"Not essential": Rero speaks out on the CENTQUATRE facade
A mural to denounce the situation reserved for art and culture for almost a year, the CENTQUATRE-PARIS, like all cultural venues, has been closed again since the end of October and until further notice.
It's against this backdrop that artist Rero decided to take over the CENTQUATRE's facade, affixing his lettering in Verdana, black and white font, in which he repeats the formula heard so often in recent months: "PAS ESSENTIEL" (NOT ESSENTIAL). By obstructing the windows to create a real physical boundary, Rero seeks to hide what we are prevented from consuming collectively: art and culture.
Born in 1983, Rero has established himself over the past decade as one of the most important street artists on the French and international scene. Strongly influenced by philosophy and sociology, his work constantly questions the codes of our society, notably around notions of consumption and obsolescence. Themes of burning topicality. For him :
"Even if it's painful, the pandemic is a unique opportunity to ask ourselves clearly the question of what is essential in life. It's a vast debate, a war of opinions. So I wanted to express mine, and Le Centquatre was the perfect place to do so. It's not a museum of the past, it's a multicultural place, totally in tune with the times, based on exchange, creation... Even if there's no question of questioning sanitary measures, there's a kind of injustice in seeing cultural establishments still closed today. Exchange is a primary human need..."
José Manuel Gonçalvès, the director of CENTQUATRE-PARIS who commissioned the work, is clearly of the same opinion:
"Our situation is obviously complicated, and we wanted to translate it into an artistic gesture that would cross that terrible word that has been suffocating us for months. Rero and I were already working on a project in the nave. Without abandoning it, the situation made us diverge towards something else. We came up with a more frontal act, aimed at the public rather than the politicians. A slightly sad message to tell them that we've been reduced to this word, which saddens us. But that doesn't stop us from remaining active: Le Centquatre is the biggest vaccination center in Paris, and we welcome dozens of elderly people every day!"
The work has been on display since Wednesday February 24 in front of the Centquatre, 104 rue d'Aubervilliers.