Ernest Pignon-Ernest

In a way he is the heir of the great fresco artists of the Renaissance and the Mexican muralists. His art is ‘social’, and must be seen. It is posted in the form of screen paintings, sometimes as original drawings in the streets of Soweto, Naples or Aix-en-Provence. It gains importance if it ages and disappears under the power of the elements. Pignon-Ernest, born in 1942, is listed in the Petit Larousse dictionary. He is not an artist like any other. He is a remarkable drawer and uses his talent to serve the causes he believes in. This book lists those that have moved him over the last fifty years, and in doing so does an X-ray of our times: the right to abortion, the Palestinian cause, the fight against the dictatorship in Chili, apartheid in South Africa, work related accidents, the rights of immigrants or nuclear pollution. And he places all of them under tutelary figures such as Pasolini, Rimbaud or Mahmud Darwich. The lines by poet Velter confirm, if we still had any doubt, at the age 70 and more, Pignon-Ernest has no intention of betraying his fighting fiber.

• Ernest Pignon-Ernest, by André Velter, Gallimard, 2014, 360 p., €50