Clet

&quot;Freedom where are you?&quot; Signage sticker on road panel 2022 Diameter 60cm Place de la Bastille and Franklin Roosevelt, Paris
In a desire to apostrophize the passer-by through his favourite medium, a road pannel, Clet pays tribute to Liberty leading the people of Delacroix, on a wrong-way sign. The choice of this panel is decisive because it is a question of diverting its “meaning”, of defying the interdiction. However, this quotation of a masterpiece is exceptional for the artist, which echoes a recent event, the fiftieth anniversary of May 68.
Here, the summoning of this archetypal figure of the revolution, crossing the white bar that has become a barricade, perfectly expresses his freedom from prohibitions, like an echo of the sixty-eight slogan “Forbidden to prohibit”. Clet&#39;s work is thus built on the diversion of this road pannel by reversing the messages in a positive and humorous direction. But also poetic.
Because Clet wants to &quot;bring beauty and optimism to the streets&quot;. Delacroix&#39;s masterpiece, universal like this sign, becomes more accessible in his view outside of an overly impressive Louvre where the visitor is conditioned in his reception of the works. Clet, the French artist living in Italy, also chooses to broaden the initial message and include it in the contemporary debate with a Liberty brandishing the European flag.
Cyrille Gouyette (excerpt from “Under street art, the Louvre”, 2019, Alternatives editions)

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