Antonio Gallego
ROUTE D’A PIRATE OF THE’ART
COURSE
How to’How did your artistic journey develop? It seems that music played a role in the expansion of urban art in the 80s, particularly by promoting the emergence of performances.
In the late 1970s, as a student at the Versailles School of Fine Arts, I had Bernard Borgeaud as my art history professor. He was an artist close to Daniel Buren and took us to visit the exhibitions of the time, at the Centre Pompidou and in the galleries of the Marais district. During our outings, going from a Joseph Beuys to an Andy Warhol, we would sometimes cross paths in the street with the rounded figure of Gérard Zlotykamien. As a teenager, I was immersed in the rock culture and alternative press of my generation. I was more drawn to the posters of May '68 and mass culture like film and comics than to academic art confined within museums.
In the early 1980s, while a student at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, I began to pay attention to the posters of Roman Cieslewicz and those of the Grapus group. Around the same time as Christo's wrapping of the Pont-Neuf, I had the opportunity to encounter them in situ. The deportees by Ernest Pignon-Ernest on a 13th-century walle district, to see the first appearances of the White body by Jérôme Mesnager or to be drawn in by the 4×3 panel paintings of Jean Faucheur as well as those of his colleagues Les Frères Ripoulin.
In 1982, with the Banlieue-Banlieue group of painters, we began by putting on exhibitions accompanied by rock concerts and, from 1984 onwards, we created ephemeral urban murals that I had already experimented with in Poissy in the late 70s in the form of dazibaos pasted on the city walls with my brother Max and a group of feminist students, readers of Charlie Hebdo. When the collective intervenes in the street, there are no tags or graffiti on the walls, except for old political slogans. In 1984, during an intervention in Bondy, passersby asked us: «"But why don't you put that energy into decorating school playgrounds?"». They didn't understand the beauty of the act of destroying ephemeral kraft paper murals. Certain figures then helped bring artists together, such as Didier Moulin through his association "Peinture Sauvage" (Wild Painting), which in 1985 organized the first Parisian exhibition on graffiti. That same year, the VLP (Villages de la Photographie) organized the first urban art festival, "Les Flamboyants" (The Flamboyants), in Bondy, on the banks of the Ourcq Canal, featuring Speedy Graphito, Blek Le Rat, Jérôme Mesnager, Raphael Gray, BB, and many others. The 1980s thus unfolded through murals and exhibitions, creating a community of shared styles.
At that time, if a street artist painted a mural on a wall, we'd paste ours up a block away, except for the Louvre's construction barriers where everyone crowded together to leave their mark. Our approach was part of the Free Figuration movement, the Italian Transavantgarde tinged with German Expressionism. Then, around 1985, with the graffiti artist Bando, came the American-style tagging craze. At Gordon Matta-Clark's exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, it's interesting to see that the early 1970s graffiti he photographed has more to do with the psychedelic Peace & Love aesthetic than with Hip-hop. The history of American graffiti began with the floral hippie style, which gave shape to a certain musicality. Similarly, in the 1980s, Futura 2000's performances at The Clash concerts contributed to the emergence of a new form of expression characterized by its vibrant colors and rapid execution. Ten years later, graffiti offered young rappers, trained in applied arts schools, the opportunity to become skilled graphic artists.
SUBURBS-BANKS, COLLECTIVE CREATION
During its formation, Banlieue-Banlieue chose to put the collective at the center, through the’intermediary d’a joint signature.
I have often sought out collective projects, while remaining mindful of the notion of the individual's effacement; this is why I prefer the word "cooperative." Banlieue-Banlieue evolved into a collective writing process after my departure, as we no longer shared the same conception of the group. For me, other artists could join at any time, to mutually enrich each other, rather than relying on a specific, fixed quartet: four Picassos to form the Beatles of Painting. At the time, I was wary of any idea that could lead to power dynamics. From group to group, I sought to refine cooperation between personalities within a collective creation, even if this could result in a more brutalist, more chaotic style, as with UN NOUS, a collaborative structure within which I was invited to participate in the exhibition "The Force of Art," where we divided the exhibition's duration, allocating equal time to each artist. Conversely, at the Lyon Biennale in 2009, we proposed a collective work.
