We saw it, we (more than) loved it: the exhibition "Paris à l’arraché. Jacques Villeglé and Urban Art" at the Musée Carnavalet

What is it about?

A major artist on the French scene, Jacques Villeglé developed a unique approach: he collected pieces of posters from the urban space. His prolific work invites us to discover the history of the city through lacerated posters or graphic signs that he reassembled. It also allows us to explore his links with the multiple expressions of contemporary urban art.

An exhibition that juxtaposes his works with photos, audio archives, music, film excerpts, interviews, and even testimonies from the time.

Jacques Villeglé, Rue de l’Échaudé, May 31, 1961. Lacerated posters mounted on canvas Paris, Villeglé Endowment Fund. ; Credits : © Fonds de dotation Villeglé / Adagp, Paris, 2026 / Photo : Fabienne VillegléHarry Shunk and János Kender, Jacques Villeglé, Montparnasse, Paris, February 14, 1961, photograph. Collection of the Centre Pompidou-MNAM / CCI-Bibliothèque Kandinsky. ; Credits : © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Fonds Shunk et Kender / Adagp, Paris, 2026Jacques Villeglé, Boulevard de Belleville, May 10, 1995. Lacerated posters mounted on canvas Paris, Villeglé Endowment Fund. ; Credits : © Fonds de dotation Villeglé / Adagp, Paris, 2026 / Photo : François PoivretJacques Villeglé, Rue de Rennes, April 1987. ; Credits : Courtesy Galerie GP & N Vallois, Paris

Editorial review

Entering the Musée Carnavalet (Paris Centre) is like stepping into a fragmented, lacerated, and curated Paris. Arriving in the capital in 1950, Jacques Villeglé turned the city into a true open-air studio. His obsession? Posters plastered on walls, from which he tore away the layers. As an indefatigable flâneur, he collected bursts of color, graphic signs, and stickers during his strolls. "His work consists of letting the poetry and beauty hidden in these layers of paper torn by anonymous passersby emerge from the urban chaos," explains Jennifer Heim, co-curator of the exhibition. But the artist also acts as a "collector historian": behind every piece of poster collected, a whole era is revealed, with its share of demands, issues, and upheavals.

The poster artist

Designed as a stroll through Paris in the footsteps of Jacques Villeglé, the tour opens with an XXL panorama of colorful posters, which stand out against a grey background, a nod to the facades of a still-dark Paris before the renovation work began in 1959. Here, we admire photographs and autochromes testifying to the importance of the billboard culture in the capital, where layers of paper could even reach several centimeters in thickness. A material of choice for the French visual artist, who worked with it until the 1980s-1990s, before the fight against illegal flyposting ended up stifling this Parisian tradition.

The kidnapper of neighborhoods

"The life of an artist must begin with strolling": it is with this quote from Jacques Villeglé that we enter a reconstructed library, a place he frequented a lot and where he theorized his practice, especially his taste for Parisian flânerie. From his writings emerge five Parisian neighborhoods where he particularly collected posters. The scenography then takes us from Porte Maillot (17th) to Montparnasse (14th), passing through Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th), the Marais (Paris Centre), and Les Halles (Paris Centre), like a walk in the footsteps of his urban explorations.

The collecting historian

May 68, independence wars in Indochina and Algeria, the establishment of the Fifth Republic, the struggle of PTT agents: Jacques Villeglé's art is tinged with the aesthetic, political, and social changes of his time. According to him, "revolutions are talkative and those that took place in Paris knew better than any others how to make the walls speak." From these urban imprints, he even composed a sociopolitical alphabet where the signs of the struggles clashing on the walls of Paris intertwine.

The pioneer of urban art

Obviously, it is difficult not to think of the following generations who also made the walls speak through graffiti, tags, urban murals, stickers, or even collages. While he himself nuances his status as a pioneer of urban art, his work has nonetheless nourished exchanges with many street artists, as the last part of the exhibition reminds us. In a video recording taken during a performance at the Palais de Tokyo (16th) in 2013, we see him putting the finishing touch to a collective work, created by about twenty artists, including the duo Lek & Sowa.

Leaving the Musée Carnavalet, we find ourselves looking at the city walls differently: as catalysts for collective anger and talkative witnesses to a shared Parisian history.

Eva Y.