Roanne as an open-air museum with Renoir, Gauguin… It is not an image, but a reality. Since November 9, several masterpieces of painting have been displayed on the City’s billboards. “The goal is to put culture in the street,” summarizes Jean-Jacques Banchet, deputy for culture at Roanne town hall.
“Let’s get culture out of museums.”
The most beautiful paintings by Auguste Renoir or Paul Gauguin can be admired in the middle of the tumult of the city, to the sound of work and traffic. An original experience.
In total, twelve works are visible in around sixty points in the town and even part of the urban area. Decaux, the company in charge of the city’s advertising billboard market, played the game by taking charge of developing “the poster canvases”, the SNCF too since if the supports allow it the station could see the arrival of the masterpieces ‘artwork. “The works are also visible on the LED panels,” adds Jean-Jacques Banchet.
An operation born in 2021 during Covid
Roanne joins the “Beauty will save the world” operation. This system was created in Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne) in 2021 during Covid. Three years later, the system was duplicated, for the first time at the national level, with 32 cities which chose to put culture in the streets, including the Loire sub-prefecture. “Small and big,” specifies Jean-Jacques Banchet.
The municipality of Roanne did not select the works. It was the Association of Cities of France which took care of the choice in partnership with Grand Palais de Paris. This year the theme is “Light in art”.
Jean-Jacques Banchet and Roanne wish to develop the system in the years to come. In the meantime, the masterpieces are on view until November 26 a little.
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