the right wing French Press and TV channels, there is this catholic billionaire – Sterin – who has been pouring Euros in Project Pericles. It consists in establishing a budget to educate and elect mayors and local leaders in right wing values and the administration of their local constituencies. Other examples could be found in Poland, Hungary, the Netherland, of course Russia …

Yet, my reading of this, even if the Sterin’s of the world participate in a deliberate push, [by a hypothetical], ‘global capital’ to become the sole path to the future of the planet – Thatcher’s own TINA [There Is No Alternative] – my reading is still that there will be no permanent return on the victories of the progressive left. It will be bloody. It will mean the replacement of the political class. Because representative democracy – the political format within which most social reforms have taken place in the last two centuries or so – is doomed. Only a participatory model will satisfy most of the people(s). I am not saying that Participatory democracy is carved in stone, a step in the proverbial ‘arc of history’ – an other face of TINA! – I believe, though, that there is something like a no-return valve in the search for liberty, pretty much the same way humans will never revert to apes. The only thing that may happen is that humans may self-destruct, self-nuke. Yes, angry extreme conservatives may still hold onto some form of ‘better dead than red’! Then, they will die. The tragic subtext being that they will take us all down with them…

It is at this juncture – Armageddon – that I regret to see how faith in an inevitably loving god gets a renewed boost. Except for whoever claims individual-yet-autonomous-and-collective agency for themselves, the woke crowd, that is.

And this is also at this juncture that I see the existentially necessary agency of the arts and their practitioners, the artists. As I write this, I realize as clearly as ever, that the major reason for my keeping this diary is to be found in my trust in the arts as tools for knowledge, meaning tools for change, transformation, liberation. Furthermore, if I understand the purpose of Graeber’s ‘New History of the World’, it is the shift from social groups seeking liberty to seeking equality which has set us on the present TINA path.

—–

Actualizing the above writing: it is so good to see how Kamala Harris uses the word Liberty in her speeches and how she is accused by Trump-Vance to support the triad Diversity-Equity-Inclusion.

Clearly unwilling to go in circles from here, I refer to my past writings to support these latest assertions. Not that I have said it all! But every next step is to be found in the actualization of thinkings (thoughts) into ART!

—–

Funny, no? The other day, at the bottom of a loose paper I wrote the following equation:

TINA ≠ TINY     … indeed!

07-23-2024

Today, everything has changed! A change triggered Sunday with the withdrawal of Biden from the presidential race. Today though, Kamala Harris has been sort of anointed sort of officially as the next democratic candidate, since a majority of the democratic delegates have already picked her for the run – and the job.

You can feel the pressure being lifted off everyone’s chest on the left side of the American scene. Hope is the name of the game. Hope which frees the mind to imagine better days. Not to live them yet. But to imagine them. This is essential. Artists know this better than most, whose work it is to keep imaginaries building up in the collective mind, densifying like clouds before a storm and eventually explode as a cool, noon rainstorm, at the heart of a heatwave.

—–

Hope also for Abriel, the present artist in residence at TINYisPOWERFUL, and who just concocted a pretty good plan for her work on the Gadsden Green public housing. After our one hour reunion last Friday, she decided to combine three layers of approach in a comprehensive project which told me that she had understood something essential about art: that to be art, a project must reach beyond self (expression), beyond the ‘I like it’ criteria. She is determined to show the disparity between living in a Charleston’s public housing apartment – as many African-Americans do – and moving into a brand new condo on Morisson Drive, as many newcomers do. In parallel, Abriel intends to expose the oppressive culture which keeps minorities from liberation, material and mental. Finally, she will keep a documentation, to be part of the final presentation of the work. She calls it ‘Submersions’. An ironic way to show how she feels submerged by … the system … and the rising waters, I suppose. Good work!

07-26-2024

For the last few days I have been consumed by the construction of an urban fishery, supplied by the ovulation of a feathered fish I made about a month ago! All this is very time consuming because I have to constantly jump from one bizarre idea to an other. This apparently disjointed train of thoughts, at the end, still needs to draw a path, to fit together somehow before it can make sense visually. Enough sense to advance the ‘Tale for Reparations’ … and – I was going to write: and prepare for the next step!

