mur d’expression

The wall that lines the whole of rue Henri Nogueres (a pedestrian street) has been repainted many times. In March of 2023 this is what it looked like. Most of it is a grande fresque by Black Lines titled “Colère Générale” (General Anger), painted in February 2023.

rue Henri Nogueres, a pedestrian street in the 19th of Paris, small trees down the middle, a long series of murals on the wall along one side, all in black, white, and grey with a few bits of colour.

Black Lines is an artist collective whose Instagram page uses the phrase “au service des luttes (in the service of struggles)” to describe what they do. All of these murals are in black and white.

below: The next few pictures show the collaborative work of Veneno One and Itvan Kebadian

black and white protest mural

below: Greve Generale = General Strike There were a number of one day strikes in France in January, February, and March of 2023. Most of the protest was against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms including raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.

black and white mural with words greve generale
masked men in the back of a truck

below: Berthet One painted this section and there is a lot going on here. “I can’t breathe” are the words that became synonymous with George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white policeman in the USA, but here it is a KKK member that is being strangled.

mural painted by Berthet One, part of Black Lines collective, a riot scene, with person recording it on phone, two black rats, a KKK member being strangled by a man in a red sweater

below: La rue, les urnes ou les armes (= The street, the ballot boxes or the weapons)

mural with text La rue, les urnes ou les armes

below: Bandana masked protester

black lines mural, woman with bandana covering bottom part of her face

below: His molotov cocktail is lit and ready to throw. Painted by Jack Ardi.

mural of a man holding a molotov cocktail, a glass jar filled with gasoline and topped with a rag that is set on fire, and acts like a small bomb, or to start fires

below: According to this image by C.MoA FarFad, “It will be fine. It will be fine. It will be fine”. Are they destroying Capitalism?

mural of a drawing of people piled on top of blocks spelling capitalism that are cracking

below: More of the wall. The woman in the foreground was painted by GRNDR. It is a portrait of Lisetta Vallet, an Italian partisan who fought in the Resistance during WW2.

4 black and white paintings on a wall on rue Henri Nogueres, by Black Lines artist collective

below: “Le ruissellement a bien lieu, il se fait du bas vers le haut = runoff is taking place, it is done from bottom to top
80 milliards is 80 billion
mefiez vous des fleurs = beware of flowers … All in a piece by Michael Peronard

My apologies to Lise Rousset Lesieur who painted the portion with the flowers as I didn’t get a picture of her whole section.

mural, black lines,

below: Sedition is the solution.

mural with large letter text, Sedition is the solution in french

below: “Nous étions debout et nous ne le savions pas” (We were up and we didn’t know it).

mural

below: Part of the wall has been tagged already

tagged mural

below: A skull with the words “vanité va niquer toi” and when I used google translate I discovered that I have just learned new words to swear in French (although vanité is just vanity).

mural in black and white featuring a large skull

below: On the pavement by your feet, praying with her rosary is this woman by Aort (this is not a Black Lines piece).

black stencil on concrete sidewalk, side view portrait of a young woman with a rosary in the hand, praying

At one end of the wall there is painting, also in grey tones, that pre-dates the Black Lines painting by a few months.

below: On the right hand side is a section of calligraphy in black and white by Johnnys Artwork aka Johnny Ashbaugh

artwork by Johnny Ashbaugh on a Paris wall, diagonal sections of calligraphy in black, grey, and white

below: Using the calligraphy as a background, a portrait of a woman was painted by Bandit Graffiti. Originally she was smoking a cigarette.

Portrait of a woman in black and white, the cigarette that she was smoking has been painted over in black

Photos taken March 2023

man with earphones on and phone in hand, standing beside black and white mural, woman's portrait, Paris.  A white citroen car is in the background

other Black Lines artists involved in the wall: Rebus, CROS, and Damien Roudeau