There is no shortage of spice! In Laval, where we cultivate the memory of the author of Ubu Alfred Jarry, the world museum of the toothpick offers "an authentically false and really imaginary collection" of 70 of these objects, each more wacky than the others. other. "The world toothpick museum was born thanks, we can say, to Alfred Jarry, Lavallois, who on his deathbed asked for a toothpick", explains François Béchu, artistic director of this exhibition to discover until as of June 30.
Precursor of surrealism and the theater of the absurd, Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) gave the French language the term "ubuesque", which takes its origin from the character of Ubu. Jarry founded "pataphysics", the science of imaginary solutions, which the creators of this exhibition in their theater claim to claim.
Because, with the post-containment measures and the impossibility of opening all the places in its small theater, the troop of l'Echappée preferred to embark on a retrospective of this everyday object, which had been brought to light for the first time times in 1999 during the "Uburlesques" festival. For Claudine Orvain, 63, at the origin of this collection classified into themes (utilities, decorative, playful), "this object, which we find in different forms and on all continents, has a future : we will always need to avoid the piece of parsley on the incisor ”.
A light thing to take seriously
Among the toothpicks is the so-called “bridal” one, adorned with a white lace mini dress: “there is no longer any question of leaving the party to indulge in your oral hygiene. Thanks to "Dent'elle", the bride will remain beautiful and presentable, "says the cartel.
Another tasty eccentricity, the "souflopyr", a toothpick mounted ... on a pump. “The residue becomes encrusted, concretes, a simple toothpick cannot do the trick. You can lose your favorite toothpick, there with Souflopyr, there is a press-push system that will disintegrate the residue and evacuate it in the back throat, "explains Claudine Orvain expertly.
But we learn (also) very serious things about this object, which we find used by a character from the famous painting of the Wedding at Cana (1563) by Veronese or that the first device to manufacture it industrially was patented in the United States. United in 1872. Or this crisp quote from the writer Roland Dorgelès: "Experience is like a toothpick, nobody wants to use it after you".
The toothpick has its enemies
"Look at this one, what's funny! Said Jean-Louis, showing a toothpick in a mini Egyptian sarcophagus in Ginette. "There is a lot of mockery, fantasy and some are completely impossible," laughs this visitor. Isabelle, who is part of the same group, has a weakness for the toothpick integrated in the butt of a cigarette, "which allows you to smoke while cleaning your teeth, practical!" "
In this sweet artistic-practical delirium, François Béchu makes himself the standard bearer of the sentence of Eugène Ionesco, who also lived in Mayenne, according to which "the truth is in the imagination". “Thanks to this world museum, the toothpick finds a new development. An artistic boom, "argues François Béchu, and this, while he is threatened" by the brush, a disruptive element in the chain of the toothpick, "he said, managing to keep his seriousness. In homage to his master-thinker, he punctuates group visits with readings of Jarry on a stationary bicycle.
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