Art that could not be more ephemeral. The artist C215Christian Guémy by his real name, is “considered today as one of the most recognized stencil artists on the World Street Art scene”, indicates the town hall of Toulouse to explain why it opened the doors of the Castelet of the former Saint-Michel prison. Specializing in portraits of prominent personalities in history, he has been exhibiting since April 6 in this place of memory dedicated to resistance and prison history. In particular, there is the bulging face of Nelson Mandela.
This exhibition, called Périscope and visible until September 10, is accompanied by an original initiative “outside the walls”. In a treasure hunt, C215 painted on mailboxes, electrical transformers, and street furniture in general, the faces of Toulouse resistance fighters imprisoned in Le Castelet during the war, but also “committed personalities of universal stature”. This is why three stencil portraits of Simone Veil appeared on the Place du Salin. But they disappeared, at the beginning of the week, erased by an impeccable brushing of white or gray paint. Gone also, the serious face of the writer-painter Grisélidis Réal of the sector of the place Lafourcade.
Toulouse residents particularly versed in street art were the first to express their indignation on Twitter and to ask for an explanation.
“A mistake” and an apology
So censorship? Sanitization? The reason for these disappearances is much more prosaic. “We plead error,” concedes the Capitol. Cleaners “cleaned” the stencils of the exhibition as they would have done with wild tags. “Most of the exhibition is at Le Castelet”, relativizes the town hall, assuring that it has apologized to C215 and that it will return in September, to bomb other works. From Ukraine, where he left urgently to create a fresco, the artist reacts and confirms without taking offense. “It’s a residency with an evolving path,” he tells us. Other works will appear by the end of the exhibition in September. Some that have been erased will be repainted elsewhere”.
C215 is much more affected by the acts of vandalism on other of his Toulouse works and in particular by this swastika drawn on the portrait of the printer Henri Lion, who died in deportation.