Collectives denounce “intolerable” acts

The expo of Kamille Lévêque Jégo, in Nîmes, was ransacked on April 26, a few days after portraits of women signed Sandra Reinflet were masked by far-right members in Saint-Denis.

HAS One month and a half interval, two exhibitions initiated – one feminist and the other more social, valuing invisible women – were victims of malicious acts. The first put forward a fictitious oil gang imagined by Kamille Lévêque Jégo, in the Negpos gallery, in Nîmes. This associative place was ransacked on the night of April 25 to 26. The other focused on residents of Seine-Saint-Denis, mostly immigrant origin, sublimated by Sandra Reinflet in the basilica of Saint-Denis. These portraits were briefly masked by an extreme right group on March 11.

Three collectives of professionals of the 8ᵉ art, the girls of the photo (professional network which works to recognize photography and its ecosystem), the LUX network, which brings together festivals and fairs, and Diagonal, which brings together production and distribution structures, launched together, on May 5, a campaign of alert on social networks. A cry of indignation. “These actions are intolerable. We cannot ignore them ”, Esides Sylvie Hugues, the president of the Lux network. “We denounce all operations, all pressures, threats and acts of maliciousness that would aim at photographers, their work, as well as places and other structures – such as publishing houses – which give them visibility. We defend freedom of expression, freedom of creation and the diversity of looks ”, Add Karin Hémar, co -president of the girls in the photo.

Has there been an upsurge in these attacks on a social and societal exhibition for a few months for a few months? Difficult to say, because there are no official figures. “There is a disturbing general climate which leads to a trivialization of this kind of act”, However, it is said in Lux. The works of several photographers were thus degraded in 2024. In October, proud portraits of Queers hooked outdoors in Fort-de-France, in Martinique, as part of the “Lanmou Nou” exhibition, mounted by Adeline Rapon, were thus vandalized. As was “dressing the naked voices”, an outdoor retrospective at Pre-Saint-Gervais, near Paris, from the Lyonnais collective Item. The faces of homosexual people were ragingly covered with black.

At the BNF, as part of the exhibition “France before their eyes”, the portrait on the forecourt of the Drag-Queen Clémence Trü, with long hair and with turquoise blue beard, taken by Gaëlle Matata, was torn off four times. “This type of vandalism has nothing to do with eco-activism of which activists have carried out actions, very publicized, against works of art in museums in recent years. These are, a priori, more less organized groups that act in order to intimidate, scare, analysis of sociologist Anne Bessette, author of Vandalism of works of art, published in 2021 at L’Harmattan, They attack often more accessible photography exhibitions and where it is easier to act without getting caught. Karin Hémar does not say anything else: “We can be for or against the message conveyed by a photographer, but entering a debate in broad daylight, it requires courage. »»