Sur les murs. Histoire(s) de graffitis

Can we express ourselves on walls? No way! The famous law of 29 July 1881 on the freedom of the press dictates strict rules for all urban posters or writing on walls. No doubt this was the reaction to the tendency of all citizens, throughout time, who have not hesitated to engrave their opinions on the stone of our walls. We have clear examples that go from Pompey to May 68, and to the samizdats from Eastern European countries. The basic version is graffiti: a drawing – at times obscene -, a sign, initials, with some samples from the pyramids as well as in old French manors. The work shows how these penknife marks became objects studied as patrimony. The object of the exhibition gains immensely from the great variety, going from the writings on Rome’s clay walls by Pinturicchio’s rivals, accusing him of being a sodomite, to the writings by the prisoners in the castle of If that immortalized the name of their sweethearts; including works by Pignon-Ernest, as well as the graffiti artists who invaded abandoned factories.

• Sur les murs. Histoire(s) de graffitis, 190 p., €29.