Paul Yves' vision (English)

Art, a universal symbol connecting all living beings across time and space. Man, grass, frog, wind, cloud, soil, light, water, fire... everything is beautiful yet ephemeral.

While art finds its place in our museums, it also thrives in our homes, living rooms, gardens, countryside, schools, and broadly, wherever life exists. Art is not a human privilege but a shared characteristic of all living beings.

Art is not about money. Yet, like any other asset, it has become subject to various speculations, highlighting humanity's inability to appreciate beauty without the need to value or possess it... paying to try and preserve the youth of one's twenties is another vivid illustration of this human cognitive shortfall.

In his blind quest for immortality, man likely wishes to tie his fleeting possessions to some form of imaginary eternity.

Art should transcend the human spirit rather than alienate it by turning it into a financial product.

If art represents beauty, it also remains a privileged means to denounce the dysfunctions of our societies.

Deciding to create "the most expensive artwork in the world" reflects my artistic approach, which absurdly criticizes the system our Western societies are subjected to and impose on the rest of the world. If the unsettling happiness, resulting from a formula of relentless and continuous consumption, is not acceptable for the majority, it is even less tolerable when considering the misery undermining our nearby and distant societies.

To satisfy very ephemeral human needs so that a tiny number can enjoy smelling of soap, live in cities without trash, move in cars emitting no CO2... our administrations accept that essential, sustainable, non-renewable resources, mammals, and other cetaceans be annihilated, waste accumulated but most disgracefully, that the majority must live amidst the excrement produced by our so-called advanced societies. If humanity's ultimate intention is to allow all countries to become "developed," how can we imagine managing resources and waste when there will be no resources left but just an unmanageable accumulation of waste? Without imagining that we could live on and within waste, our civilization is creating a futureless world. No technology will be able to offset the deficits generated by overconsumption, overpredation... Consumer society does not represent a humane solution for anyone daring to envision a sustainable earthly life.

If this system, our system, is intellectually and utterly intolerable, it is also unsustainable.

The sculpture of "Don Quixote" represents an artistic performance; that of art attempting to change society. Imagining a society through art rather than finance offers a probably more virtuous angle and certainly less degrading for the majority of living beings. Art would replace finance, art in support of life, art extending nature, art for collaborative and benevolent education...

Sharing the Don Quixote project as widely and affordably as possible symbolizes initial responses to the fight against the unjust exploitation of resources and the disparity of living conditions.

Becoming a co-owner of the world's most expensive artwork is accessible for the price of a chocolate croissant in Paris. The project experiments with the idea of maximizing well-being for the greatest number of beings, whereas finance proposes maximizing well-being for a minimum number of beings.

To combat its worst enemy and thus prove its powerlessness, the ideal would be to use the enemy's weapons. Finance will thus be used against finance. Don Quixote will find the resources to prove finance's inability to preserve and develop our humanity in the long term.

For total clarity, a minimum of 70% of Don Quixote's sales will create financial reserves primarily destined for education and nature preservation. Whether it's supporting promising small local projects or aiding NGOs and other institutions, any positive actor can seek help for educational and sustainable development.

The world should fear finance and resource exploitation as quickly and intensely as it feared the COVID-19 pandemic, by immediately stopping all harmful activities.

A new global organization must emerge, or only friends of Bezos, Musk, and other billionaires will be able to embark on extraterrestrial flights to find a hypothetical survival possibility, in a space devoid of humanity, nature, art, freedom, and shared pleasure.

Art in general, and the sculpture of Don Quixote in particular, shared through collaborative, benevolent technology, can change the fate of our world, our unbearable world.

Don Quixote... is also, through education, a fight against racism, populism, the rise of the far-right, particracy... ultimately, utopia or not, it's worth trying