fresque | Eyes on the Streets

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

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

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.

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).

below: Part of the wall has been tagged already

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.

Photos taken March 2023

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

La Fresque des Québécois is the title of a 420 m² mural found on the side of Maison Soumande on rue Notre-Dame in Old Quebec City. It depicts figures from 400 years of Quebec City history. Twelve painters from France and Quebec contributed to the mural.

New France was the name of the French colony in North America beginning in 1593 with the arrival of Jacques Cartier. The French relinquished the colony to the British and the Spanish in 1763, at the end of the Seven Years War

a small group of people with their backs to the camera are looking at a large mural in Quebec City that depicts people from all parts of their 400 year history — Looking out of the upper windows are (on the left) Jean Talon (1626-1694) who was steward of New France; in this position he was in control of the civil administration of the colony. The other man is Louis de Baude Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau (1622-1698) was Governor General of New France for many years.

part of the Fresque de Quebecois showing buildings in the old part of Quebec City with two men standing on a balcony

In 1763 what is now Quebec became the Province of Quebec, a British colony. In 1791 this colony was divided into two, Upper Canada along the upper parts of the St. Lawrence River, and Lower Canada, along the lower section of the river. Upper Canada is approximately what is now Ontario while Quebec has grown from Lower Canada. Quebec City was in Lower Canada.