Everything was then liable to become a medium, to be transformed into Art, from collage to fresco, via fanzine, film set design or zen garden.
Contemporary art sought to stretch the meaning of the work. Since the early avant-garde movements, there has been a desire to capitalize the minor approaches that have now become commonplace, a tradition of the new. Now monkeys know how to shout: a.R.T.
What is the difference between l’the imaginary world carried by the suburbs during the era of the collective and today’today?
Banlieue-Banlieue emerged during the era of marches for equality and against racism, and immigrant strikes. At the time, the suburbs represented this peripheral space, made up of large housing projects, in a very functional view of urban living. Our goal was to show that they were dynamic and capable of producing artistic creations. Most suburban towns were then "red" municipalities with a strong political consciousness, working-class communities long governed by the Communist Party. These towns were heavily criticized in the 1980s, but today we see that when this political consciousness disappears, these spaces become ghettoized. Today, the individual voices that attempt to express themselves are censored, like the Black Lines. Similarly, the sexually explicit scenes that we painted with Banlieue-Banlieue would be impossible to create today in Aubervilliers, La Courneuve, or Pantin…
A PIRATE OF THE’ART
You define yourself as a "buccaneer of the’"Art": this is defined as an anonymous and discreet urban action, proposing another form of’commitment.
I borrow this idea from the Situationists, that of acting and then disappearing, so as not to end up worn out, not to be consumed, unlike other artists who seek maximum visibility. I don't like the word performance which announces its schedule, time, and location with an invitation card. I prefer the word action, an impromptu, rapid attack, before moving on to other places, visible only to the person present at the right time and with the cultural perspective to interpret it.
Your desire to keep the’Is anonymity linked to this necessary disappearance, or to the very fact of’Is taking action more important than making the work identifiable?
If I put my name on the street, I'm signing it, I'm promoting myself. If I post an image and it interests someone, perhaps that person could find me. The approach here is one of discretion, because fundamentally, living in society means living collectively. I don't necessarily respect speculators, the upper class, and institutions: I think they are super-predators who highlight certain names while ignoring others deemed undesirable. Perhaps some things shouldn't be exposed because they are outside the system (?). Why showcase one person and forget another? Is there an unspoken desire for censorship (!?)
What should we show in our neo-liberal world: glorify entrepreneurial "freedom"? And not show the "equality" demanded by the Yellow Vests?
This relationship to discretion is interesting, going against the grain of’Street art has become a performance art form.
I used to be interested in alternative culture, not this mass pollution of today, an urban production that's more about pop music and hit songs. Pieces are piled up in an invasive way; there's no longer any space, no history, no context. This repetition is a form of aggression against the passerby, now a consumer. Conversely, my goal was to surprise and offer an unusual work that, when placed in a specific context, had to be discovered.
Rather than the disappearance of the ephemeral work, you prefer to speak of destruction.
Construction and destruction are the foundations of civilizations: Sumer, Ur, Carthage, Babylon, Athens or Rome, etc. As human beings, we are no more immortal than works of art are eternal.
The choice of’The poster, as an ephemeral medium, also contributes to this idea.
The screen-printed poster is indeed part of this approach, always risking being torn down by a passerby. Here we find a fascination with ephemeral art. The Valley of Wonders in the Mercantour National Park is home to thousands of prehistoric engravings, which, despite their antiquity and magical nature, bear witness to the fleeting nature of things through erosion. It is, above all, a ritual performed for oneself. Perhaps some urban artists are also engaged in this unconscious repetition of ancient cave art, of ancestral gestures traced in charcoal on the first transhumance routes, of which only Lascaux seems to be the surviving memory.
A PICTURE IN THE STREET
You are questioning the very nature of the’image placed in the street. In an interview you said: «"A proposal is unsuccessful when’She is overtaken by a single, unambiguous meaning.»
I seek multiple possible interpretations, trying to open up the meaning of my images as much as possible. The dimension that eludes comprehension of the image will be the key to the success of the proposition, which is then no longer directed by its author but becomes elusive, polysemous, with a multiplication of meanings. This mise en abyme satisfies me. During the siege of Sarajevo, I pasted posters all around Paris, simulacra of a road sign bearing the name of that city. There, there was no longer any ambiguity. The objective, therefore, is to go further, not to state a meaning that would claim to be objective in a straightforward manner.
