OBERLIN, OH.- The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) at Oberlin College presents Aux Barricades! French Protest Posters from May ’68. The exhibit is on view in the museum’s Ambulatory Galleries through December 23, 2008.

In May 1968, French students flooded the streets in massive demonstrations against the university system. Following their lead, millions of workers went on strike, shutting down the economy and destabilizing the government. What began as a call for social and economic reform quickly escalated into a radical reassessment of virtually every institution in French public and private life.

In support of the protesters, an estimated one million posters with snappy slogans and stark layouts went up all over France. Hastily produced on cheap paper with ink donated by printers on strike, most were designed by the Atelier Populaire (People’s Studio), an impromptu group comprised primarily of students from the Paris School of Fine Arts. The posters were intended as a fund-raising tool, to be sold to support the movement, yet as one Atelier Populaire member explained, “We hadn’t gone ten meters before the students ripped them out of our hands and started posting them on walls. At that moment, we understood … that was how these posters should be used!”

Only designs approved by the Atelier’s general assembly were reproduced, and all were unsigned. The students saw their art as a form of direct political action and rejected any notion of the poster as a commodity, decorative object, or even a historical document. Despite this injunction, the posters survive as both historical documents and artistic objects, and bear witness to an important moment in our collective memory.

The AMAM is pleased to exhibit twenty-four of these striking examples of creativity and commitment, on loan from the Naples Museum of Art in Florida. Aux Barricades! is presented in conjunction with the May ’68 public lecture series (October 27-31, 2008) offered by Oberlin’s Department of French and Italian.

This exhibition was organized by Andria Derstine, AMAM Curator of Western Art, and Libby Murphy, Assistant Professor of French, Oberlin College.