Beauty in the Streets: Atelier Populaire and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris ‘68
This selection of objects focuses on two manifestations of radical collective artistic and architectural practice that occurred in the Spring of 1968 in Paris: the exhibition Structures gonflables (Inflatable Structures), organized by members of the Utopie group in March 1968 at the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art, and the Atelier Populaire workshop at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, established during the school’s occupation in May and June 1968 in support of the student and workers’ protests across France.
The catalogue for the Structures gonflables exhibition reveals Utopie’s interest in pneumatic objects and inflatable structures, while offering a conceptual and practical challenge to conventional architectural approaches and the limitations of French postwar architecture and urbanism.
The archival items related to the Atelier Populaire show how the 1968 student and workers’ protests were mediated through photography, posters, wall newspapers, journals, poster books, and other printed materials.
The photographs by Phillipe Vermès provide a unique insight into the workings of the revolutionary poster workshop at the École des Beaux-Arts, highlighting not only the technical and aesthetic strategies deployed in the production process, but also the collective nature of the endeavor.
The French poster book May 68: Affiches and the English publication Posters from the Revolution, Paris, May, 1968: Texts and Posters by Atelier Populaire offer two different approaches to re-presenting the protest posters through the book medium in the immediate aftermath of the May 1968 events. They illuminate the production, distribution, and reception of protest posters, while raising questions about their shifting function and signification in the different context of display from streets and factory walls to publications, private homes, and institutions.
The Atelier Populaire’s large-scale wall newspaper Journal Mural raises questions about the role of the press in postwar France, offering an alternative to mainstream news outlets by disseminating information arising from and serving workers and those who suffer from oppression under capitalism.
Similarly, the Cahiers de mai, a journal founded in the wake of May 1968, provides direct testimonies by those involved in the waves of strikes and protests, while supporting the ensuing lutte prolongée, or continuation of the workers’ struggle, in the five years after the 1968 upheavals.
The Journal Mural is an oversized wall newspaper produced by the Atelier Populaire from June 10 through 30, 1968. All-together the Atelier produced 5 issues; the Beinecke holds numbers 3 (produced roughly June 17) and 4 (produced roughly June 20). The masthead features the iconic factory profile with a raised fist emerging from the smokestack, below which reads “La Lutte Continue.” The newspaper features short articles about strikes in France and the Paris demonstrations, collected directly from the workers or strike committees, or from Action Committee militants who were also in direct contact with the workers.
Titled May 68: affiches, this book collects posters from May and June 1968, most of which were printed by the Atelier Populaire. It is dated June 27, 1968 (the same day police raided the Atelier Populaire, resulting in its closure) and was published by Tchou, a French publisher specializing in limited editions. The introduction is by Jean Cassou, a French writer, art critic, poet, and member of the French Resistance during World War II, who also served as the first Director of the Musée national d’Art moderne in Paris.
Posters from the Revolution, Paris, May, 1968 was published in 1969 in London by Dobson Books, a small publisher specializing in left-wing politics and musicology. It’s copyright is held by Usines-Université-Union, presumably the same student group advertised on the first poster produced by the Atelier Populaire. The French version of this book, Atelier populaire présenté par lui-même, 87 affiches de mai-juin 1968, also in the Beinecke’s collection, lists Atelier Populaire as the author.[1]
The journal Cahiers de mai was created in the immediate aftermath of the May 1968 protests and was published until 1974 under the direction of Daniel Anselme.
The black-and-white photographs of the Atelier Populaire workshop at the École des Beaux-Arts, established spontaneously in the school’s lithography studio during its occupation, provide a view into one of the key sites of May 1968 where students, artists, and workers came together to produce the striking visual material used in protests and occupations. Although photography was forbidden in the workshop for security reasons, Philippe Vermès and a highly limited number of photographers were allowed to capture the poster production process.
The catalogue Structures gonflables accompanied the March 1968 exhibition of inflatable objects and pneumatic architecture at the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art, which was organized by members of Utopie, a group of architects, urbanists, and sociologists founded in 1967 in Paris. The exhibition presented a broad selection of inflatable structures, ranging from industrial products to experimental architectural design. In the catalogue, the Utopie architects Jean Aubert, Jean-Paul Jungmann, and Antoine Stinco establish an inventory of diverse objects through a combination of photographs and technical object descriptions.