FIn January, the acquisition commission of the National Museum of Modern Art (MNAM) validated the entry into its collections of eight works by the pioneer of urban art Gérard Zlotykamien, now 83 years old (and still active ), symbolically marking the entry of urban art into its walls. But the news would have remained confidential without an enthusiastic press release from the Parisian Mathgoth gallery, which represents the artist, emphasizing that the Center Pompidou is crossing a threshold. “historic step” towards the world of urban art.
This turning point for the institution seems very discreet if we compare it to what was done a year earlier with NFTs (non-fungible tokens, in English), these “non-fungible tokens” backed by cryptocurrencies: the MNAM itself then published a press release to announce the acquisition of a large body of works and accompanied it with an exhibition devoted to these new parts. Brut art also had its moment, entering the MNAM in force in 2021 with the Bruno Decharme donation. “For urban art, a field that we have long almost ignored, the corpus will be produced more gradually”, recognize Sophie Duplaix, the curator behind this new impetus for the institution, who “wanted to start with a reference figure, which younger artists claim to be”.
As early as 1963, the Frenchman Gérard Zlotykamien had chosen public space as a place of expression by painting on the walls – with an enema bulb, while waiting for the arrival of aerosol bombs – spectral silhouettes echoing the ghosts of Hiroshima, these people blown up by the nuclear explosion whose traces were found on the walls of the city, and to the victims of the Shoah.
Under the leadership of the curator, the commission also validated, in January, the acquisition of another group: from Lek & Sowat, a French duo from graffiti. However, two of his works had already been in the museum’s collections for ten years, which somewhat puts the announcement effect regarding urban art into perspective. It was in 2014, it was a video (Direct traces) showing the nocturnal and chalk interventions of around twenty artists on a blackboard in the Palais de Tokyo.
“Almost broke in”
Among them was the painter Jacques Villeglé (1926-2022), who for the occasion traced his famous “sociopolitical alphabet”. The blackboard with its intervention, like the video, were donated by the artists alongside the purchase of a drawing by Villeglé by the museum. “We almost broke in thanks to the name of Villeglé”sums up the duo.
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