Photographs of Atelier Populaire by Philippe Vermès

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. They represented all stages and modes of production, including poster painting and lithography, while focusing especially on the newly introduced silk-screening process that allowed for the production of over 2,000 posters in one night.[1] The photographers attempted  to avoid capturing faces of those involved, so that the images could not be used for police identification.[2] Instead of the individual identity of participants, it is the manual labor and collective nature of the endeavor that is highlighted in the close-ups of hands and equipment and in the images of groups of men and women at work. The photographs of posters hanging on lines to dry and poster designs pasted on walls not only mediate the variety and visual impact of slogans and aesthetic strategies in support of the united struggle of students and workers, but also emphasize the seriality and proliferation of the posters. In 2011, Vermès and the collector Johan Kugelberg published the photographs alongside poster reproductions and first-hand accounts of the revolt in Beauty is in the Street, A Visual Record of the May ’68 Paris Uprising.

[1] William Bostwick, “Rock Versus Paper: An Interview with Philippe Vermès, the Occupy Artist of Paris ’68,” Print Magazine, January 23, 2012, http://www.printmag.com/article/rock-versus-paper/.

[2] Jon Henley, “Photographer Philippe Vermès’s Best Shot,” the Guardian, April 27, 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/apr/27/photography-philippe-vermes-best-shot.