The myth of Icarus : This is the title from which André Comte-Sponville began to take a lead in our philosophical scene. I wish Ivan Chabanaud the same success in his own field, even more so as his first two steps - the first two take-offs? - appear to me to be both parallel and compatible. To some extent, for the artist as well as for the philosopher, in the end of the millennium, the sky is no longer the limit. The artist, in his manner, like the philosopher,  leads us to the point where the consciousness of existence is transformed into astonishment. Astonishment is felt by artist and philosopher alike, because the world is a fundamental illusion which we cannot leave.

Ivan Chabanaud told us that Icarus was the victim of his ability. This connects him to Prometheus, which might symbolize mankind.  In truth, Icarus met the challenge, instead of creating a niche for himself in the labyrinth... For him, the risk of failure was negligible. And his lesson remains with us: we have opportunity to escape this degenerative aspect, gravity. Thus we find lightness as the original virtue.  The moment in which you will believe that all is lost, you will rise up.

Ivan Chabanaud shows us that our world does not dissolve in the light, that it reconstructs itself just as the wings of Icarus are re-created to flap to the air of freedom, to rebound towards the azure. It also shows us that reality and non-reality overlap and form an exchange. Additionally, it shows us that one can go beyond the tragedy, knowing all the while that the play will preserve an element of sadness, like the bitterness at the end of a mouthful of beer.

Nonetheless, it is possible to transfigure daily life, and such is the noble task of the artist. On this subject Ivan Chabanaud expresses a new significance of the myth: if one wants to fly away, it is to find one's closest relations, in a kind of empyrée or air museum. One of his friends said to me: " Ivan Chabanaud is an angel ". I subscribe to this judgment, and I have the ability to do so. I add: a humanistic angel - he gives his wings to others.  This plastic artist of a non - icarienne, humanistic bold venture, was born to put technology at the service of esthetics and to metamorphose the cannibalistic machine into a modern muse. In the same spirit, he challenges an arbitrary hierarchy.  He intends to glance at that which transcends the human condition, to that which is best shared:  thus he proposes to celebrate, in addition to the treasures of our culture, people from here, indigenous people, in particular the Jura who invented the cooperative. If he defends its banality, it is within the meaning of the communal oven where the village formerly met. But it dismisses the suzerain and asks to assemble it in his vertical agora - in this metaphorical sky where the images of sibyls or austere courtesans travel. Indeed, his work extends beyond communication.   It proposes friendship and affection. To Icarus of which we are you and I,  without always knowing it, without always assuming it, he wants to give us every chance.