At the Triangle-Astérides art center in Marseille, the exhibition “Like a spring, I would be numerous” questions the legacy of the urban revolts of 2005 through the works of nine artists. And questions in subtext, until June 8, the right way to evoke police violence in art.
A concrete slab and an air vent in the middle of the room represent a roof terrace of a building in a working-class neighborhood. Around it, works of art occupy the space of the Panoramas gallery, a monumental metal cube placed on the roof of the cultural space La Friche La Belle de Mai. One of the only places in Marseille to bring together, through its immense bay windows, both the sea and the northern neighborhoods.
The exhibition “Like a spring, I would be numerous”, the result of a reflection between the Triangle-Astérides art center and the poet Sonia Chiambretto, offers the perspective of eight visual artists on the legacy of the urban revolts of 2005 following the deaths of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré.
There is a strong social and political charge in this exhibition
“Social issues are very much present in our programming,” explains Victorine Grataloup, director of the art center. “We are not an ideological state apparatus or a militant place. But art is political, and there is a strong social and political charge in this exhibition, which takes sides with those who suffer police violence. And which demands that it stops.”
The poetic work of Sonia Chiambretto is the central senegal phone number library piece around which the artists gathered to question the relationships between young people from working-class neighborhoods and police authority.
“The title of the exhibition is a quote from the text
I wrote for my play ‘Oasis Love’,” explains the author. “It comes at a time when teenagers, after learning of the death of one of them at the hands of a police officer, take to the streets to express their anger and despair. Following a chase, fear gives way to exaltation, and the character says: ‘Like a spring, I will be numerous,’ which expresses both visitors here you will have several ways rebirth and the collective.”
The day before the opening, Sonia learned that the epitaph germany cell number on the tomb of Malik Oussekine, a young Frenchman of Algerian origin killed by police officers in 1986, also mentions spring, like the title of the exhibition. “He has engraved on his stele ‘They can cut all the flowers, but they will not prevent the coming of spring’ [quote attributed to Pablo Neruda, editor’s note] . This connection moved me, I tell myself that I felt what many people directly affected by these issues have felt.”
