Madam
THE WALL OR THE RULE OF THREE UNITIES
MEMORY AND TIME
How did you become an artist? When did you start out busking?
I find it very difficult to call myself an artist (a kind of imposter syndrome), it's more that other people have made me realize it. I think I've always dreamed of it, coming from a family with several artists: my grandfather was a painter and set designer, creating landscapes; my father draws incredibly well, sculpts, and paints. He never made it his profession out of family discretion, but I was truly immersed in that world. I myself have always painted, drawn, and sculpted because my parents encouraged me in that direction. I must have put up my first piece in the street in 2009 or 2010, with a graffiti artist named Sword. He was a real vandal: he painted under bridge arches, on fire extinguishers… I met him through social media. We met, and I started taking photos for him at night, when he was out and about. One day, he printed out a small collage I was making on A4 sheets, split into several strips. We met up in front of a wall and he said, "Your turn!", giving me the initial push I needed. I don't know if I would have done it on my own.
What is the link between your work and memory? In your monograph you describe it as "the most relevant way found to reactivate memories".
There's a very nostalgic notion of memory in this, with a backward-looking and temporal dimension. I'm probably a little stuck in the past. It's not for nothing that I choose old papers, old engravings. The materials I use are all marked by time, the traces of their different owners, their different functions, which gives them a sensitive aspect that appeals to me. I'm very afraid of the passage of time, of death, of oblivion, of saying goodbye, and I think this is the only way, conscious or unconscious, I've found to stop it a little. To bring the past into the present and give the past a present temporality.
Because you accompany your outdoor pieces with a text, we get the impression that each one is actually a horcrux, a form of personal event transformed into a work of art.
I used to think that way. Today, I'm trying, without knowing if I'll succeed, to take a step back to give my work a broader resonance, because I'm finding it harder to create cathartic pieces. I'm really trying to make it intelligible and understandable to as many people as possible so that it resonates with those who read or see it. Perhaps because I'm getting older, or perhaps because it's a form of increased awareness, I think that putting pieces in the street has meaning, and I want them to be read, understood, interpreted, inviting dialogue. That wasn't necessarily the case with other pieces that were too personal, difficult to decipher. People didn't see what I meant. As in contemporary theater, we all have our own interpretations, and they all turn out to be true. But today I am less elliptical in my remarks, no longer wanting to put what I wanted to say in dialogue with what people saw.
THEATRICAL WRITING
Do you consider the street as a space for representation? If it is a stage, the act becomes a performance.
Yes, because my work is clearly based on a theatrical approach. I have an intimate style of writing that I transpose into public spaces. So there is definitely a notion of performance involved. In fact, I install my work in broad daylight, right in the center of town. I come with a lot of equipment; I'm not discreet. The fact that I only paste up one piece at a time also contributes to the performance, because each work will only be present once in the street. I install it at a specific moment, in a particular place, and for a specific reason, just as a play will never be the same even after being performed fifteen times. It's not insignificant that before I started pasting my work up, I was about to write a thesis on performance theater.
Could you elaborate on the role of off-screen space in your work?
I wouldn't call it off-screen space, more like subtext, because I associate it more with cinema. I offer the viewer a window, a projection, in which everyone can see what they want, free to develop their own interpretation. That's why I don't provide illustrations, but simply a suggestion: I have no intention of directing in a strict way. The off-screen space I offer is where the imagination takes root, born from the gap between text and image.
Your writing reveals itself to be close to the scansion or the theatrical dialogue.
As with the term "artist," I couldn't say whether or not it's the right word. Many say it's poetry. I'm a fan of Patti Smith, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud: they write poetry. My writing participates in what's called stichomythia in theater, short, very direct, and very effective barbs. They also recall haiku, which allows you to say a great deal in a very condensed way. From theatrical language, I'd also like my sentences to evoke the pun, in which I was immersed by my parents and grandparents, who always loved to joke around by playing with words. It's a unique blend of all these influences. What's certain, however, is that the word is essential: I'm incapable of creating an image without words.
Why is it important to glue unique pieces?
At the very beginning, I pasted up multiple posters: I was discovering a medium and, realizing I could do whatever I wanted with it, I started putting up the same posters twenty times. It was an approach more akin to appropriating space, a bit like graffiti. It gradually disappeared, giving way to a more intimate dimension, more in the tone of a confession. Indeed, very quickly, putting up multiple posters struck me as a form of advertising, and that bothered me. We are already bombarded with images, and it could be seen as self-promotion. But that wasn't at all what I wanted to do: what has always stimulated me is dialogue, talking to people, confronting my ideas. Plastering the same poster forty times, on the other hand, is a form of monologue, where you hammer home what you have to say. By presenting a single piece, by suggesting a hazy interpretation between text and image, the dialogue remains open: it is a proposition.
A quote from Alfred de Musset brings to mind your works: "Life is a sleep, love is its dream. And you would have lived if you had loved."«
It resonates with me because I think one of the recurring themes in my work is love. Love for others, love of life, lost love. I love people, so I go out into the street to meet them. This invocation by Musset, which speaks directly to the audience, is also found in the way I address them. In my sentences, I include all the people reading by using the pronoun "we" or the first-person plural. My theatrical approach is clearly designed to be embraced in every sense of the word: small, intimate pieces to be touched, and large-scale plays to be deeply felt.
PRECIOUS OBJECTS
Your relationship to the object is like opening a treasure chest.
