{"id":124,"date":"2020-09-01T23:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T23:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/?p=124"},"modified":"2026-06-29T17:24:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:24:27","slug":"a-cote-de-la-plaque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/a-cote-de-la-plaque\/","title":{"rendered":"Completely off the mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEXT TO THE PLAQUE \u2013 PLAQUES TO PAY TRIBUTE AND RAISE AWARENESS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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COURSE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you start creating in the street?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I've always drawn, because intellectually this creative activity was vital to me. In 2012, on the thirtieth anniversary of Georges Perec's death, I was embarrassed to learn that nothing was planned. Without any ulterior motive, I told myself that he, who only had a small, barely visible street in the 20th arrondissement of Paris named after him, wasn't exactly at his best. place<\/em>, And thinking about how to pay tribute to him, I thought of making him a plaque. \u00abPlac_ G_org_s P_r_c \u00bb<\/em>, by removing the e<\/em> as in his novel The disappearance<\/em>. I decided to make it like a real plaque, enameled, and then things just fell into place. The Georges Perec Association was interested in my project, as was the Oulipo. I was offered the opportunity to place one at the Caf\u00e9 de la Mairie, on Place Saint-Sulpice, in the very spot where he had written An attempt to exhaust a Parisian place<\/em>. It was a timeless moment; his widow, Paulette Perec, told me that she would have liked it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That should have been the end of the story, but some artist friends, thinking I was onto something, asked me why I didn't make more. New ideas came to me, and I started paying homage to other artists I admire, like Salvador Dal\u00ed with a plaque that flows like a melting clock. <\/em>of the painting The Persistence of Memory<\/em>, or even \u00ab"This is not Ren\u00e9 Magritte Square"\u00bb<\/em>. So I had several enamel plaques made in small quantities, so that it would remain an interesting object and people would understand the artistic process. My boundary was clear: it could appear as a souvenir of Paris if I gave in to the easy way out. It turned out that it was actually a constrained approach, like that used by Perec or the Oulipo group: a locked support through which I had to express something to pay homage or convey an idea, playing with colors, shapes, or typography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015. I drew \u00ab"A place for freedom of expression"\u00bb<\/em> But, not having the time to have it made and wanting to express my support, I pasted it up on paper in the street for the first time. It was as if I'd caught a bug then, because the street allows for a much faster response than searching for a gallery to exhibit. When I'm pasting things up, I stay in the neighborhood to observe people's reactions. When I realized what this interaction with the public brought me, I decided to develop this work alongside my work on enamel plaques. The approach is still the same, except that now some pieces are designed specifically for the street, such as \u00ab"Climate change impasse"\u00bb<\/em> Or \u00ab"Street corner"\u00bb<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OBSTRUCT THE SIGNAGE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is the street a special space for creation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because these plaques are ordinary in shape and color, people don't notice them unless they're looking for a street name, as they blend into the background. Conversely, when they do notice them, I can see a little spark in their eyes, or even a smile, showing that they appreciate this textual wink. The person walked by without intending to see my work, but an interaction took place. A passerby once said to me, "What you're doing is funny," before turning around to add, "It's clever." And<\/em> "Funny." She understood that there was a subtlety behind the humor. It's good that everything isn't always obvious, that a plaque doesn't reveal itself immediately and requires references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is your relationship to the ephemeral nature of your work in the street?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I imagine we'd all like it to stay long enough to engage as many people as possible, but there's no concept of permanence. However, it's better when they deteriorate on their own, due to time or weather, than when they're damaged. \u00ab"Place of Fraternity"\u00bb<\/em> It was placed quite low, so people wrote on it, which led to interaction, with some even writing their tag inside one of the puzzle pieces. The worst is when a political party or an advertisement hijacks a piece by placing themselves right next to it, sometimes even covering it. But when it comes to street artists, they're usually just taggers marking their territory. It's part of the game and doesn't bother me. Sometimes the cleaning crews don't even notice my posters when they come by: I like to say they respect my work too much to cover it up, but the truth is they couldn't tell the difference between them and a real plaque. It happened once at the Centre Pompidou, during the Magritte exhibition. I had printed \u00ab"This is not Ren\u00e9 Magritte Square"\u00bb<\/em> The collage was left uncovered for the duration of the exhibition, then repainted at the end. The organizers or the cleaners must have found this consistent with the location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAY TRIBUTE AND RAISE AWARENESS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the personalities, how do you choose the themes addressed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of my collages are linked to a certain sense of urgency. I agree with Ernest Pignon-Ernest when he says that the place or time must have a strong connection to the