Face aux murs

For over 30 years, Ernest Pignon-Ernest has been staking a claim to cities around the world (from Naples to Ramallah, Montauban to Soweto) by posting his images on their walls. Turning away from museums, his work – painted, drawn or silk-screened images reproduced into dozens of ephemeral copies glued onto carefully selected walls – blend into the architecture, metamorphosing public spaces into art spaces and becoming collective offerings.

Whether the realities he addresses are social (deportation), poetical (Rimbaud), political (Neruda) or historical (the Paris Commune), the precisely chosen spots where he displays them to bring out their fullest meaning.

This book pairs commentary from writers as diverse as Fred Vargas, Daniel Pennac, Michel Onfray and others with a selection of Ernest Pignon-Ernest’s work.