Underground ! La presse alternative des années 1970 en France

Creative, makeshift, contestatory: at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, a parallel press emerged in France, on the fringes of the so-called "bourgeois" news press. Born in the wake of May 68 and nourished by Anglo-Saxon influences – from the Californian Free Press to the British underground – this "new press" accompanied a whole generation in its political, cultural and social awakening. It is this ferment that this wall exhibition, created from the heritage collections, brings to light.

The exhibition La presse alternative gives voice to the aspirations of a youth in rupture with dominant models: political and libertarian struggles, regionalist demands, anti-militarism, anti-nuclear commitment, sexual liberation, and the quest for new forms of communal living inspired by the hippie movement… Refusing the codes of mainstream news media, it asserts autonomy, direct speech, experimentation and the right to utopia.

A graphic and formal profusion

Militant, this press is also profoundly inventive in form. Rejecting the rules of traditional journalism, it subverts genres and multiplies collages, comic strips, handwritten typography and fragmented layouts. Many artists and illustrators take their first steps there, while Do It Yourself techniques (offset, spirit duplicator, lino-cutting) become political and creative gestures in their own right. Poetry fanzines, comic fanzines, wall newspapers, leaflets and ephemeral sheets bear witness to a graphic profusion at the crossroads of art, poetry, happening, science fiction and rock culture.

The golden age of the 1970s

The exhibition highlights the 1970s, a moment of both peak and fragility for the alternative press. While it enjoys exceptional vitality at this time, it in fact comes up against a number of obstacles: economic precarity, irregular publication, censorship, seizures and legal proceedings. By the end of the decade, the loss of momentum is clear. The ageing of its readership, the arrival of the left in power in 1981, the competition from free radio stations and the aesthetic shift of the hippie generation towards punk energy mark the end of this "golden age".