collage and that it's not about marking an entire neighborhood like graffiti artists. Regarding climate change, a collage created on the sidelines of the climate march, it's a general emergency that doesn't require any particular location, but it's not gratuitous either. Another time, I worked with my crew<\/em> based on the idea of \u00ab"Place of Fraternity"\u00bb<\/em>, A collage, a puzzle of one hundred and eight pieces, one of which was missing, was created between the two rounds of the presidential election, while the National Front was in the second round. The pieces had to be cut out and glued together, resulting in a surface area of nearly nine square meters. Placed along the route to a polling station, the missing piece was intended to catch people's attention and remind them that this is not an immutable whole, but that we are all part of this Fraternity. We could also mention the collage created on Rue de la Lune for the fiftieth anniversary of the first human steps on our satellite, a magical moment from my childhood. Even if it wasn't a current event, the piece was coherent and effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Street signs are powerful signage elements; why not have repurposed them directly?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I'm not a vandal; I respect the place where I stick things and I try not to damage my fellow players when they've already put up their pieces. I wasn't about to use a blowtorch on another Salvador Dal\u00ed plaque to melt it! Besides, enamel plaques are very expensive because their production follows a screen-printing process, with each color fired in a kiln. So it's complicated to put them up on the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If street signs are political objects, then street names are too. The feminist collective Nous Toutes, for example, continues its campaign to rename streets by feminizing them, for political rather than artistic reasons.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thank this collective for choosing a color scheme different from that of street signs, but similar to that of their movement: purple and black. Because of this variation, their interventions stand out more. When I discovered their work, it made me question my own approach and the political dimension of street names. I'm particularly struck by the fact that I don't have any women among my pieces. There are also people whose notoriety is questionable, and whose surnames are used to name streets, as is the case in Bordeaux with many prominent figures who made their fortunes through slavery. Indirectly, this also justifies the existence of enamel plaques, because their permanence allows for another kind of work: I created a series on "illustrious unknowns," people whose names no one knows, but whose inventions are recognized. We think, for example, of Alfred Butts, who invented Scrabble, or of Jean-Alexandre S\u00e9y\u00e8s and his famous notebook. This allows us to highlight the creator in relation to their creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ON URBAN ART<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you see a real collective dimension to creating art in the street?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My involvement in a group began with the "Place de la Fraternit\u00e9" project. There were other performances that day, but the people who came stayed because they liked the idea. We experienced a special moment, finding refuge in a caf\u00e9 straight out of a 1950s film, with elderly North African men sitting in a corner, drinking coffee and putting the world to rights. Some of my friends then held umbrellas while I pasted up the posters. This experience solidified the group, which met several times, notably before the lockdown on March 8th to paste a plaque in front of the Panth\u00e9on., \u00ab"Place of grand hotels"\u00bb<\/em> using inclusive writing. What's surprising is the number of comments I received online regarding inclusive writing itself, rather than the message. People didn't look beyond that, even though it was more of a pretext for reading a sign on a single medium than an endorsement of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you feel that Urban Art is an artistic movement?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I consider myself more of an urban artist than a street artist. For me, the dividing line between the two is the commercial aspect, used to boost sales, which is now found in every city for festivals. This is great because it allows people to express themselves, but it has become a kind of obligation for municipalities, and even for brands that reuse these motifs. Nevertheless, this movement is broader than traditional ones like Surrealism, which had the advantage of an intellectual and collective approach moving in the same direction. For urban art, the only common ground is the street. There are so many different modes of expression and opinions that I struggle to find a coherence that would allow us to assert a shared artistic vision, even if we sometimes find ourselves drawn to specific themes or locations. Therefore, it was a great pleasure for me to collaborate with Black Lines, who have a vandalistic and political spirit, but who were happy to include me in their mural because they saw the points of contact between our work regarding freedom of expression.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A C\u00d4T\u00c9 DE LA PLAQUE – DES PLAQUES POUR RENDRE HOMMAGE ET ALERTER PARCOURS Comment as-tu commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 cr\u00e9er dans la rue ? J\u2019ai toujours dessin\u00e9, car intellectuellement cette activit\u00e9 de cr\u00e9ation \u00e9tait pour moi vitale. En 2012, \u00e0 l\u2019occasion des trente ans de la mort de Georges Perec, j\u2019ai \u00e9t\u00e9 g\u00ean\u00e9 d\u2019apprendre qu\u2019il n\u2019y […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[33,30,39],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-in-situ","tag-paris","tag-volume"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qgdesartistes.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}