THE UNVEILING OF PROUST

Marcel Proust comes to light:

Like all, or most, human beings, the sculpture of Marcel Proust, made by Edgar Duvivier, took nine months of gestation, from the conception of its idea, to its inauguration. Nine months of anxiety through the vague and slow communication with local authorities in Cabourg (Proust's Balbec); nine months of suspense:

What if the French people didn't appreciate this type of accessible, life size sculpture, out of a pedestal and with which one can interact? What if they only liked the traditional way of turning the modeled person into a monument, for being looked up at from below, that is, above the direct reach of people?

I shared Edgar's concern, because his emails to France would takes weeks and weeks to be answered. "When will the inauguration be?" " Where will you place "him?"

One should be ready for any kind of receptivity from people in Cabourg, and, lo and behold, the returning of Proust to Cabourg was blessed.

Following the warm speech of Tristan Duval, who was the current mayor of Cabourg, of the writer and Proustian authority, Gonzague Saint Bris who confessed he'd already seen the statue prior to its unveiling, and found it a magnificent work that shows both the inner and the communicative character of Proust. Questioning how it had been possible that a dandy, who was ill and bedridden, while writing The Search, could have aroused passion in the whole world, Gonzague brilliantly concluded that it wasn't for writing about general subjects, but because he got closer and closer to himself going deep within, no-holds-bar, and resonating, therefore, with people around the whole world.

The Proustian approach to oneself involves the search of one's profound self, that which, ignored by most, concerns the essence of each one, that which is promised and sought after by meditations of all types, transpersonal psychology, Junguian psychology, and New Age's doctrines.

With the typical daring of French intelligence, which in my opinion uniquely weds the intimate and the objective, passion and intellect, M. Saint Bris passed from the historic, psychological and factual dimension, to that of spirit: Declaring the inauguration to be a moment of World Communion, he concluded that Edgar, with his ancient, French family name had been chosen from above, by Proust himself, to make his sculpture and take him to Cabourg.

The statue is endowed with life, not just for its elegant similarity to Proust, but also its interactive nature, with which the French people were immediately familiar, in the wonderful and dynamic possibility of being personal, with it.

Life, in interaction, concerns the requesting of not only the observation of the spectator, but his immersion in the work's atmosphere, his participation, that is. Like it happens in Contemplative Interaction- the contemporary art of installation- the spectator contemplates the artwork, at the same time that his immersion in it, becoming necessary for this work to reveal itself, transforms him into spectator and agent, at the same time, making one of he who acts and he who reflects.

Edgar's sculpture gives the spectator the opportunity to interact with it in a personal way: the possibility, really, of re creating it. Each person can take a selfie in whichever way he/she wants; each becomes unique, through the particularity of his/her participation, equally making, in what he/she gives off him/herself, the sculpture to be reborn. For, in its generosity to give each spectator the chance to add something of him/herself, it eternally reveals itself. It is constantly created anew and constantly re creates, expressing the essence of life.

It is with great joy that we thus see the generosity of Marcel Proust being propagated through that of Edgar, in the statue he gave life to, and now lives at The Grand Hotel's gardens: it echoes the immense grace of Proust in writing a book whose readers would be also the readers of themselves, as he stated it, that is, would be able to make the revelations of Proust's sublime intelligence their own.

I think M. Saint Bris was right, when thinking that Proust chose Edgar Duvivier to resurrect his likeness and expression. After we saw many people taking their particular selfies with the sculpture, when returning late, to the hotel, we could still spot a couple passionately kissing by its side. Would it be inspired by the passion of Proust himself? or by the passion that he arouses?… Certainly!