When you're an artist, you have to know how to exhibit. It means overcoming your apprehensions, accepting the gaze of others, overcoming your shyness, accepting reactions. Obviously this does not happen overnight. I went there step by step, giving myself progressive challenges. For example, expose yourself in front of all your friends at the Alliance Française in Miami, in front of the Monaco jet set at the Maison de d'Amérique Latine in Monaco or in front of your colleagues in the main street at the Air France headquarters (8,000 people per day).
But I wanted more, an even crazier challenge. I chose to do an ephemeral exhibition at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, the largest pedestrian crossroads in the world. 2.4 million people pass through it per day, i.e. 2,500 pedestrians at each green light. I'm crazy.
One evening, at a time when tourists and Japanese congregate to do their shopping or simply to see the Shibuya crossroads, I came with 10 canvases and exhibited them at various strategic locations in the crossroads without any authorization. A real ephemeral exhibition, with the ball in the stomach to watch the police and wait for the reactions of pedestrians in a hurry. A real challenge. I stayed a good hour moving my canvases from one point to another. If we consider that the light turns green every 3 minutes, we can imagine that 50,000 people have seen or glimpsed my paintings. For me, it was a great moment of adrenaline and for my improvised audience, sometimes astonishment and smiles because it is not necessarily in Japanese culture to appropriate a public place like this out of the blue. . As for the police, they didn't bother me.
I loved the experience and I will probably do it again elsewhere in the world in another crowded place.