PIGNON-ERNEST, Ernest

1978

poster

sheet: 24 1/4 x 34 7/8 in.

Ernest Pignon-Ernest is celebrated for his life-size, silk-screened prints that are routinely scattered throughout European cities, wheat pasted onto buildings and sidewalks as well as other public areas. Pignon-Ernest primarily focuses on giving a human face to social problems, such as the plight of illegal immigrants or the toll AIDS is wreaking in Africa but he has also done a series on poets. This poster shows one of the artists most well known and early silkscreen prints in situ, titled Rimbaud dans Paris [Rimbaud in Paris] (1978) based on a drawing the artist made of the poet Arthur Rimbaud. From ages 16 to 19, Rimbaud contributed a small but highly influential body of poetry in the latter half of the 19th century which helped established the Symbolist literary movement. One of his most well-known poems, Une Saison en Enfer [A Season in Hell] (1873) was the first to use free verse and included references to his scandalous affair with a married man. Though lauded within contemporary literary circles, Rimbaud stopped writing poetry altogether at 19 and lead a peripatetic existence traveling as far as Africa to work as a trader. Pignon-Ernest sees his Rimbaud figure which he describes as half adventurer, half hobo, as a subtle critique of French politicians. At the time the artist made this work the Socialist Party had co-opted Rimbauds phrase and goal to Change Life and yet Pignon-Ernest had seen very little change as France was in the midst of an economic recession and many were suffering. It irritated Pignon-Ernest to have the poets words used for political propaganda when Rimbaud was a renegade in the way he wrote and lived his life. By placing the figure of the poet throughout the city, Pignon-Ernest makes clear that Rimbaud belongs to the people and his defiant, rebellious streak resides in all. To really change life one must, like Rimbaud, seize the opportunity for oneself and not leave it to politicians.

1978

PIGNON-ERNEST, Ernest

French, b. 1942

Gift of Gary H. Brown

1992.29