A few years ago, I went to the top floor of the Barbican Center, in the City of London, to meet again with a friend from Paris, Francois Baschet, who was opening the Sculptures Sonores exhibition there. His sculptures, metal peacocks with extended tails appear in the imagination, and the feathers are long glass rods which, like crystals, flirt with the full spectrum of the rainbow.
He greeted me warmly and invited to the exhibition, so I walked in. I knew these sculptures / instruments from his studio, but there were not only many more of them, but also the space was different, because it was full of people who created sounds on the sculptures as if they were organs. And although everyone played music with the fingers slidng along glass rodes, it did not result in a cacophony, but a symphony for many hands.
No, I wasn't playing back then, just watching with a smile seeing so much happiness all around. I love to see the world so unequivocally joyful.
Then I saw Francois Baschet again, explaining to some old lady how to wet your fingers in a bowl of water and then stroking the glass rods to create sounds. And she put her purse on the floor and, excited by the possibility of composing a piece, slid her fingers along the long, transparent rods, which vibrated with deep sounds.
A moment later, a little boy pulled Baschet towards the tin elephant, because he wanted the artist to hear his music flowing from the statue.
And I stood beside him and photographed Francois Baschet.