Preface

The actors are not there yet, but they are coming. The stage is set. The day is rising, the shadows are moving away. The titles evoke bits of dialogues, of flashing thoughts, of laughter, of innocent fragments of daily life. The only thing left to do is wait.

    There are beds, armchairs, and space. Everything is ready to welcome them. They should be coming now. Shouldn’t they? The chairs look comfortable, the mattresses of good quality.

    On second thought, I don’t know if Claude Lazar speaks of a "before" or an "after" state. Should one see in his work an imminent occupation, or traces of a recent passage? In any case, the dust particles remain in suspension, whirling around themselves.

    We rarely see an artist take into consideration, to such an extent, emptiness and absence. It is even rarer when he does it with such persistency and such frankness. This void is so empty that he feels obliged to place a few pieces of furniture in it so as not to be accused of morbid exaggeration, hence making us think that it is a frightening world. Which, of course, it isn't. The world is merely what it is, made up of a sumptuous, permanent, silent, and smooth barrenness.

    The more solitary a man is, the more he can easily smile, like the battle of a sunbeam against the walls of a dark room, a window open to the emptiness of the sky, or the silhouette of a woman, so long as she will always be seen from behind. The more a man paints empty bedrooms, the fuller his life becomes. The more he grows up, the more the universe freezes, shrinks, and sometimes gives a pure jewel, a pure, genuine, and quite informal despair. At least we are sure of that. At least we are sure of the accuracy of the inner gaze. As sure as these rooms where the wooden floors don't creak.