I C A R C H 

Pessimism can be contagious and even voluptuous.

There is a pleasure of suffering.

And it shouldn’t be underestimated.

If Pain and Pleasure are twins, as Leonardo correctly told us, then maybe the joy of suffering cannot be overstated.

And not only for those “professionals of suffering,” that is, Masoch’s followers.

So let us see if we can conceive the most intense, the most “rewarding” House of Suffering ever imagined…!!!!!

Design THE HOUSE OF PESSIMISM, in Place de l’Odeon, in Paris, not far from where the philosopher of suffering and despair lived, Emil Cioran.

In fact, if he was still alive, and if he looked out through the window, or from the balcony of his tiny place in the mansarde of Rue de l’Odeon 21, he would most surely have seen it.

Let’s make it black, dear architect.

Let’s make it mourning.

Let’s make it kneeling.

Let’s make it sobbing.

Let’s make it trembling.

Let’s make it tearful.

Let’s make it despairing.

Let’s make it the quintessential image of suffering.

THE HOUSE OF UNCOMPROMISING PESSIMISM.

In the City of Lights.

In Place de l’Odeon.

Let’s replace the occasional gathering of festive tables pour les plaisirs a manger with a dark, uncomforting, morbid even, HOUSE OF PESSIMISM.

The Mecca of Suffering.

Make it a cube, a floating black veil, or a terrifying void.

In a city that did know, and does know, what suffering is.

Even in its aesthetical postures, artistically expressed and enhanced.

Design THE HOUSE OF DEEPLY- FELT DARKNESS.

Not far from where Emil Cioran lived.

The deadline is on the day when Cioran died, June 20th. We will publish all the works received. Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery

Why French are world champs in pessimism

By Anne-Laure Mondesert, Agence France-Presse
Posted at 01/07/2011 2:40 PM | Updated as of 01/08/2011 10:33 AM

PARIS - The French live in one of the richest and safest countries in the world, yet they are global champions of pessimism, fearful of the future and longing for the past, according to a survey published this week.

"The French are afraid. They feel the present is less good than the past and that the future will be worse than the present, and that their children's lives will be harder than their own," said commentator Dominique Moisi.

"There is a morosity, a real phenomenon of clinical depression," said Moisi, the author of the 2009 book "Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope are Reshaping the World."

Moisi was sceptical about the BVA-Gallup poll published Monday that suggested that the French were more pessimistic than people in Afghanistan or Iraqi who daily face high levels of violence.

But he conceded that it had some substance. He and other commentators said several factors were to blame.

France's comparatively generous welfare state is no longer perceived as sufficiently protective in the face of the ongoing economic crisis here, they said. "The French behave towards the state like teenagers with their parents. On the one hand they rebel, but on the other they want ever more protection," said Moisi.

French pessimism is nothing new. The French are Europe's biggest consumer of anti-depressants.

But their gloomy tendencies have been made worse by rising unemployment and a tense social context that in recent months has seen millions take to the streets to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's ultimately successful bid to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.

"You can feel that people are psychologically exhausted," said Jean-Paul Delevoye, the French national ombudsman whose job it is to investigate complaints by private persons against the government.

He said that it was above all the middle classes who were being affected by pessimism. They see their jobs as becoming less and less secure and fear their quality of life will be reduced.

"The French are sensualists, epicureans... and we are seeing a discrepancy between the little individual joys and the collective malaise," said Delevoye.

France was less badly hit by the economic crisis than its neighbours but is nonetheless struggling to recover.

"Even if the recession in 2009 was much less severe than in Germany, we have not come out of it as strongly as Germany," said Jerome Creel of the French Economic Observatory, or OFCE.

Many French now view the European Union -- which last year was rocked by massive bail-outs for Greece and Ireland -- less as a force for positive change in France and more as a source of difficulties.

Frederic Allemand, a specialist in European economic governance issues, said that this disillusion stemmed from the "inability of Europe to improve its growth prospects."

The BVA-Gallup poll described the French as the "world champions of pessimism."

It found that 61% of French thought that 2011 would bring economic difficulties, compared to an average of 28% in the 53 countries surveyed.

Sixty-seven percent believed unemployment would rise again this year, a more pessimistic view than than in every country except Britian -- 74% -- and Pakistan -- 72%.

Thirty-seven percent of French people polled said this year would be worse than 2010, making them considerably less optimistic than Afghans -- 14% or Iraqis -- 12%.