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Item: La cédille qui sourit

Robert Filliou

1969

Mixed Media, 27 x 70 cm.
Materials: paint, wood

Collection: Collection Musée d'Art Contemporain, Saint-Etienne (Inv. no. 92.5.53).

The force that drives Filliou’s work and thought is Permanent Creation. He helps to establish various Centres of Permanent Creation, such as the Poïpoïdrome and the Smiling Cedilla. As an alternative to the notion of the avant-garde, he proposes the Eternal Network, also known as ‘La fête permanente’.

Excerpt of the conversation between Robert Filliou (RF) and Irmeline Lebeer (IL), Flayosc, France, August 1976.

RF: ‘“The Smiling Cedilla” was a non-shop, because it was only open on demand. This Centre of Permanent Creation, by George Brecht, Marianne Staffeldt, Donna Brewer and myself, opened in Villefranche-sur-Mer in 1965 and lasted three years. Our activities were multiple. They were summarised in the book Games at the Cedilla, or The Cedilla Takes Off. Something Else Press, New York, 1967. When the Smiling Cedilla closed its doors, it announced the birth of the “Eternal Network”, La Fête permanente. See those terms.’

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