Exposition Paris à l’arraché. Jacques Villeglé et l’art urbain au Musée Carnavalet

On the occasion of the centenary of Jacques Villeglé's birth (27 March 1926, Quimper – 6 June 2022, Paris), the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris presents the exhibition "Paris à l’arraché. Jacques Villeglé et l’art urbain."

A major artist on the French scene, Jacques Villeglé developed a unique approach characterised by the collection of posters from urban spaces.

Through these fragments torn from the walls of Paris, he transformed the ephemeral traces of the city into a unique visual language, both poetic and documentary.

His prolific work invites visitors to discover the history of the city through lacerated posters and graphic signs that he recomposes. It also allows for an exploration of his connections with the multiple expressions of contemporary urban art.

The exhibition is organised as a journey through structured ensembles guided by Jacques Villeglé's vision, as expressed in his texts.

His works are juxtaposed with photographs, sound archives, music, film excerpts, interviews, and testimonies, including many previously unseen documents.

Jacques Villeglé, Seine/Jacob, September 1964 Lacerated posters mounted on canvas; Credits: Fonds de dotation Villeglé, Adagp, Paris, 2026. Photo DR The exhibition focuses on his practice, situated at the crossroads of poetry and urban archaeology.

For him, Paris was an open-air studio, where every wall held a work in progress.

Villeglé's wanderings invite visitors to traverse four districts where he particularly collected, from Porte Maillot to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, passing through the Montparnasse district and finally the Marais.

The exhibition also reveals the historical dimension of Villeglé's work, which captures genuine snapshots of the urban space of an era.

These displays evoke the political context, struggles and mobilisations, local or national elections: the streets of Paris reflect a society undergoing multiple upheavals.

By collecting these posters, which he dated and situated, Jacques Villeglé, who readily described himself as a "historian-recorder", gathered material that preserves the memory of history's tremors.