Unlike
some of today's self-serving artists who have become art stars
by opportunistically building a career on street art, the artists
of the Atelier Populaire eschewed the cult of the personality
in favor of egalitarian politics. To them, a poster that conveyed
an unmistakable message leading to action was of primary importance,
who actually made the poster was irrelevant. The Atelier's
mission was made clear in a statement the collective issued in
'68:
"The
posters produced by the Atelier Populaire are weapons in the service
of the struggle and are an inseparable part of it. Their rightful
place is in the centers of conflict, that is to say, in the streets
and on the walls of the factories. To use them for decorative
purposes, to display them in bourgeois places of culture or to
consider them as objects of aesthetic interest is to impair both
their function and their effect. This is why the Atelier Populaire
has always refused to put them on sale.
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Wheatpasting
the posters on the street
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Silkscreen
workshop at the occupied University
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Even
to keep them as historical evidence of a certain stage in the
struggle is a betrayal, for the struggle itself is of such primary
importance that the position of an "outside" observer is a fiction
which inevitably plays into the hands of the ruling class. That
is why these works should not be taken as the final outcome of
an experience, but as an inducement for finding, though contact
with the masses, new levels of action, both on the cultural and
the political plane."
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The
message on this poster reads: The Vote Changes Nothing, The
Struggle Continues. During the Paris uprising many activists
concluded that reformist electoral politics were a dead-end. Demonstrations
and strikes became the preferred forms of political action.
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This
poster reads: We Are The Power. During the uprising organized
labor took to the streets in unprecedented numbers.
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This
poster titled Borders = Repression, portrays a French policeman
painted with the stripes of a border crossing barricade. The message
being that workers are kept apart and in competition with one
another based on the false division of nationalism.
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This
poster illustrates one of the uprising's major slogans, Pouvoir
Populaire (Popular Power - or Power to the People as
it would be chanted in English). The image shows united students,
workers, and peasants.
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The
title of this poster is Free Information, and its double
entendre is breathtaking. Is the poster a poke at a self-censored
press that tows the government line and offers people false "Free
Information"? Or does the graphic portray a free press held
hostage and in need of liberation? Note that even the cord on
the microphone is tied in a knot, implying the choking off of
reliable news reporting.
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The
caption reads The Boss Needs You, You Do Not Need Him.
This widely distributed image encapsulated socialist philosophy
in a two panel cartoon. A classic portrayal of a capitalist filing
his pockets when he has not contributed anything towards the creation
of wealth.
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In
order to contain the widening popular revolt, pro-government goon
squads were formed composed of right-wing workers and off duty
policemen. They continually assaulted demonstrators and organizers,
infiltrated and broke up political meetings and rallies, and attempted
by wholesale thuggery to intimidate sympathizers of the uprising.
This poster mocked one aggressive right-wing group, the Civic
Action, for being "Fascist Vermin."
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This
poster could be called a companion piece to the one shown directly
above. The poster hails Vigilance as a way of indicating
or identifying infiltration by Civiques - members of
the right-wing Civic Action group.
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This
poster, Down With The Infernal Cadence, condemns the long
hours, work speed-ups, low pay, and general exploitation of industrial
workers on the shop floor. The abstraction of a worker who must
do six jobs at once, combined with a politically astute yet poetic
title, exemplifies what made the posters of Paris 68 so powerful.
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This
poster warned people against believing the version of events as
reported by the capitalist pro-government press. Written on a
black bottle, the type reserved for poisons, Press -Not To
Be Swallowed.
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is owned and operated by Mark Vallen © All text by Mark Vallen
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