From this Tuesday, November 19, and simultaneously throughout France, 32 cities will adorn their advertising billboards with works of art, to make culture accessible to as many people as possible. The name of this pharaonic operation? “Beauty will save the World”, an initiative created in 2021 in Saint-Dizier, in Haute-Marne, and which now brings beauty throughout the territory.
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Exit, the latest promotions from the decoration giant at low prices, welcome, to the young woman reading a letter from Jean Raoux. Goodbye to the multi-function vacuum cleaner broom in this major household appliances brand, and make way for Auguste Renoir's country dance. This is the operation we call “Beauty will save the world”, replacing advertising posters with works of art, with one objective: to beautify living spaces and make “beautiful”, art accessible to as many people as possible, from the family stuck in traffic in the early morning, to those waiting at the bus stop in the cold. Van Gogh and his fresh “Starry Night” could still warm hearts.
This is how a few weeks a year from now on, with a first edition at the start of winter 2024, 32 communities throughout France will simultaneously display works of art, monumental version, on their advertising billboards. Dunkirk, Laval, Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, but also Aix-en-Provence, Châteauroux, Longwy are among the pioneer towns of this system.
This year, the official dates run from November 16 to December 8 and all supports can be used, from classic advertising panels, to store windows, including garden gates, bus shelters, public transport, frontons of public buildings or, more surprisingly, construction site tarpaulins. No regulatory changes were necessary to build this operation. Simplicity, the signature of good ideas.
So how were these works of art, signed by the greatest masters, selected among all the beauty that the world has seen since the origins of art? By prioritizing “fun, bright, positive” works, it is indicated in the operation’s press release. Experts from the Grand Palais, flagship partner of “Beauty will save the world”, therefore offered participating communities a certain number of works responding to the 2024 theme: “Light in art”, each city then being able to do the choice to involve its citizens in the selection of works.
The objective of this display of beauty in the grayness of autumn is therefore to make culture in general accessible to as many people as possible, but also the most emblematic pictorial works of our common heritage.
But this is not the first time that the great masters of painting have appeared in this way instead of advertisements in urban spaces. The idea was born in 2021 in Saint-Dizier, in Haute-Marne. In the midst of a health crisis, the city's DVD mayor, Quentin Brière, seeks to bring comfort to a population that has endured lockdowns and restrictions due to the pandemic. “I have just been elected and I feel intensely an atmosphere of depression into which our population is sinking.”remembers Quentin Brière.
And one night, this statement from the writer Dostoyevsky wakes me up: “Beauty Will Save The World”. I talk about it to elected officials, to my teams, it's phosphorescent in all directions.
Quentin Brière, DVD mayor of Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne)
Thanks to the participation of the Association of Cities of France, but also thanks to the vigilance of the Federation of Things That Work, and after three local editions, Quentin Brière takes with him in this adventure other mayors, from smaller towns – 1000 inhabitants for Neuvy-sur-Barangeon, in Cher – up to the largest – 150,000 inhabitants for Aix-en-Provence. “We do not have any advertising panels in Neuvysur-Barangeon, explains Raphaël Ruegger, the mayor and co-founder of the French Federation of Things That Work. On the other hand, we have vacant business windows that we will dress up with monumental works”. And the UDI mayor of Aubervilliers, Karine Franclet, adds: “In full transformation, Aubervilliers claims its right to beauty, offering everyone a space of inspiration, freedom and emancipation”.
May this beauty, accessible to all, be a reflection of our diversity and a powerful vector of social bond.
Karine Franclet, UDI mayor of Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis)
By 2025, this operation, described as “of national interest”, should be widespread throughout France, in as many communities as possible, but also in public services, such as schools or hospitals. An association of general interest should be created, so that this initiative imagined one night in Saint-Dizier floods as many people as possible with beauty.
