A key figure on the French art scene, Jacques Villeglé developed a distinctive approach characterized by the practice of collecting posters from urban spaces. Through these fragments ripped from the walls of Paris, he transformed the ephemeral traces of the French capital into a unique visual language, at once poetic and documentary. His prolific body of work invites visitors to discover the history of the city through the torn posters and graphic signs he reconfigures into artworks, while also allowing the public to explore his connections to the various forms of contemporary urban art.

The exhibition is organized as a journey through groups of works structured by Jacques Villeglé’s vision, as seen in his writings. His works are juxtaposed with photographs, audio archives, music, film excerpts, interviews, and personal accounts, many of which are exhibited here for the first time.

The exhibition opens with Jacques Mahé de La Villeglé’s move to Paris in 1950. He frequented circles of artists and poets with whom he shared a taste for observing the streets of Paris and the types of marginal beauty they offered. At that time, posters were an integral part of the capital’s landscape and could be seen along the boulevards and on street corners. Struck by their vibrant splashes of colour against the sombre facades of post-war Paris, Villeglé—a self-proclaimed “‘flaneur’ of the hoardings”—was drawn to the layers of ripped and superimposed posters.

The exhibition focuses on a practice that is situated at the intersection of poetry and urban archaeology. For Villeglé, Paris was an open-air studio where every wall held the potential of a work in the making. Villeglé’s wanderings take visitors through four neighbourhoods of the capital, where he often sourced the materials needed for his works: Porte Maillot, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Montparnasse, and the Marais. The exhibition also reveals the historical dimension of Villeglé’s work, which captures authentic snapshots of the urban landscape at a given moment of history. His works therefore, evoke the political context, struggles and protest movements, and elections—both local and national—mirroring a Parisian society in constant evolution. By collecting, dating, and indicating the location from which these posters were taken, Jacques Villeglé—who often describes himself as a “historian-collector”—gathered material that preserves the memory of historical changes and global upheavals.

The last section of the exhibition examines Villeglé’s connections to the contemporary urban art scene. He forged ties and collaborated with several urban artists like Lek & Sowat. Sometimes seen as a mentor figure, Jacques Villeglé nonetheless had a somewhat amused and measured response to this admiration, claiming that while street artists add elements to the streets, he spent his life removing them. “I do the exact opposite of street artists. But as they work in the street, like I do, we’ve come to an understanding. I take the finished piece from the street and bring it back to my studio, and they go out into the street to add something.” Today, Jacques Villeglé continues to inspire artists who make the street their gallery and the works of some of these artists have often been exhibited alongside his own.

A catalogue featuring essays by curators, experts, and specialists is published for the occasion by Éditions Paris Musées.

GENERAL CURATOR
Valérie Guillaume, Head Curator, Director of the Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris

SCIENTIFIC CURATORS
Émilie Gandon, Chief Heritage Curator, Head of the Sculpture and Architectural and Urban Heritage Departments at the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris
Jennifer Heim, Heritage Conservation Officer, Head of the Posters, Prints, and Wallpaper of the Graphic Arts Department of the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Antoine de Baecque, professor at the École normale supérieure –Street ART(s) chair, ENS/Renault
Sophie Duplaix, Chief Heritage Curator in charge of the Contemporary Collections at the Musée national d’Art moderne / Centre Pompidou
Charlotte Guichard, professor of art history at the École normale supérieure –Street ART(s) chair, ENS/ Renault
Nicolas Gzeley, member of the administrative council of the Fédération de l’Art Urbain and president of the artistic and scientific council of the Centre Arcanes, centre national des archives numériques de l’art urbain
Patrick Marcolini, lecturer in art philosophy at the Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 3
Fanny Schulmann, curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
Valérie Villeglé, daughter of Jacques Villeglé, responsible for the Fonds de dotation Villeglé

Exhibition produced with the support of: