Profane magazine: French eccentricity and uniqueness

by Maria Vittoria Navati

If you are a serial accumulator, a Sunday painter, if you are obsessed with unusual objects or have a secret passion, Profane is what is right for you. An independent French magazine that moves between art and collecting and is characterized by a truly experimental setting.
The project has a single interest: the amateur, someone who is both amateur and amateur at the same time. What you will find in its pages are interviews with amateurs, artists, beginners, experts and creators. And what you will do - together with Profane - is observe and spy on them, introducing yourself into the
their environments and probing their private productions.

Issue thirteen of the magazine - not surprisingly this one, and not any other - is dedicated to fetishes, hidden phobias and rituals that each of us has and in some cases hides.
It describes a journey to approach the world with curiosity, ingenuity and instinct and invites us to do so through a series of stages.
The index itself marks the chapters of the itinerary, including: an invitation, a meeting, a quote, a point of view, a style, a gesture, a paranoia, a discovery. Here, then, are the most interesting stops.

A place
There is a small yellow wall near the center of Paris. It is something more than a wall: a desire for renewal, a precise perspective in the relentless space of the metropolis. It is fueled by the will of a man and his stubborn and constant presence. Karlo, 63, is a
refugee, who fled the war in Yugoslavia, where he says he left everything - his home, his family and his life - twenty-five years ago. In the 10th arrondissement of the French capital he created his personal installation: an exhibition of pages cut from books
of art. Thus, Rue de Mertz, with its yellow wall, gives us a brief history of art, an atlas of images. Karlo wants his art to be a celebration and a gift. This is why he arrives at seven in the morning and leaves when it is evening. He is, in effect, the guardian of an open-air museum.

A thought
When we change environment or travel to unknown places, the conditions are often created for a deeper awareness of ourselves, of others and of what surrounds us. In these moments, when our mind is free, we can take the opportunity to observe and fully experience the present. This happens especially when we are in nature, immersed in a place "where we can surrender to those hidden dreams that become tangible." Yet, most of us live in hyper-urbanized spaces, overwhelmed by work and the frenzy of producing. Nature it allows, instead, to live what is life and to put aside what does not matter.
do we give importance that they are actually completely dispensable and not necessary to live the present moment which, irremediably, will never return?

An obsessive compulsive disorder
Élizabeth Fargues collects screws. No nails, only screws, objects that we use to assemble things, but which can be more than we imagine. Elizabeth only collects the vines she comes across or discovers by chance and which for some reason catch her eye. The meeting is a magical moment, a gesture that puts her life on hold, allowing her to create an image, a snapshot that freezes the emotion of that moment. According to the collector, the goal of this repetition is not accumulation: it is instead a question of collecting an abandoned object and paying attention to it.

You may be wondering how the story of an ordinary person who decides to collect common objects can be interesting. In the response to this completely legitimate skepticism lies the uniqueness, and also all the French eccentricity, typical of Profane. A magazine that is capable of finding unexpected ways to offer a special vision of art, in all its possible meanings.

Un medium
This stage explores an editorial project: the Free Time magazine, which is first of all a free and unlimited object, with an approach that resembles that of Profane in many ways. Its ambition is to celebrate the moments of pause as a time for creation, in its spontaneous and intimate aspects. Free time (which precisely evokes and unites two fundamental ideas, freedom and time) is and must remain fun, a space to express oneself without the constraints imposed by work. A space driven exclusively by desire. Ideally we should not be able to distinguish between the leisure and the working dimension. On a more practical level, the life-saving importance of free time implies that work as a social practice does not keep all its promises of realization and that even "secondary activities"
they deserve their importance. Free Time then focuses on the importance of the time dedicated to creativity, self-expression, inspiration. Profane cannot fail to advise us.

An amateur's room
Jonas Liveröd is a Swedish artist, but also a teacher, curator, collector and, above all, director of his personal museum, hidden in the attic of a mill. Jonas's is a museum devoted to a vast number of objects that it accumulates on the basis of one's encounters. His philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: “I collect things that I didn't know existed, things that for some reason are difficult to define”. In its chamber of wonders and curiosities we can find fossilized dinosaur droppings, embalmed birds, religious relics, as well as historical and geographical evidence, including a ten billion dollar bill dating back to the hyperinflation of the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Luftslottet is the Swedish expression best suited to indicate this type of project, a program
grandiose that includes unattainable ideas and that can be translated as “castle in the air”. Although this museum is permanent, Jonas hopes it will evolve relentlessly, also and above all in its scenography. The elements it will contain may or may not be of value
have any: what matters is that they are overflowing with stories, symbols to which to entrust our imaginary explorations.

Among the pages of Profane one thing is very clear. Each episode is part of a single great narrative on the importance of the objects that decorate the lives of each of us: tools, tools, relics or memories. It is not important what they are, what is certain is that they represent rites through which we give greater value to the present moment.
Reading Profane means leafing through a magazine in which the image, with all its evocative power, is the absolute protagonist. The articles, in fact, are often extremely short and it happens that they do not exceed a single page. This is because they contain the few elements necessary to trigger a reflection. If you feel like uncovering stories you never could have imagined and exploring their hidden meanings, you won't find anything like Profane.

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