Miss.Tic
SHE WHO WRITES IN OUR MARGINS
CREATE IN ORDER TO EXIST
Why did you use the stencil technique?
I witnessed the birth of hip-hop and graffiti in the United States in the early 1980s. I had been an actress, mainly in street theater, so I was very attentive to what was happening in the urban environment. Back in Paris, I also saw art students expressing themselves there. To paint outdoors, I decided to use the stencil technique because it was simple and allowed me to reproduce my drawings and texts. I learned on the job: by creating my own typography, I gave my work a visual identity.
You say of your time living on the streets: «"At first it was a score to settle, I did it with all my heart and that feeling has never left me."» Do you consider your main artistic motivation to be creating? against ?
Anger is a driving force that compels action. You're quoting something I said a long time ago. Since then, my anger has taken on different forms… After more than thirty-five years of practice, I feel I've also created For For life, for desire, for freedom, for poetry. It's not just my text that's poetic, but also the way the public discovers it. If I were starting out today, would I do street art? Probably not. I started because it was uncharted territory. That was also a driving force, the fact that there weren't many of us, it was new! We were opening tightly locked doors, we were the guinea pigs. Most cultural institutions and galleries ignored us for a long time. So, I wouldn't want to slip into such an old movement. I'm not a follower by nature.
Your work is strongly associated with the city of Paris and appears in multiple neighborhoods.
I was born in Paris and I live and work here. Every year, I choose a different neighborhood. There's a lot of misunderstanding surrounding my work because of this. To the public, I seem to be linked to the 13th arrondissement.e The 13th arrondissement, because that's where my studio is. I know a few shopkeepers in the Butte aux Cailles neighborhood, and as soon as one of my drawings is damaged, they kindly call me to come and repaint it. Furthermore, in 2006, I did a project for the town hall there, commissioned by the mayor at the time, Serge Blisko. I created about thirty paintings in the arrondissement and an exhibition, "Parisiennes, Femmes Capitales" (Parisian Women, Capital Women), at the town hall. This project received a lot of media coverage. Since then, they've been copying what they find online, and that's how I got labeled as 13th arrondissement.e I also take advantage of my exhibitions in regional cities like Arles, Saint-Etienne or Lille… to paint.
WOMAN AND THE GAZE OF THE OTHER
You project onto the walls the image of a fantasized, eternally young woman, while talking about «"skin of memory"» and dreaming of «"body without memory"». It's almost like a reincarnation of the figure of Dorian Gray.
I offer a sublime vision of woman. She is young, healthy, desirable. I simply take images we see in the media, like fashion, advertising, and women's magazines. I subvert them, make them desirable, and give them a voice. You mention Dorian Gray, but the opposite happens in my work: it's not the painting or the character who ages, it's me… I haven't sold my soul to the devil, I've sold his!
By displaying an eroticized image in the street, you provoke a reaction from the viewer, which can also be rejection. Above all, you directly confront them with their own gaze and prejudices. In old photographs, you can find stickers over your texts with the message "« "I'm fed up with porn."».
A sexualized image will always elicit a stronger reaction than one that isn't. It's true that if I drew kittens, I wouldn't get the same criticism. Some may find my paintings obscene, but it's the viewer who thinks so while looking at my creatures who should question themselves, because they're the ones who perceive the obscenity. I find that the way women are viewed is worse today than it was thirty years ago, and I think society is more regressive than it used to be. I embrace the sexual and erotic aspect of my work. I own it. I'm one of those artists who like to provoke in every sense of the word. To provoke isn't just to shock; it's to elicit a reaction, a thought, an emotion, even if it's indifference or rejection.
This image of an independent and free woman also makes you associated with feminist struggles.
There are feminists who dislike my work intensely because they find it too sexualized: for them, it evokes the objectification of women. I don't consider myself solely a feminist; I'm also an anarchist, a hedonist, and so on. I don't like being confined to a single role. Of course, there are causes that resonate with me, injustices I've experienced as a woman, but I'm not an activist. I consider myself, above all, a woman expressing herself; I create from where I am, with my own feminine side.
WRITING TO DISCOVER ONESELF
You say: «"I write what I know, but I only truly know it once I've written it."» Do you see writing as an outlet, or as a way to reveal thoughts?
I see writing as a revealer. I think that in all creation there is an unconscious element. You start in one place and end up somewhere else. I like to be surprised. Writing is an adventure. Literature fascinates me, and I believe that words are important.
«"In life there's a phase, most often during adolescence, where you start writing, even if it's just a travel journal, a journal of sorrow, or a journal of love. Most of the time it doesn't last, but I continued."» Do you perceive the street as a personal diary?
I don't consider that I'm writing the story of my life, but rather that of life in general. My texts aren't autobiographical: it's impossible to establish a definite link between my mood and what I write. When I paint a sorrowful picture, I'm not necessarily sad. It's not because people say I that it is about us: as Rimbaud said «"I is another"». Art and life are one; they cannot be separated. Inevitably, my creations are influenced by the emotions, thoughts, and feelings that I carry within me.
