Artist : Mathieu Briand

Title : Cursed Bread on Hand-Truck

Date : 2009

Size (mm) : (L) 720 x (W) 815 x (H) 470

Description :
Flour, ergot of rye, vacuum pump, hand-truck


Provenance :
Mathieu Briand

Exhibited :
MATHIEU BRIAND In Memorial of Albert Hofmann 1906 – 2008 29 January – 28 March 2009 anne+art Projects , Ivry, France

Observations :
Protected under a vacuum dome, the Cursed Bread on Hand-Truck, contains the ergot of rye that caused epidemics of Saint Anthony’s Fire (ergotism) in the Middle Ages. This fungus also caused a spectacular outbreak of poisoning that struck the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit in the department of Gard in 1951. The customers of the Briand bakery (!) include several dead people, inmates of psychiatric hospitals, people suffering from hallucinations and madness, and large numbers of would be suicides. Prepared this time by the artist, this “transgression bread,” still as dangerous as it is fascinating, becomes a controlled substance