Jean-Claude Silbermann

Games have long since been the eager accomplices of art and poetry. Images play with what they represent and constantly play games with each other in their maze of mirrors. Poems roll the dice of words on a page, and their combinations resonate with unexpected meanings.

Jean-Claude Silbermann invites visitors to join in a game in La Prairie des Filtres public park. It’s a kind of treasure hunt, whose clues are scattered and hidden around the park on stones made precious by an inscription etched on front and back, although it is impossible to determine which is front and which is back. Engraved in stone, therefore, these inscriptions possess the clarity and mystery of brief poetic phrases. Visitors who find a rock can pick it up and take it away, like their winnings from a game. It is suggested that they only take one in order to allow others the pleasure of discovery and reward. They might also put the mineral poem back in its hiding place to await the next player. That way, the game will last longer.

Clearly, this piece, titled Le jardin des pierres parlantes (The garden of talking stones) is hedging its bets: on the one hand, the hunt; on the other, the reversible text. So where is the poem? In the looking or the reading? By playing, we become players, with a free shot at testing our own desires. Not all poems play on emotions: Jean-Claude Silbermann’s engraved messages are as much an invitation to smile as to dream. They pique our curiosity. That’s the positive effect of art.