No, this would not be true! I have no idea of the next step and how the whole story will end.

The purpose of this work is to expose/propose one path of visual liberation for a multi-disciplinary art project which started as a literary piece (a Tale of Charleston) and may end as a large installation where no element is logically tied to an other but where the general reading and/or the memory one keeps of it, suggest a hopeful future!

As I re-read the above sentence, and highlight it to signify its importance at this moment, I recall Piet Mondrian, among many other artists, who was so certain that going ‘abstract’ was reaching one step closer to the universal! Illusion?

A very selective universal at best.

In 2024, almost a century later, the universal has proven to be at the expense – the cost? – of the local. TINYisPOWERFUL has clearly opted for the local. YET, my present imagery is as universal as fish, house, plate or kabocha! No worry though. All these wonderings take place in the mind of the artist. (S)he just has to be sure that the work belongs in history, its moment in time. Today, the challenge is: what is this work of art proposing to counter the present universal push toward authoritarianism, domination? What is the installation named ‘a Tale for Reparations’ offering as a tool to resist predator malehood?

Luckily, in ‘a Tale of Charleston’ turned ‘a Tale for Reparations’, the list is long of visual choices which put into question the expected vocabularies of representation . Let me only say that, from the day I started working on the installation, I chose to antagonize, transgress, cross conventions, and that the iconoclastic trend grew only stronger with time. So did my determination. A few months ago, in a problematic research for poetic images suggesting urban fish farming (yes!), I ended up carving polystyrene into a big fat and pregnant mama-fish on which I applied a sweet coat of light, white fuzz. I also gave it a tail of purple pennae(s), but no wings. Now, close to the final touch, I am still hesitant about deciding between a nest, a funnel, a cardboard box … for mama to lay her eggs in. Today, the visual story unfolds before our eyes. Eggs have evolved into alevin, then into juveniles and growing adults, as they transfer from one holding bassin to the next … No, I do not show the slaughtering. Nor the packaging …

Good thing Gwylène has come to my rescue for every crucial decision. We just chose to prop big mama on stilts! A good choice in my book. Many elements in the installation are on stilts! This shows the recurrence of certain visuals, which only reinforces their symbolism, their meaning.

07-29-2024

I can whistle again!

This morning the dentist gave me a brand new incisive. After months of heeling from a chewing accident! I could not whistle any more, could not talk to mocking birds on my morning walk. Could still talk to the occasional crow though. But, above all, I could not have a conversation with the wren who visits the studio regularly and literally hops on my work table and screams for attention (maybe) but just wants to be friends.

It is the first thingI did when I left the clinic. I checked my whistling. I knew I had been a bit heavy hearted for the last few months. I am not looking any further. No need of a shrink or a pill, or a jolt.

Seriously, this may make a difference in the life of a whistler: whistling. To whistle.

—–

Something else happened earlier today:

When I was at the dentist, Tom came to the studio to borrow an eight foot ladder.

Gwylène gave him the ladder.

She also showed him the fish, the fishery.

He had a question, she told me:

Why does Jean-Marie do things like that?

Tom is a friend.

He is a friend and I ponder!

Not for very long.

An answer jumps at me:

Doing art today -or yesterday- is also what cavemen were doing 25.000 ears ago

Their painting is on the wall

My sculpting is on the wall too

It will take time to decipher

So what

07-31-2024

This morning, after my daily walk and a short visit to the studio which usually follows, I was dissatisfied, yet and again, with the solution found yesterday, late in the afternoon, to a very nagging question: how to hold big mama fish in place, above the alevin pool?

Well, she will be suspended at the very tip of a long, round-stock, flexible, quarter inch steel bar which literally traverses the three oblique porticos of the structure, giving it, in the process, a perfect reason for being designed as it is! Indeed, the major difficulty to overcome for the last few days had been to understand why and make visible the reasons why the structure is as it is!  Proof that often, in any process of creation/research, an apparent case of putting the cart before the horse is, in fact, a proof that researchers/artists set in motion a process they may not control. They are outstripped by it and then their work is to decipher it and decide, not for themselves, but for the sake of the work. Here lies one aspect of research and art where political implications surface. The work exists, finds meaning, and belongs beyond the lab or the studio.