How do you view the fact that’By presenting this image to an outside audience, is it perceived through a different lens?
I believe that the cultural perception of a passerby is immeasurable. In the early 2000s, I was putting up my "yurt" poster when a rather intimidating-looking young man approached me and asked if he could have one for his room. I love the unexpected reactions that can arise from my work, each one corresponding to a particular state of mind for me. That's why I only produced one poster every year or two: they were silkscreen prints, not digital photocopies. This approach of offering high-quality images that provoke thought has always been central to my work.
In this regard, the’Urban art, in becoming more accessible, may have lost that artistic culture specific to it.’space in which it unfolds. Without an image, an artist of’ten years ago’It no longer exists. This raises questions about our relationship to the memory of this practice.
We've democratized art, we've tried to make it accessible. It's astonishing to see how quickly this artistic memory is constructed. That's also why I call these productions "variety." But do those who write today's hit songs even know Christophe or Michel Polnareff? Jean Faucheur had pasted a 4x3 meter poster on the wall of the 13th arrondissement.e that I had discovered: but did the young "tagging artist" with his spray can know who he was tagging?! The institutions haven't done their job. One day, a critic I was talking to about Invader confessed that he didn't know who he was, even though he went to galleries and museums every week. He didn't remember what Charles Baudelaire said about street signs: Modernity, c’is the transitory, the fleeting, the contingent, half of the’Art, of which the’the other half is the eternal and the’unchanging… These professionals no longer know how to see the spectacle of the street.
A LOOK AT THE’URBAN ART
L’Urban art long retained an accessible aspect, before the proliferation of practices led to a sharing of the’space.
In Paris, the streets were covered in graffiti from the early 1990s. If I saw a piece on a corner, I'd move further away, believing that passersby shouldn't feel assaulted as they would by advertising, but rather awakened by a surprise, in the manner of the Situationists. Respect was present: there was a shared perspective, expressed through entirely different styles. Gradually, with the reduction of available space, this urban art became a performance art. I continued to paste up regularly until 2016 with UN NOUS. Now I continue on my own when I'm asked, busy painting in my studio and co-editing my contemporary drawing magazine, Rouge Gorge.
The frescoes will thus go to the’against’Urban art that aims to be accessible, requiring permits.
This also sums up the entire journey from the early, unauthorized interventions, whose height rarely exceeded three meters. Banlieue-Banlieue often had permits, and therefore ladders, sometimes even scaffolding. The Ripoulin group went as far as the height of advertising billboards, measuring 4 by 3 meters. With the evolution of the genre and styles, today the figurative prowess of muralists is on par with the gable wall of a tower, as seen in the 13th-century project.th A district of Paris that I find interesting because it hides the repetitive architectural poverty. Others wild, Like Modern Jazz Graffiti, they blur references with their offbeat style, somewhere between abstraction and neo-bad painting.
In what way is the street a unique space for creation?
In the 1980s, Banlieue-Banlieue aimed to create art for everyone. It was a utopian vision for its time. The street, with its unique character and role in action, has been lost through the proliferation of urban interventions. Today, it's no longer a special place because the street is saturated with images, giving me the impression that I'm polluting by pasting up posters, or that I'm advertising. JR is an interesting figure in this respect: self-taught, he arrives with energy and fresh ideas, but over time it turns out that he uses the same methods as the others. brands. Until the early 2000s, there was still space, whereas now it's possible to be covered by another piece of art with which I find myself competing: is it really worth fighting for territory? Paradoxically, perhaps the era when we received fines was more exciting because there were fewer people, whereas now urban space is a race to have the biggest mural, the most look at me.
One day, I saw a little boy with his grandfather sticking a drawing on a wall. When I asked them what they were doing, the grandpa replied, "I'm introducing my grandson to street art." I found this answer touching: how can you call this "art" when grandparents and grandchildren are pasting things up together in the street like they're going to a puppet show on Sundays!
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