Could you elaborate on the evolution of your writing process? At the beginning you wrote fairly long texts, close to poems like "Toi en moi" which has several stanzas, before moving towards a shorter form, almost a haiku.
At first, I wrote more traditional poetry, but experience made me realize that people's attention spans and reading time on the street were actually very short. So I shortened and condensed my writing to make it more easily readable by the public, notably using colors typical of signage: red and black.
MUSES AND MEN
How was the Muses and Men series conceived? Created in 2000, it changes your usual reading codes by juxtaposing your texts with paintings by classical masters.
In 1998, Yves Mourousi was commissioned by the City of Paris to oversee the major cultural and festive events planned for the year 2000. One evening, during an exhibition opening, he asked me to propose a project. A few weeks later, I presented him with Muses and Men, the idea being to reinterpret some twenty paintings by great masters: Botticelli, Rembrandt, Manet, Titian, Renoir, Ingres, Vinci, Gauguin, and others. It was a reinterpretation of the image of women and their representation in paintings by men. The choice of these famous works shows how women appear in opposing forms, from saint to courtesan, from virtuous to temptress, from mother to whore.
Initially, I planned to paint on the banks of the Seine between the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre, where these paintings were exhibited. From the museum to the street, from the street to the museum, it was just a short step. But in April 1998, Yves Mourousi died, and his projects with him… I was finally able to realize it in 2000, but in the 20th century.e district, supported by the town hall as well as the Ricard space in the 8the.
How did you choose which part of the painting to isolate?
For The death of Sardanapalus From Eugène Delacroix, I had extracted the image of a warrior murdering a servant, in the lower right corner of the painting. This scene caused a scandal at the time, because the public perceived it as a form of female pleasure. The sentence «"My body is a battle cry"» He wanted to question the story being told. It's surprising to think that the viewers' perception focused on this detail, when it's not certain that the painter himself considered this interpretation. Critics, by taking the artists' thinking further, sometimes reveal things we hadn't thought of!
You explain that using photography was an obvious choice, «"The only way to resist time, to give permanence to my work in the street."» Was it an art photograph or an archival photograph?
Initially, my photographic practice was primarily aimed at preserving my artwork. I wanted to be able to create my own archive, without having to rely on photographers. However, the Muses and Men series is a photographic work. In 2000, digital cameras weren't yet fully developed, and since my project was to exhibit photographs of my paintings on walls as large 120 x 160 cm prints, I worked with a large-format camera and took the photographs.
This series also questions the place of the male gaze in Art, a question that has become more pressing in recent years.
It's true that this subject has recently gained a lot of media attention. That's also what makes this series timeless: the original works still resonate today, whether they depict things once considered tasteful but now abhorrent, or the opposite, like Toulouse-Lautrec showing the humanity of a prostitute. Sometimes I simply highlight what the painter was denouncing, like Paul Gauguin evoking colonization in the painting Women of Tahiti, one was in traditional dress, the other already wearing the clothing of the colonists.
STREET ART: AN ERA
Unlike many urban artists, you don't seem to work on collective memory but directly question our current society.
My work reflects the times I live in: I would rather become an icon myself than work on icons. Only Ernest Pignon has taken this experience to a sublime level, with works that are as poetic as they are political. Therefore, I find the followers who churn out portraits of famous people tiresome, because tributes are easy. It's certainly simple to paint a portrait of Einstein, Frida Kahlo, Jim Morrison, and so on. The worst is the one who exploits the homeless, the unfortunate, the victims of attacks to gain attention. We have the right to speak of our own dead, but it is indecent to speak of the dead who are not our own.
You have always emphasized the importance of text in your work. Do you consider yourself to have been a pioneer in the use of words in urban spaces?
When I started out, there were only images in the street. When I put up my texts, I was convinced that a multitude of people would start writing on the walls, but it's only very recently that this practice has begun to appear, notably with the work of La Dactylo or Petite Poissone. We find a sense of wordplay there, although it remains confined to text and the visual aspect isn't developed. We mustn't forget Ben, who has worked extensively on walls without ever ceasing to be a visual artist, or the very interesting work of Paella?, which isn't given enough recognition.
In what ways is the street a unique setting for creation?
I'm very attached to folk art. Anything that takes me away from the everyday is important. I like to express myself in the street; it's necessary not to be present only in designated spaces: I have nothing against them, but it's good to get out of them. In my case, vandalism was never an issue. From the beginning, I didn't paint because it was forbidden. I was aware of what I had to transgress to create, but the adrenaline rush and chases with the police weren't my goal. My aim was to make my work exist, and I took the necessary risks to make that happen.
Do you think it is possible to speak of ephemeral masterpieces, even though the relationship to the piece quickly becomes impossible except through images?
I think that even the oldest works of art would be ephemeral if they weren't restored. Yes, there are lost masterpieces, but that's not the point. What matters is that a piece speaks to its time, that it achieves a certain kind of universality. We speak of a masterpiece when it transcends the boundaries of time and space to resonate across different eras. Artists like Ernest Pignon-Ernest or Gérard Zlotykamien created major works in situ, using photography to preserve a record of their work. One could write about them: «"Here lies a masterpiece"».
This archive project is independent — Offer a coffee