It's like opening Pandora's box, the one where we carefully store everything we adore as children. I love this notion of treasure. I grew up in a family where we're extremely reserved, and I think that finding hidden things, manipulating them to make them our own, is part of that process. You have to embrace the shyest or most complex people to be able to understand them. That's also what I try to do with my pieces. I like the fact that they aren't immediately understandable, that you have to look at them several times, that they contain elements that throw you off the initial impression, with small, original three-dimensional inserts, drawers, mechanisms, that will change their meaning and interpretation. But it also evokes the frustration you can feel as a child in museums when you're not allowed to touch the artworks. I'm extremely tactile; I need to touch and embrace things and people to feel that they belong to me. I can't imagine pieces that can't be handled, because they allow for a transmission between me, the creator, and the person who will make it their own.
Do you feel that using old iconography is a matter of collective memory?
Subconsciously, it inevitably plays a role. I think it's impossible to do without one's past, without the elders who lived before us and understood things we are currently learning. It's impossible to build oneself in the present and the future without understanding one's past. That's the truth, not just armchair psychology. I spent a lot of time visiting a great-uncle every week to learn from his experience. So, yes, there's a somewhat holistic dimension to using old things, which also echoes the return of ancient techniques, like engraving. I have an idea I want to express, and when I find an image, I know that's what I'll work from. In that case, I listen to what it evokes in me to try to create a sentence. I might also start with a written sentence and keep the unsuitable images that strike me because they will be useful later. The choice of iconography involves a somewhat strange and very personal equation. This process is very fragile and doesn't always work. There's never a sentence followed by an image, or an image followed by a sentence, but rather a rather strange incubation period between the two.
This typeface, composed of cut-out letters, can be compared to anonymous lettering. It also conveys a sense of neutrality.
This was more the case at the beginning, less so now because I found it difficult to read. Previously, there was something more raw or punk about my pieces. Today, I refine my typography; it's smoother. I choose one typeface per piece, without varying between uppercase and lowercase. Whereas I was really settling scores with myself, not caring who could understand what I was writing, it's now important to me to be able to engage in a dialogue with the person reading the piece. Clarifying the typography thus allows me to declutter the text and the image. At first, I wrote my sentences myself with a quill or pen. But I didn't like this recognizable intervention. Through the cut-out letters, there's a form of neutrality, of wholeness, and of anonymity that I find very appealing. This is also why I don't show my face. We don't care who is speaking, what matters is what the creation evokes.
All of this gradually leads you to refine your work.
When I look back at what I used to do, I feel ashamed. Two desires intersect: first, a growing awareness due to my age. I've been working for ten years, and I couldn't continue doing the exact same things without feeling like I'm wasting my time and that it's burning me out. Second, I have an increased desire to communicate and be understood, so it's important to make things clearer. I remain extremely critical of my previous work, which pushes me to evolve.
STREET TIME
How do you perceive the relationship to time in the creative act, divided between a long exposure time and a fairly ephemeral lifespan of the collage?
This contributes to creating memories, to making an event. Nothing lasts, and we ourselves evolve. I love shared memory, chance, and surprise. The paper medium is magnificent in this respect because it perfectly matches my approach, being ephemeral like the theater, making its very existence precious. Time has value because one day or another we won't have any more. Why is it good to take photographs of a collage we liked? Because tomorrow, the day after, in two weeks, it will no longer be there. What will remain in the end? The memory. What is permanent doesn't have the same meaning. But what I like even more is when a work bears the marks of its environment: it will be tagged, torn down, dogs will urinate on it. I like paper because it conforms to the wall and engages in a dialogue with its surroundings. I am not trying to advertise but to integrate myself into the environment I am in, like when I go to India or Sri Lanka I take an interest in the culture, the customs, the important symbols.
In what way is the street a unique space for creation?
The street offers a powerful environment, like the audience in a theater. I sometimes arrive home shattered, with tears in my eyes after hearing harsh or incredibly sweet and beautiful words from passersby. They hit me hard, and that's why I keep going and will always keep going, even if less often, because this interaction, however direct it may be, is a true learning experience.
Collage is a quick technique, but choosing a large format implies a long exposure time.
I stretch out time by creating very large pieces when I could be very quick. I need at least half an hour to an hour because I arrive with fifteen rolls of paper, my poles, my brushes, and I have to fetch water. I can be a bit cheeky, because paper isn't as aggressive as other mediums, and people assume it can be removed. A few weeks ago, in République, the police stopped me while I was putting up my posters. They didn't give me a ticket because it's just paper. However, when I'm putting them up, I'm always stressed about a possible mistake. At the slightest gust of wind, the paper stretched four meters high with the pole could fold in on itself and destroy the piece. So the adrenaline rush is there, even if it's not at the same time. Although the approach is different, the desire to pose in public space and leave a trace, however ephemeral, is the same.
In your opinion, is Urban Art an artistic movement? If so, do you consider yourself part of it?
It's a movement, but it encompasses so many techniques that it would be difficult to discuss it without being reductive, between painters, graffiti artists, those who knit, stencils, and collages. It's a hydra with a thousand teeth, whose only common thread is expressing themselves in the street at one time or another. I don't know where I fit in, if anywhere at all, in relation to this whole. I put up posters in the street; I have no pretensions, I am nothing and nobody. I need to say things, and the best way I've found to do that is to put large-format pieces in the street, because they create a dialogue.
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