In terms of pressure and stress, I was to relive something equivalent with the horsevisions exhibition only, eight years later.

I have a smile when I remember today the final painting done for Trois Traces d’Oscar (from the L’Humanité series). A finished painting, yet not completely dry. However, due to schedule, it must be rolled that day and leave off-the-cuff with all its congeners to be stretched by the Marin Framing Shop based in the city of Arcueil near Paris. I have a smile which, however, cannot sooth the vivid and enduring terror of episodes like this, caused by too much of a workload and an impossible schedule : because of the planning, barely a week later all the canvases once stretched and finished must mandatorily be delivered by Marin to a Photo studio. Hence the shots of the paintings there would allow their photo-engraving and reproduction in the exhibition catalogue, so that the latter's printing could finally start. Catalogue and invitations must be ready and delivered to Espace Niemeyer for the exhibition’s Opening Night on November 17, 2006 (a date scheduled more than a year before, thus untouchable). The kind of deadline that requires a perfect coordination in the different stages' sequence…

But whatever one can do, and as much organized as one can be upstream, this protocol obviously always suffers the inevitable shortcomings, mistakes, incompetence and misunderstandings which compromise the overall schedule, threatening the final delivery on D-Day. This is how one ages ten years at each last minute pitfall, with on top of that the added bonus of de rigueur cold sweats...

But despite these petty inconveniences, the exhibition was able to open on the scheduled date with required material ready for it. Its invitation card foremost, which had been delivered three weeks before in order to give its recipients the possibility of reserving their November 17th evening.