Hello visitors,
I would like to introduce you to an artist that I discovered a few years ago and that I really like : Ernest Pignon Ernest.
This French artist, born on February 23, 1942, in Nice, is considered as one of the precursors of urban art.
All of his original work is ephemeral, and can only be discovered in the street and not in the museum. Indeed, he considers that a work of art can only be seen frontally in a museum, whereas in the street, it can be perceived from different angles, and different lights.
His creative process is always the same. Each work is created for a specific place. The artist goes to the place, at different times to see the light change, to study the memory and the symbolism of the place. Then, the originals are drawn in charcoal and black chalk on newspaper, and he affixes his work on walls, by gluing posters executed in stencil.
According to him, it’s a way to “make the walls speak” and to inscribe a sign of humanity. However, he absolutely insists on respecting the place, by making his works ephemeral, which deteriorate over time.
Besides, he is also best known for his work being engaged and sometimes disturbing.
His first works denounce apartheid, the war in Algeria, the reactionary campaign against abortion. In his own words, he seeks to provoke the spectator, to disturb him and to make him aware of the reality suffered by millions of people.
Here are his 5 most famous works.
Paris - 1978.
He will say of this portrait of Rimbaud, which he stuck in the streets of Paris, that he has tried since his adolescence to make a portrait of the artist. Before realizing that he could not make a portrait in marble, bronze or in a frame. This image printed on ordinary paper, according to him, highlights his vulnerability because of his imminent disappearance, and therefore represents in a poetic way Rimbaud.
Rome, Ostia, Naples and Matera - 2015.
He made a point of paying homage to Pasolini with a “mise en abyme” of the poet and director assassinated in 1975. It represents him, holding his corpse in his arms. The poster was pasted near the places where he lived.
Paris - 1975.
He produced this poster for the Women's liberation movement, during the debates before the national assembly on the liberalization of abortion. He wished to reverse the reactionary slogan of the time "abortion kills" by denouncing the fact that abortion kills women first. At that time clandestine abortions caused the death of many women.
Martigues Provence – 1982.
When Ernest Pignon Ernest contemplated the iron and steel and petrochemical complexes in the city of Martigues, which are constantly burning, he immediately thought of the myth of Prometheus. He gives a modern vision of it by representing the atomist Oppenheimer. The position of the character can be interpreted as a fall or as a flight. For the artist, this silhouette represents both Prometheus and the eagle that eats his liver.
Nice – 1974.
When Ernest Pignon Ernest learned that his hometown of Nice has decided to twin with the city of South Africa, Cape Town, in full Apartheid, he is scandalized. He then decided to paste hundreds of images of a black family parked behind the barbed wire, to denounce Apartheid.
Durban, Soweto – 2002.
On June 16, 1976, a demonstration of black schoolchildren and high school students was violently repressed by the white police, in the midst of Apartheid. A photo will cause a scandal, that of the corpse of Hector Peterson, 12, carried in the arms of a man. Ernest Pignon Ernest will be inspired by this photograph, to represent two characters, a man who died of AIDS, in the arms of a woman.
I hope you liked his work.
The streets are full of works of art. You just have to be careful.
Sana
Source: https://pignon-ernest.com